The last thing Vivainne wanted to do was follow her mother, but she rose nonetheless, pushing her own discomfort aside for the greater good. Her legs shook as she pushed to her feet, not certain how many more revelations she could manage today, but carried forward by her purpose. She could handle whatever this was; surely it wouldn’t be worse than learning about her sister.

  She had no clue where Vora could go, in a house this small, but she led the way toward the back door. Before reaching what would bring them out to a small fenced in yard, Vora turned and opened a doorway Vivainne would have guessed led to a washer and dryer. Instead, the sliding doors pulled back to reveal a gleaming silver elevator.

  Vivainne’s mouth went dry. She knew her mother had resources, had money, but she’d never imagined they’d be used like this. How had she gotten away with it? Secret elevator. Secret lab? Was this where her mother did all her dirty work?

  At a tap, a panel opened up at eyesight along the wall. Stepping directly in front of it, Vora opened her eyes wide and leaned in, waves of light sweeping over eyeball. The panel blinked twice, and the doors slid open with the faintest release of air, stale and metallic.

  She stepped inside without a word, Vivainne directly on her heel. Two buttons shone from the inside panel, only two. One up, one down.

  They went straight down. For how far, or how long, Vivainne hardly knew, staring at the door and waiting for it to open. What would happen, if she turned into shadow and snuck through the door? Would she find secrets, or just solid stone?

  She didn’t get a chance to answer her question. The elevator stopped with a tug on her stomach, doors sliding open in silence. A long hallway stretched from the doors, illuminated by long strips of white LED lights, broken up periodically and leaving puddles of darkness in their gaps. In the burning light, Vivainne could make out doorways, each door closed.

  Vora stepped out, each step of her heeled boots echoing down the corridor as she led the way. Vivainne stepped out, cool, damp air clinging to her skin, and trailed a finger along the stone wall. Smooth, but slightly damp and cool to the touch. Not natural. Maybe super made? Artificially built would take a long time and a lot of money, which Vora had in spades, but it would also draw attention. Vivianne had to imagine she’d placed her lab here, in a neighborhood so normal nobody would suspect anything, to avoid that suspicion.

  If Vivainne had to put money down on anything, she would choose super-made.

  Doors split off from the main hallway, no handles on their fronts. Like the elevator, they had a panel to the side, allowing them to be opened by Vora and Vora alone. Dread filled the pit of Vivianne’s stomach as she thought about what could be behind the doors. Was she hiding trapped supers? People to experiment on, tear apart and put back together? The idea made Vivainne sick, and she drove her eyes to the floor.

  At the end of the corridor, they faced yet another door. This one at least was distinguishable for being at the end of the hallway, an end to the vast laboratory. Vora opened it once again with her eye, and motioned Vivainne inside.

  Vivainne froze mid step. In the middle of the room, a chair had been bolted to the floor, wires trailing from the back and arms up to the ceiling while chains rose out of the ground and locked around the limp legs of the figure strapped into it.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  What the hell.

  Her heartbeat rocked, blood roaring in her ears as she stared at the person. This was her fault. Her mother had done this because of her. This was her fault.

  Vora moved past her, breaking her view of the figure for a single moment.

  She licked her lips, unable to unroot her feet from the floor. The figure in the chair sat limp, head rolling over their shoulder, blond hair stuck along their forehead. Were they even alive?

  Was this the tech super her mother said she’d found? All because Vivainne couldn’t steal tech from Recompense?

  Silently, she willed the heroes to act, screaming inside her mind for them to do something. This had to be enough evidence.

  Vora walked to the other side of the room, drawing Vivainne’s eyes to what must have been her lab. Screens full of information, wires and devices Vivainne couldn’t divine a purpose for, though they looked akin to medical devices. Several trailed from the computers up the walls and the ceiling, making their way down to where the super sat, connected to different points on their body.

  “What are you doing to them?” Her voice came out as a rasping whisper, locked up in her throat. “I thought you said you needed tech.”

  “That was part of a deal, which no longer matters. My own genius will suffice.” She motioned Vivainne over, beckoning her to join her at the desktop. Her body rebelled against the demand, revulsion at being asked to move over to this monster, but she complied. “You see, I’m so close. I am so close. But I’m not quite there yet.”

  “If you don’t need the tech, what do you need with a tech super?” Vivainne asked, dreading the answer.

  “The more cores I’m able to study, the more progress I make.” She glanced up at the screens, eyes drinking in information. Diagrams, lines of data Vivainne couldn’t begin to understand, though she scanned as much of it as she could, trusting the heroes to be able to decipher it. “Recompense… Oh, the things I would do to dissect that man. His mind, his tech… But that’s only a secondary concern, at the moment. My current work is more important, and can be completed without him.”

  She flipped a switch beside her keyboard, and electricity buzzed across the room. The super awoke with a jolt, body jumping like a puppet on strings. Vivainne stumbled back as their eyes locked, gripping the desk behind her. She could phase through the wall and escape, get out of this place before anything worse happened. The heroes would have to come.

  The super opened their mouth, but no sound came out, a wild look entering their eyes.

  “Supers have been around for decades, but no one has put in the work to figure them out,” Vora said, walking over to the confined hero. “Not the way we should be. Morals and ethics hold people back, but the information is too important to leave uncovered. Vivainne, there is a treasure trove of power inside people like you and me. And I am going to be the first one to uncover it.”

  Vivainne’s heartbeat quickened as she pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the cracks in her own core. Was this what her mother was talking about? What she’d always been working toward?

  “I’m sitting on the edge of a breakthrough,” Vora said, her eyes alight. “And once I make that leap, it’ll change the world. There will be no more divide, no more heroes over humans.” The urge to protest arose as her mother continued. The heroes had never said normal humans were less than. “And I will be the one to do it. They will love me.”

  A smile broke across her mother’s face, gleaming in the blue light as she stared at the terrified meta. “I’ll set the world on its feet again. Everything will make sense, and they’ll thank me.”

  Vivainne found herself nodding, not at her mother’s words, but as everything clicked together. Vora wanted to be known, above all else. It’s why she built Monet Industries. Why she made a name for herself. And she was doing it again now.

  Cold fingers wrapped around Vivainne’s hand. “They’ll love you too, Viv.”

  And that. Of course. It wasn’t just that Vora was remembered, it was the legacy she wanted to carry on. It’s why she had Vanya, wasn’t it? In the case that Vivainne didn’t “work out.”

  “I’ll teach you how to do this,” Vora said, still smiling, like she was handing down a gift. “You and I, we’ll build this together. They’ll remember the name Monet.”

  Vivainne nodded even as her conviction hardened. She would do everything she could to destroy her mother before the world would ever revere their name.