Sam went off to work and Jack lingered in their apartment. Work had heard he’d signed himself out of hospital and told him he was still on medical leave for another week. He’d never had a day off—not since coming to Geneva, and certainly not before. He had breakfast, and he showered, and he shaved, and he remembered what Monkey had said about being domesticated. Man can make wolves into dogs, Jack thought as he splashed water on his face, but not dogs into wolves.

  Yeah, that sounded like something Monkey would say.

  He didn’t have anything to do. He fell back into old habits and disassembled his handgun, cleaned it, put it back together and loaded it with a new magazine before holstering it under his jacket. He ended up browsing through the local streams, but the news was all in French or German, and what remained was banal—superheroes hawking electric cars and flowery perfumes; reality programming about the lives of superheroes who probably never saw combat; stern-faced talking heads and weepy talk show interviews.

  When you got right down to it, most of it was propaganda for the IESA and their SOLAR elite. The IESA was not a government, but it set policy. It wasn’t a military, but it had a practical monopoly on people who made a mockery of conventional warfare. It wasn’t despotic, but everything went through its SOLARIA super computer. All roads once led to Rome, and now they led to Geneva.

  But its power wasn’t boundless. It made deals with warlords and the Syndicate, and there were groups like the Concordiat it couldn’t challenge outright—at least, not yet. And that was to say nothing about the Seven, eating away at the Functioning World and even, some said, the fabric of reality, to which the IESA would never admit they had no response.

  The whole edifice was a house of cards. Jack didn’t understand why no one else could see it. Elias had. Sam didn’t seem to care. Fisher probably did, and Sabra too. He wondered what they were doing. He had their phone numbers, but they didn’t call him, and he didn’t call them, and he figured that was better for everyone involved.

  He ended up going for a walk. Picked a direction and just walked. He hadn’t seen much of Geneva, so, there was no particular route or reason. He’d walk until he got bored or found something for lunch, then he’d head home. The streets were busy, and he was one face among dozens—still, he couldn’t stop himself from casing everyone he saw, couldn’t stop himself keeping tabs on some of them.

  Jack walked until he came to a cobblestone square that seemed like it was filled with sightseers and pigeons in equal measure. As he crossed through it, in the shadow of a massive Christmas tree, a street artist reached out to him, babbling away in French about things Jack didn’t understand, so, he passed him some bills just to make him go away. Not many countries still used hard currency, but there were some perks to the old ways. There were vendors, too. He stopped at a stall and bought an apple, if only for the novelty of it, and threw the core to the pigeons when he was done. Watched them bicker and squawk over it. He might’ve smiled. Funny. He almost felt normal.

  Almost.

  Then, fuck it—he went to work.

  “Jones,” Iskandar Asadi asked, “Just what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Reporting for work,” Jack replied, like it wasn’t obvious.

  “I can see that.” Asadi was his boss’ boss, and his office reflected it. He had been a superhero once, but now he wore a business suit and an expression of vague bemusement. Jack kept his hands by his sides, palms open, and regarded the other man as if he was a museum piece—or a predator behind a pane of glass.

  “But why are you here?” he continued. “We have you down for a week of paid medical leave.”

  Jack shrugged. “I didn’t need to stay in hospital.”

  Asadi nodded, like he was expecting a punchline. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You got blown up,” Asadi said. “Are you sure you’re not empowered?”

  “Yeah. It’s fine,” Jack said.

  Asadi shook his head. “You sure you don’t want the week off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right. Well, I can’t clear you for any fieldwork, but I can clear some hazard pay for your last shift.” Asadi said, giving him a self-deprecating smile. “We’ll keep you on light duties for the next week. Is that a satisfactory compromise?”

  “Sure,” Jack said and then, after a moment’s thought: “Thanks.”

  “No, thank you for taking that shift,” Asadi replied. “Look, I owe you an apology.”

  “Why?” He’d never even spoken to Asadi before.

  “When Pavel suggested you for this job, I had my doubts. He talked you up, sure, but I figured you were just some wetwork mercenary looking for an easy paycheck. I didn’t think you’d be this dedicated. So, I owe him an apology, and you, as well.”

  The words didn’t mean anything. For one thing, Asadi was right—mentally, Jack moved him closer to adapted predator than museum piece. But Pavel? Jack hadn’t given much thought to the old man with his melancholic eyes and perpetual frown since the last time he’d seen him, which, funnily enough, had been when he’d mentioned scoring him and Sam an interview with Fiveaces Security.

  If Fisher knew Jack had tried to stop the Cornavin bombing, he’d probably have had a stroke.

  “Well, I guess I’m full of surprises,” Jack said. It felt like the right thing to say.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Asadi said, and Jack nodded and left his office behind.

  Elias was waiting for him in the hallway—distinct yet imaginary, real yet not. It was an odd feeling, but Jack ignored it and him. He took the elevator down one floor and entered his office. Sam had an office down the hall, and she had decorated it. Jack didn’t see the point.

  He didn’t know what light duties entailed until the emails started coming in. Auditing files, going over security footage, requesting briefs and documents and verifying reports. And even then, there wasn’t much of it.

  His mind turned back to the bombing, and his thoughts followed. By now, the news channels and social feeds were brimming with takes and articles. Politically-motivated, one talking head supposed.

  Jack wasn’t sure if that was a sensible judgment.

  The Swiss media either didn’t know military-grade explosives had been involved, or the powers-that-be were keeping that fact to themselves. Jack couldn’t remember if he’d told anyone he’d seen them. But that wasn’t what he was looking for. He tried finding details on the bomber—or, specifically, what was left of him—but the only details Fiveaces had on that front were, as he’d seen, mince meat.

  That morning, Sam had told him to drop it. That if it was their turn to care about it, they’d be told to care about it. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

  “It’s the tattoo,” Elias said.

  “Mm,” Jack grunted.

  “You’ve seen it somewhere before.”

  “Yeah.” Jack glanced down, realized he’d sketched it against a notepad: V4T. He stared at it, wiggling it around like a splinter in his brain. Then, he was back in Cornavin station, with the bomber hurling his jacket open, halfway down his left arm, and on his arm was that same simple design. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—

  “But not just there,” Elias said. “And not just on Sam’s body.”

  “Buddy,” Jack corrected his ghost.

  “Hey, Spots, you know me,” Elias said, with that bright, self-effacing grin. “Fine, not just on her buddy.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Wait,” Jack said, but the answer clung to the tip of his tongue, even as he ran it against his teeth.

  Someone knocked on his door. A man Jack recognized—older than him, with neatly-combed blonde hair and icy blue eyes, wearing a polo and slacks—but not one whose name he’d bothered to remember. “Hey,” Jack said.

  “Hey, Jones. You got a minute?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to say thanks for taking that job. I’ve never been more thankful that I was puking my guts out.”

  A slow tingling ran over the back of Jack’s neck and down his spine. “It’s nothing,” Jack said. “It was stupid. I almost died.”

  “You got between a suicide bomber and innocent people,” the guy replied, and Jack wracked his mind for his name, because it was suddenly very important. “That’s some Golden Age shit. Still got all your fingers and toes?”

  He tried on a joke: “Honestly, I haven’t thought to check.”

  “You’re almost like my guardian angel,” Thomas said. That was his name, Thomas Evans. And he was American, too. He still had a trace of an accent.

  A cold feeling uncoiled from around Jack’s heart and swept through him, out to the tips of his fingers. Anger, or something like it.

  “I’ll buy you a drink sometime, yeah?” Thomas said.

  Jack felt his teeth clench. “Sure.”

  Thomas threw him a quick salute and headed down the hall, toward the bathrooms. Jack felt his chest rise and fall. Surely, he couldn’t be that stupid.

  “Well, they only catch the stupid ones, Spots,” Elias said.

  “Funny,” Jack murmured. “Someone caught you.”

  “Well, let’s be fair—you did.”

  The anger didn’t melt away for the rest of the day. Jack kept his eyes out for Thomas and, when he saw him head down the hallway again, and heard the bathroom door open and close, Jack took his handgun from his desk drawer, and went after him.

  This was more like it. This was who he was supposed to be. He dragged a janitorial cleaning in progress sign in front of the door, and stepped inside. Thomas was at the urinal, and Jack busied himself by splashing water in his face. His heart was beating steadily, and he hadn’t realized how slow it had become.

  Thomas stepped up to the sink beside him, opened his mouth to say something, and Jack beat him with the butt of his pistol.

  Thomas was a bigger man, but Jack had leverage and surprise, and he slammed him against the counter while Thomas cursed and writhed. But he also had something else, and Thomas went very still as Jack pressed his handgun against his temple. His eyes caught Jack’s through the mirror.

  “Jones,” Thomas muttered, “What the fuck?”

  “Shut your mouth,” Jack replied. “I don’t know how much time we have, and you better hope no one comes in.” He knew this was a risk. It was the only concern he had—that someone would interrupt him before he could finish this.

  “Eighty-three people are dead. I got put in hospital. And yet you happened to call in sick.”

  “What the hell are you implying? That I knew something about it?”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidences,” Jack replied. “Which medical clinic did you attend?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “From where I’m standing, you do. Which clinic? Which doctor?”

  Thomas swallowed, glowered at him.

  “Look, Jones. With everything you’ve been through, we can just let this go. I won’t even take this up to management.”

  “Like you give a shit, Spots,” Monkey said, from the doorway.

  “Like I give a shit,” Jack snapped. “Under the circumstances, they’ll probably just put me on medical leave—and, so what?”

  “That’s exactly my point, Jones. You’ve taken a blow to the head. You’re not thinking straight. This isn’t some spy movie. There’s no conspiracy.”

  “Who said anything about a conspiracy?” Jack asked, and pressed the barrel of his handgun more firmly against Thomas’ head. There, under the edge of his polo shirt, was three simple black markings along his bicep.

  “If nothing’s going on, then what’s with the tattoo?”

  “What?”

  “The one on your bicep. It says V4T.”

  Thomas was silent for a moment.

  “It’s just something from my army days.”

  “Shared between you and the guy who blew himself up? I don’t think so.”

  Thomas didn’t say anything. That, in itself, said more than enough. The tattoo had significance, and it wasn’t something Jack was ever supposed to know. Or, perhaps, it was something that Thomas himself hadn’t known.

  Thomas exhaled slowly, evenly. “Jones, I’m telling you—you did me a solid, but leave this alone. Don’t push your luck.”

  “Thank you for cracking, now tell me everything.”

  “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

  “Neither do you. So, talk.”

  Thomas glowered at him. Under his handgun as he was, it just seemed petulant. Would he have flinched, stepped back, found the expression anything beyond laughable, if he’d never been shot, stabbed, burnt? Maybe.

  “I got a message the night before telling me not to go to work the next day,” Thomas said. “That’s it.”

  “From who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack frowned. “I don’t believe you. Eighty-three people are dead, and your alibi is weak. Here’s my first and only offer: when I find you again, and I will, you’re going to tell me the truth, or I’m going to hurt you.” He relaxed his hold then and stepped back, if only to see if Thomas would try anything.

  He didn’t.

  Thomas drew himself up slowly, shifted his jaw about and cracked his neck. Jack shifted his footing, but he still didn’t try anything. “I didn’t know about the bombing,” Thomas said.

  “But you know something.”

  “Yeah. I know I’ll be going to the police about this.”

  “Will you? Because if I were you, I wouldn’t want anyone to connect me to that. I’m the newest hero of Geneva, and you’re the guy who could be hanged by his telephone records. So, think about what I said. I’ll be seeing you.”

  Thomas didn’t say anything, and there was nothing more to say. Jack left him in the bathroom, only slipping his handgun away once the door had closed. He dragged the cleaning sign back to where it had been, and returned to his office.

  Soon, he watched Thomas go back down the hallway. Jack waited for something to happen. For Asadi to come down with a bunch of security guards. For Sam to send him a text asking him what the fuck he was doing. But nothing did.

  Jack was halfway home when he knew he was being followed.

  They had gotten aboard the tram at the stop after his, and he had kept one eye on them because the trio were keeping their eyes on him. Of course, his injuries complicated that. But then they had followed him off the tram, when he had gotten off before his usual stop, and then made sure to cross the road when he did.

  They either didn’t know he had spotted them, or didn’t care. A three-to-one advantage had Jack leaning toward the latter. As he walked, he couldn’t see any weapons, but like him, they were dressed for the cold. Like him, they may have had them under their jackets. Jack had a permit to carry his handgun, a perk of working security, but he could hardly shoot three people in broad daylight and expect to get away with it.

  He kept walking, feeling his mind slip back into old instincts. No one had approached him from the front, which meant no one was trying to corral him—not yet, anyway. He’d made enemies, sure, but nowhere near Switzerland. Western Europe had always entailed too much risk. He may have had a long list of enemies, but the list of people who would send goons to downtown Geneva was much shorter.

  Who knew he was here? The Syndicate, maybe. There had been that business between Elias and Gate. But Gate had been a man of his word, an old-fashioned supervillain, and he wouldn’t risk the involvement of the IESA in his affairs. That, and Jack had encountered Syndicate hit teams before, and they were never this careless.

  So, locals, then. Thomas had friends, someone who had warned him. Jack noted that his pursuers had closed the gap to about twelve paces. His hands tingled, and he flexed his fingers. Just ahead, four shops down, was a basement parking garage. He made for it, ducking under the boom gate.

  Here was the test. If they were competent, they’d know he was onto them. If they’d been watching him, they’d know he didn’t have a car. Even if they hadn’t been, they’d be able to figure out that he wouldn’t have a car this far from his residence. If they followed him, then they were amateurs—and he could handle those.

  It was not a big parking garage—a dozen spots, half of them empty. Jack walked into the center of the space and turned around. The three men stood backlit, between him and the way out. He gave them a smile.

  “Just so you know, I spotted you almost immediately.”

  The three of them were about his size, which meant the biggest advantage they had was numbers. They’d lost the advantage of surprise—they hadn’t had the balls to grab him on the street, or the brains to do it in his home. But he had an advantage over them, too, one he could feel in his hands and teeth and chest. He was willing to hurt them, and wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

  None of them were Thomas.

  “What I’m saying is,” Jack continued, “you might wanna turn around and go home.”

  Violence was like free fall to Jack. A terrible form of gravity. Like standing on the edge of a cliff—his mind was aware of it, but so was his body. He’d been angry earlier, but he wasn’t now. He wasn’t anything. He wanted them to walk away, and he hoped they wouldn’t.

  “We just want to ask you some questions,” the lead man said, and he was American, too. “Put your gun on the floor.”

  So, they knew he was armed. That was interesting, at least. Jack drew his handgun and then, holding it high so they could see him do it, popped the magazine free, and let it clatter to the floor of the parking garage. It’d be funny if he shot the lead guy with the one in the chamber, something Elias would’ve done, but he yanked back the slide and ejected the round.

  “There,” Jack said. “How’s that? But no offense, we both know the question line is bullshit.” He slipped out of his jacket then, throwing it over the hood of the nearest car. It’d only get in the way, give his opponents something to grab hold of. “Did Thomas call you guys?”

  The two other guys spread out, moving to bracket him. Jack let his feet slide into position, disguised rolling his shoulders as a lazy shrug. Then, they came forward, but slowly—too slow.

  Jack stepped to the left, fists up, and punched the first one who made the mistake of getting within reach of his arms straight in the throat.

  He felt the man’s larynx buckle beneath his knuckles, but he had the sense of mind to pull the blow before he killed him. He knew, on some level, that he soon wouldn’t. Adrenaline surged through his body, an entity in terrible free fall, and he turned—just as the second man crashed into him.

  They hit the support pillar together, but Jack reacted first, bringing his elbow down on the back of the other man’s neck—once, twice, three times, and that was enough for his grip to relax and for Jack to kick him away. The guy slipped and fell and Jack fought down the urge to stomp down on his skull.

  He turned to find the third man, the leader, and took a taser dart to the chest. Burning static surged along Jack’s nerves, wrenched control of his body from him, and sent him to meet the concrete. His shoulder broke his fall instead of his skull. A boot came down on his right hand, and another laid into his side, under his ribs. More kicks, again and again, more than one person, and Jack couldn’t do anything but go limp and wait for it to stop.

  Eventually, it did.