“You’re going to have to tell them something.”

  Glorybeam stood at attention in Ike’s office, obscured by her armor as usual but still managing to radiate disapproval at his words. He frowned back, but couldn’t help remembering the old joke about sovereign-class superheroes. What do they say to their publicist? Anything they want to.

  “Look, the papers are raising a big enough stink that Mayor Ducatt is trying to lean on me. Even making noises about auditing our logs, interviewing our people.” Ike took in as big a breath as he could, until he hit the limits of what the life support chair would allow. “I’m not stealing any funds or running any criminal activities, but we’ve already had a number of resignations. I suspect more are coming, and that’s not something we can afford, especially now!”

  Not everyone was cut out to be a super. Most people didn’t actually like violence too much, and when that percentage was further reduced by the slice of the populace with actionable powers, he was lucky he had as many personnel on hand as he did. An uncomfortable number were only there because it was easier than being a criminal, and didn’t have any loyalty to law and order.

  In an imperfect world, he had to make the best of what tools were available, and some people were far better given license to thrash bank robbers, muggers, and smugglers than vanishing off somewhere to commit violence out of the public eye. There were a number of people who were either not smart enough to function without a handler, or whose good behavior rested on the tacit respect of not looking over their shoulder. Some of them had already left, as Glorybeam wasn’t the only one with dirty laundry being sent to the papers. Just the most prominent.

  “The only thing they could be told,” Glorybeam said stiffly. “Is exactly what caused the incident. That would expose my powers, and not solve anything.”

  Ike sighed. She wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Telling people that Glorybeam and Blacktime’s powers caused absolute annihilation when they intersected wasn’t going to make people happy. And while he doubted that Glorybeam’s abilities were entirely a secret, it was both good policy and actual law that non-criminals didn’t need to disclose their precise talents. Especially not to the public.

  “It has been almost twenty years,” Ike said at last. “Hinting what powers you used at the time surely won’t give away too much.”

  Glorybeam’s power was actually quite simple. In fact, in the hands of virtually any other meta it would just qualify for nominal class. All she could do was make light. Nothing more. For most people, that would work for search and rescue, or if they could make lasers, they might be able to function as a common-class super. But Glorybeam had been over thirty when her powers manifested, a librarian with degrees in philosophy and history, and had pushed her power – and her understanding of light – beyond the simple interpretations.

  The light of truth. The light of life. The light of ancient mistakes. Lightness. She had dug into not only physics and optics, but every record of every civilization and language to find, understand, and incorporate understandings of light and apply them to her own power. There were distinct limitations; she couldn’t just assign any quality to light that she wanted. It had to be something that connected, that she understood, had an underpinning in reality or conception. But even Ike had lost track of how much she had incorporated into her power-set.

  “I am not happy about what happened that day, either,” Glorybeam said, rather than reply directly. “Perhaps if we had addressed it then, rather than just allot what charity we could, it would have been meaningful. Now, it seems like we are simply playing into the hands of whoever is behind this.”

  Ike grunted. That was definitely an issue. Just because it was happening at the same time didn’t mean that they were connected, but it did seem awful convenient that their sovereign-class superhero was being targeted at the same time as Mechaniacal’s drones were becoming more overt. The general populace would raise hell if he leaned on the papers too hard, and he didn’t need more bad press, but he would have to do some investigation to find out where this stuff was coming from. More the superhero-related dirt than Blacktime’s, but since they happened at the same time it felt like they had the same source.

  “We will be having a press conference,” he said at last, not wanting another useless go-around with Glorybeam. “However, I’ll have Vilmonica consult with you and decide what exactly you need to say. You can have her in an earpiece, and we’ll make sure to limit the press pool.” Glorybeam was not a fan of public speaking, and he didn’t blame her. But it was an issue that could be easily ameliorated by letting someone else handle the rhetoric.

  “Very well,” Glorybeam said, clearly unhappy but not willing to fully resist his orders. It was, in a way, surprising how many supers listened to people like Ike or Mayor Ducatt. If push came to shove, it would be very hard to enforce anything on even a tactical-class, let alone a sovereign-class. But of course, that was why people went supervillain.

  He watched Glorybeam leave the office, then scrolled through the messages he’d gotten while he was arguing with her. Most were just the normal miscellanea of the day, reports of crimes stopped or requests for supplies. Another biotitan attack, a lunarian of unknown allegiance arriving from the southern kingdoms, a comet glimpsed in the depths of space, flaring across the Cosmic Orrery as the visitor was captured and brought into the complex dance of orbits. Then, in the endless scroll of messages, at definitely the wrong priority, Machine Head reported contact with his former roommate.

  Got a reply from Isaac! Says he’s around, willing to meet. Minor trouble. Maybe he noticed something?

  Ike nodded in satisfaction. At least one thread seemed to be willing to resolve itself. He typed out a reply to Machine Head, assigning Thoughtstealer and Mocker to the task of managing that opportunity. Possibly overkill for bringing in a nominal-class strength-type, but if Isaac was involved with whoever had been sending professional supers into Star City, there might be someone far more dangerous around. Whoever he sent to deal with the delegation from the southern kingdoms would have to be careful.

  He trusted his people, though. With a telepath and a warlock as protection, he was certain that Machine Head would be safe if they decided to arrange a meeting. As important as it was to track down whoever was involved, he wasn’t going to risk his newest tinker.

  ***

  Isaac rang the bell at the end of the obstacle course, breathing hard behind the veil of Ravdia’s hat. He was learning that there was a vast difference between being in shape and being in fighting shape – even if resistance training had put him ahead of the game – which only cemented his opinion on being a dedicated super. It wouldn’t be possible to really live a normal life if he had to spend so much time training, and Isaac wasn’t willing to lock himself into being a full time super.

  Sadly, if he wanted to work for Justice for Hire, at least as a cover identity, he had to do the work. Though he had to admit, learning some of the skills was useful. Captain Multiple had taken the news that he didn’t have any actual martial arts training fairly well – that wasn’t uncommon, it seemed – and had sent him to learn some of the basics from Lieutenant Big-Max, one of the merc members that he’d seen at the convention.

  As much as he disliked it, Isaac had to admit that he really did need to learn something about fighting. Not so much for its own sake as the fact that he was mixing it up with some dangerous people, whether he wanted to or not. He could rely on his power to protect him only so much, and being able to actually recognize some of what was going on in a fight would be useful.

  “Not bad,” Max said, which was about as strong a praise as Isaac was going to get. His power let him corner better than most people, but that was about it so far as advantages on an obstacle course. No super strength, speed, or endurance, which meant that his time was on the low end. Not dead last, but close.

  “Ravdia thanks you!” Isaac said, finding that he was actually getting tired of the spunky magical girl persona, but that was what he’d ended up with. Until he was ready to move on – until the current problems had been dealt with – he was stuck being Ravdia. Big-Max waved an armor clad hand, dismissing Isaac, and he gladly skated off to grab a shower. His power didn’t help with sweating inside a costume, either, but thankfully the merc house had a list of products from the high-end district around it that would solve some of those hygiene issues.

  As usual, Isaac took a backpack with him as he left the merc house, switching over to David Jeffries in the nearest gas station. He’d added a bit of flair to his civilian identity since recovering his workbench, altering the angle of his ears with a touch of adhesive and dyeing his hair blonde. David also wore more expensive, designer-brand clothes than Isaac ever did, with a popped collar on his shirt, and slacks instead of jeans. Only once he was dressed as a civilian could he attend to civilian tasks.

  He'd checked his messages every day for the past near-week, but still hadn’t had any reply from Cayleb. To keep himself occupied when he wasn’t training or running be-seen patrols, he’d returned to trawling through reference materials at the public library. Over the past few days he’d gone from writings on normal powers to ever more esoteric musings, and was all the way into magic and sorcery — human, not lunarian.

  He nodded to the Librarian as he arrived, who seemed to ignore him as she sorted books, handling small and large books alike with the same finesse. Heading to the back, he consulted the list of titles he’d gotten from her the week before and began pulling books from the shelves, taking them over to a reading nook one at a time. Once properly ensconced, he got out a notebook and pencil and opened the first of the books.

  Unfortunately, since he didn’t know what he was looking for, he had been reading through everything. Summoning hadn’t seemed directly related to his power, but summons were a permanent change, or could be. The same had applied to conjurations, and certainly applied to transmutations. The latter – mostly the realm of alchemy – certainly had sounded promising, but nothing he read turned out to be helpful.

  The current group of books were about divination, focusing on the fundamental theorems rather than any of the practical applications. Isaac wasn’t a sorcerer, wizard, warlock, or anyone else with a talent for magic. The few exercises he’d done from the early books demonstrated that pretty comprehensively. He hadn’t held out much hope, since the only feedback he got from his power was an understanding of inertia where he’d invested in or divested from something he was touching, but he found it absolutely fascinating. Hunched over the desk in the corner, where a skylight fed afternoon sun into the room, he read the passages in the old diary a second time.

  There is a certain weight to the world; things become more real over time, in a certain way, as they interact or are used. One of the ways that divinations work is by following the tracks that people or things drag through reality, and the more of themselves a person or a thing is, the deeper the track. This is, in a sense, a metaphor, but it is also a very real phenomenon. This ontological presence applies even outside mystical application; virtually anyone can feel the weighty impact of some of the ancient artifacts on display at museums, or the way some people command a room just by entering it.

  Certain magical items are invulnerable to destruction not because of some special material or active wards, but because they have become as stable and unchanging and real as the laws of physics that bind planets and stars. They have accumulated so much of themselves, become so venerable, that they simply ignore anything that attempts to change them.

  It was that last passage that sparked his intuition, because he always characterized his power as influencing a resistance to change. If he was changing the ontological inertia of his personas, giving them enough force to shoulder aside small hiccups and casual prodding, that might explain everything.

  The actual manifestation wouldn’t be obvious, especially to him. He was generally immune to his own power, but there was probably some alterations in body language – or the way people perceived it – and perhaps just a general feel. A sixth sense, a gut feeling. Perhaps even fooling some super-senses that would be able to tell that an assumed identity was exactly that. That would explain why Columbuzz didn’t mark Chains as being an infiltrator — because Chains wasn’t, even if Isaac was.

  Isaac leaned back in his chair at the library, hissing through his teeth rather than whistling like he wanted to so he wouldn’t disturb the Librarian. It wasn’t unheard of for people to expand their power’s authority, as it were. People with control over water might extend it to blood, or in one notable instance from blood to lava as they made the leap from a person’s blood to the Earth’s. Someone with a speed power might be able to incorporate heat as well, as the person increased the speed of atoms. The possibilities depended on the exact mechanisms, a person’s own inclinations and understandings, and a willingness to work hard.

  If Isaac was right, then his power was not solely physical. He could alter the inertia of less concrete things as well, which had major implications — except his brain was stalled out on the mere fact of it and he couldn’t think of anything in particular beyond his personas. It was a titanic shift, one too large for him to actually swallow in one go.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Well,” he said – quietly, because it was a library – and scribbled a bit down in his notebook before reshelving the stack of books. Now that he had an idea of where to begin, he could start coming up with experiments. By habit, before he left he plugged his clamshell into the library’s cybernet interface, skimming through his usual bulletin boards and messages — and there was another one from Cayleb.

  Hey bro! Finally got the security folks at Star Central to let me out on my own. Wouldn’t believe how annoying it is to head out as a non-combat super when we’ve got like, three different emergencies going on. The Mechaniacal stuff alone has got everyone freaked out. Anyway, how about hitting up that greasy spoon you used to get bagels from? My treat! They actually pay me pretty good.

  Isaac chewed on his lip, staring at the message. On one hand, he didn’t really trust Star Central and if they’d looked him up enough to be aware that he’d vanished from the apartment, then he was probably at least marginally a person of interest. So any meeting might result in them taking him in, for questioning if nothing else.

  On the other hand, it was Cayleb. Despite everything he was doing, despite racking his brains, there hadn’t been much he could think of to actually get to his brother. The best he had been able to do was get some journalists to heckle Administrator Ike about loosening up. Which may have worked, though he wasn’t certain enough to try and take credit for it. But the point was, he trusted Cayleb and if there was anyone worth taking a risk for, it was him.

  For a moment he debated approaching as Ravdia, then decided against it. Not only did he not want to connect Ravdia with Isaac even vaguely, but it’d be obscenely embarrassing for Cayleb to see him like that. It was one thing to cosplay a Lunar Commando from the eponymous series, it was another entirely to cosplay as a magical girl. No, he could just approach as David Jeffries, and the only thing Cayleb would have to deal with was the dyed hair.

  Sure, man. Lunch tomorrow, around noon?

  He’d have to make sure that Ravdia had that time off, but it shouldn’t be a problem. The pay was paltry, but Justice for Hire was quite flexible. So far he hadn’t even been on a patrol with the brute squad, and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Sure, he owed the merc company some consideration for taking him in and giving him a room, but he was pretty sure that he was making them a decent amount by fulfilling the be-seen patrols as it was.

  Isaac walked out of the library, wishing he dared get his car from the parking lot where he’d left it, and headed downtown for a slice of pizza, wishing he still had a kitchen. Maybe once he talked with Cayleb he could figure out a way to get back to a normal life. It would have to wait until after he was finished sending out the information he’d gotten and Blacktime’s operations were pruned away from Star City. And hopefully Cayleb could help him understand why he’d been attacked on the street by supers for no apparent reason.

  A thick slice of double pepperoni did a lot to help his mood, as did looking over the notes he’d taken at the library. He could feel that there was something potent with the idea of non-physical inertia, conceptual inertia, ontological inertia. The problem was, he didn’t like leaving anything out in the world. The hole in the wall alone bothered him, even as harmless as it was, and outside of his own personas he would probably have to leave these non-physical alterations in place for them to matter.

  Not that changing his own personas was a small thing. Now that he knew what to look for, he could practice — not just with giving them more ontological inertia, but with giving himself as much as possible. Obviously he couldn’t get to the same point as invulnerable artifacts, but stacking metaphysical protection on top of physical resilience would help offset the lack of any actual toughness power. Maybe.

  It was easy enough to measure physical inertia, since it was just the amount of force and energy it took to get something moving, but he had no idea if there were even units for metaphysical movement. He had no way to know if he was able to apply a lot, or a little. A subtle touch, or overwhelming power, whether the capacity he’d developed over the past decade applied, or he had to work on a new set of muscles altogether.

  “In fact,” he muttered, going through three napkins to keep grease off the pages before scrawling out thoughts in his notepad. “It’s not all strict upside.”

  Life, after all, was an endless parade of improvisations and adaptations. Change was not always bad, and resistance to change was not always good. He didn’t know how or if this idea of ontological inertia would manifest, but if it hypothetically meant that he wouldn’t lose muscle tone if he didn’t exercise, it would also mean he wouldn’t gain any when he did.

  He could ignore his own power when necessary, but it was a deliberate choice, and he didn’t trust that he had full control over this brand-new facet. It might be entirely possible that if he reinforced his him-ness, the moment he decided to embrace the effect he would become too stubborn to ever change back. Unless adaptability was part of the this-ness that was enhanced.

  The metaphysical was, for very good reason, not something that many supers dealt with. Punching something was so very much easier than grappling with the fundamental properties of existence, and a lot less of a risk. Masters of the mystic arts spent decades or more grappling with esoteric understandings so they could influence the world in ways they wanted, rather than just creating disaster.

  In fact, it was entirely probable – likely, even – that he’d been influencing himself without knowing it. Investing or divesting himself with inertia might be making him more stubborn or less, letting him built up habits or change them. He certainly could think of times where that would explain a lot. Now that he realized what was going on, maybe he could stop that — but then, those constant alterations were normal for him, so maybe ignoring them would actually be the wrong move.

  “Wish I could talk about it with someone,” he muttered to himself, dipping the crust of his oversized pizza slice in some cheap and probably ridiculously unhealthy but absolutely delicious garlic butter. Trying to think too deeply about the implications of metaphysical inertia had him going in circles. “Maybe Lia?”

  The moonie was about the only one who had some idea of his real identity. And aside from Captain Multiples, she was also the only one who had an understanding of his actual power, though he hadn’t spelled out everything. The mercenary company’s reputation protected any secrets he might spill, though, and he could certainly benefit from some kind of advice. Especially if he could get some of it working in advance of his meeting with Cayleb.

  He quashed the part of him that wanted to talk to Smokeshow about it. There were so many problems with that idea that it wasn’t worth entertaining, even though he probably knew where she was. Or at least how he could find her, even without going into the slums again.

  Of everyone, it was probably Cayleb who could help him the most. Not because of anything to do with tinker powers, but because Cayleb was a superfan and looked at powers a lot differently than Isaac did. While Isaac knew a lot about the visual aspects of historical supers, he had always been shakier on the mechanics of their abilities.

  As soon as he had downed the last bit of crust, Isaac cleaned up after himself and headed back toward the merc house. On the way, he reached out and tried to take hold of the metaphysical inertia in the David Jeffries persona, pushing and pulling as he walked along the sidewalk. Mostly, that resulted in just the normal investment, and he accidentally sent a distracted cyclist sprawling when the bike’s front tire clipped a shoe that didn’t deform like it normally would.

  After helping the courier back up, Isaac was a little more careful about the other people on the sidewalk. Not that it was his fault that some idiot had run into him, but Isaac wasn’t in a superhero guise and he didn’t want someone to break their arm by accidentally swinging it against a person who was more like a car than a pedestrian. Everyone in Star City knew to give costumed folk a wide berth, and that was for everyone’s benefit.

  He kept up the self-made exercise all the way back to the mercenary house, glad to have an idea of what he could be doing. It wasn’t a full answer, but at least he understood there were metaphorical muscles he could flex, directions he could go that were different from what he was doing before. Not that he knew what he was doing, but aiming the exercises at a persona rather than his normal self meant that – hopefully – if he screwed something up he could just discard the persona rather than having to suffer with whatever problems it came with forever.

  He changed back to Ravdia at a different gas station, securing the veil and continuing his attempts to invest something in the metaphysical aspects of the magical girl alter-ego. Ravdia was older and more established than David, so there was probably more to work with, but he was genuinely guessing at how it functioned. Isaac didn’t consider himself to be particularly dumb, but the sheer complexity and obtuse nature of metaphysics made him feel a bit lost when trying to follow all the threads of how it might work.

  Starting with something simple, he tried to give the performance itself more inertia, the peppy, energetic portion of the act. The ever-present cheer in Ravdia’s voice and tone. It was the most annoying part of the persona, and the one that he would prefer took less effort to keep up, but it’d take time to see if the experiment worked.

  A version of Captain Multiples was staffing the front of the merc house, a tall man with an absolutely heroic blonde moustache and pith helmet. The duplicator had a questionable sense of style but given that Isaac was masquerading as a purple, veiled magical girl, he was hardly one to talk. The Captain gave Isaac a polite nod as he entered, but that was all, his attention focused out on the street beyond. Something was probably going on, but if Ravdia hadn’t been called in, it was likely beyond his paygrade.

  The Brute Squad was not in evidence, a glance down the hall that held their rooms showing stillness and silence, but Lia herself was in the office in the back, pecking away at a modified keyboard designed for oversized moonie fingers. She glanced up as he peeked in the door, runes on her skin flaring with light for a moment before fading away, leaving her with a puzzled expression. It bothered him that she could sense something about him that he couldn’t, but there was little he could do about the esoteric perceptions magic provided.

  “Got a minute?” It was very obviously not Ravdia’s locution, and Lia tilted her head before waving him in. The runes on her skin lit again as the door swung closed behind him, and he reached up to turn off the voice changer.

  “How can I help you?” Lia asked in that odd breathy voice, but with an intonation that made it clear the interest was professional rather than personal.

  “Metaphysics, actually,” Isaac said, taking a few more steps in and leaning against a filing cabinet. “I’m starting to think my power can actually affect things at a conceptual level, not just physical. But that seems really dangerous, and maybe more like magic, so I figured I’d ask you how to approach it.”

  “That is dangerous,” Lia said, lacing her fingers together as she turned to face him. “Lunar theories on the arcane world insist that all powers are conceptual rather than physical. All of them are dangerous, if misapplied.” Isaac blinked at that, wondering if it was some revenge or just symmetry for him not understanding runes. “However, if you mean not self-directed — I can only counsel care for your target.” Lia tilted her head to the side, blinking oversized eyes and staring off somewhere behind him as she thought.

  “Lunarian philosophy builds in severe limitations for all our magic. Your powers seem bizarrely smeared. It’s almost impossible to understand how it does what you want it to, even though the results are obvious. So maybe, instead of focusing on how it works, focus on the results.” She nodded to herself, clearly pleased with the train of thought.

  “I appreciate it,” Isaac said, though he didn’t think it was actually all that useful in terms of advice. Lunarian and human thought were just too different, or maybe magic and powers were. There was some truth that he needed to focus on results, but he needed to actually be able to maneuver his power rather than just blindly hope it went where we wanted. “Also, I’m going to be gone tomorrow at lunch to meet someone from Star Central.”

  “Already flipping to hero?” Lia asked, mostly in jest.

  “No, just talking with a friend of mine who did,” Isaac replied. He still had no desire to be a full time super anything.

  “You-you, or…?” She flipped her hand in his direction, indicating his costume.

  “Not Ravdia, no,” Isaac said. “Just haven’t had time to catch up with him for a while, especially with everything going on.”

  “I’ll block that time out, but you’ll need to go out with the Squad that afternoon,” Lia warned.

  “Of course,” he said, though he wanted to take an entire month off to try and come to grips with the metaphysical side of his abilities. But he had obligations and a need to keep the cover identity intact, so he’d have to do it. Thankfully, unlike with superhero work, the mercenary work was likely to be more tedious than dangerous.

  He would have liked to get something better from Lia, but in hindsight he didn’t know what he expected. Maybe it was simply because she’d been the one to spot him behind the costume, but as a moonie of course she wouldn’t really understand powers. They were more a human thing, just like runes were for moonies and the Deep Kingdoms had crystaltech.

  Returning to his room, he shed both the costume and the Ravdia identity, reflecting that he’d clearly done something, but had no idea what. Lia’s reaction showed that some aspect that appeared on divination had changed, and maybe he should have questioned her about it, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to push too hard. He still didn’t understand what was going on himself, and circular thoughts of how it worked chased themselves through his mind as he lay in bed.

  For obvious reasons, he didn’t sleep all that well, and in the morning he was out and about early. After leaving the mercenary house in Ravdia’s costume, he went to the nearest gym and – after consulting a map – rented a locker to change. Handing over a few creds got him a combination lock and a numbered box, and he put away the backpack and all its assorted costume stuff. He decided, clearer-headed in the morning as he was, that he wanted to walk into the meeting with Cayleb as close to himself as possible. He wasn’t sure how Cayleb would react to a completely different persona, so he rinsed the dye out of his hair with the shampoo that came with the dye kit – upscale tinker stuff was a lot more forgiving than purely chemical cosmetics – and headed out toward the diner.

  He arrived there early – at breakfast rather than lunch – to watch it, just in case supers swept in or something. He wandered down the street as himself for the first time in over a month, just Isaac walking down the sidewalk past Sal’s Place. Hal McKinley’s voice came from the radio as The Morning Show played from a car stopped at the nearby intersection, mentioning in his usual acerbic style that a press conference had been called for later in the day, as if that was going to help with the massive scandal that had already led to over a dozen supers quitting.

  Isaac shook his head, finding himself lacking in sympathy for any of the supers thus exposed, and peered in the window. Sal’s place looked pretty much like usual, a slightly worn-down diner filled with slightly worn-down people, without the kind of edge that people usually got when supers were in evidence. Satisfied that he was there early enough, he went inside to get a breakfast bagel. Something he’d actually missed, after having to move across the city for the sake of his plans.

  He waited in line at the counter, idly looking over the menu that hadn’t changed at all in the past ten years, and ordered his usual in a mantra that he’d long ago memorized. Turning away from the counter, he looked around to find a free table — only for all the customers to waver and vanish. Save for four, who were revealed to be supers in costume. Gabitech the android, Stop Motion, a woman that he didn’t recognize in all black with a faceless red mask, and a thin man in a top hat and cloak he definitely did. Mocker, Star Central’s top magical expert.

  “Isaac Hartson,” Mocker intoned. It wasn’t exactly a question, and Isaac froze as he stared at Mocker and the others, utterly confused as to why top-level heroes were there to ambush him. “We have reason to believe you’re in danger. For your own protection, you need to come with us.”

  Patreon or

  available on Amazon! Audiobooks are available for all of them!

  Blue Core series is also available on Amazon, available as ebook or audiobook!.

  Chasing Sunlight is available as ebook and audiobook!

  The Systema Delenda Est series is available in ebook and audiobook formats!