Dayton’s eyes widened for a moment, but only a moment before he said, “Of course not. We’ve got a lot to discuss today, but what do you think Magnus saw in us?”

  As Dayton talked, Jody had gripped the table's edge in his hands as if he planned to flip it over or push himself back.

  “Look,” Jody said, hands tightening on the table, “I did talk to him, okay? You don’t throw away a chance like that. The guy had power, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to sign with Futuremen. You were going to throw it all away because having Magnus show up made you nervous.

  “Well, I wasn’t. I wanted to see what he could give us and if you weren’t going to be involved, what he could give me.”

  Sean stared at him, “Are you kidding me?”

  Jody stared back, “Do you want me to talk? Let me talk. When you guys were worrying about whether Futuremen was safe, I met with him.”

  Shaking his head, Dayton muttered, “Dude, no.”

  Jody ignored him. “Do you know what the guy’s about? You’d approve. He’s going to save the world. He knows that something is coming, some kind of aliens that will literally destroy the whole damn world and maybe the solar system to make sure. He’s going to stop them. That’s what he’s been working toward the whole time.”

  Sean’s brow furrowed, “Maybe he said that, but he had to be lying.”

  Still watching for Jody, Jaclyn used her implant to comm connection to say, “Do you want to explain or should I?”

  Haley thought back, “I’ll do it,” almost at the same time she started saying, “It’s true as far as it goes, but it’s not everything. We talked to one of Magnus’ former friends a few days ago. She told us about how he’d had visions of those aliens during the history of the Cabal, but then he started killing the Cabal’s other leaders until he took full control of it. If you think he’s your friend, remember that his former friends are in hiding because he keeps on trying to kill them. The ones that aren’t in hiding are dead.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Jody made a jerky movement with his head as he looked from Haley to Sean and Dayton, eyes wide, almost as if he was undecided as to what he was about to do.

  Julie sent a direct implant-to-implant message to everyone, “He’s controlled. There weren’t any cues until now.”

  Almost talking over the end of her sentence, Daniel said, “Something’s about to happen. Watch him.”

  “I’m different,” Jody said. “I’m like him. He needs me to control the mach—“

  His mouth shut but from his wide eyes and the quiver in his lips, I didn’t think he was entirely willing.

  Jaclyn grabbed for his arm, but caught nothing, moving through him as if he weren’t there—in the same way she’d have trouble catching Rachel. Then Jody slipped through the floor. Rachel flew when she turned intangible. Jody fell, mouth half-open and staring as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do next, but he still disappeared.

  Jaclyn ran for the stairs, moving downward in a blur from Vaughn’s perspective. From Jaclyn’s, everything around her was a blur. No doubt she could see details while moving, but I couldn’t. She ran down the stairs, slowing enough that I could see the next level down—a pristine office environment with cubicles, computers, a wall of screens showing the neighborhood around the complex, and at least four staff.

  I didn’t have time to wonder what positions their office staff had, because Jaclyn didn’t stop, saying only, “He’s not here.” She ran down to the next level, a training room with weights, a fighting ring, various exercise machines, and what might have been a shooting range even though there were no guns.

  Here she glimpsed Jody running down the range and slipping through the wall.

  Seeing that, she ran down to the next level and the exit, but at that point I’d switched to another view, this one from my bots. I’d left observation bots placed around the block, giving me a view from all sides of Justice Fist’s base.

  Watching all of the feeds in the background, my implant had already identified the ones with the best view of Jody slipping through the north wall of the base, running across the roof, and dropping down to the ground, slowing before he hit as if someone had slowed the frame rate of a movie.

  The moment he touched the ground, he snapped back to his normal speed of faster than almost anything—which included Jaclyn. The speed at which he’d fallen through the tower hadn't been anywhere near his maximum, though.

  So when she exited though the front door, I sent, “North side,” through my implant. She’d run that way in a blur of purple, rounding the side of the wing that extended out from the main building.

  That put her less than thirty feet from Jody who eyed her, his mouth open with what I assumed was terror.