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“Rude. Loud. His facemask has built-in sound dampening ’cause even he can’t handle his screams.”

“Seriously?” Mark laughed.

“Yup. Don’t try to fight noise with noise with him. He blocks it out.”

Darlene crossed her arms. “Does he usually work alone or with others?”

“Alone.” Aura pointed to her ear. “The screaming.”

“Why is he aligning with other Villains in Vector City?”

“My guess is ego. He likes money a lot, but he really loves having people afraid of him. This new faction is the perfect storm of assholes.”

“More than you know,” Otis said. “We’ve gotten word Big Quake has returned.”

“Big—oh, shit. That’s no joke. You get Squawk’s soundwaves with Big Quake’s ability to move earth, and that’s…”

“Oh, shit,” Zee finished.

Now the puzzle pieces were fitting together. “So Squawk can amplify Quake’s powers,” Joan said. “And Ether can cover what they’re doing. Why is Prowl in on this? What’s she contributing?”

“Prowl can go toe-to-toe with people up close,” Mark said. “The others aren’t known to be fighters.”

Joan nodded. “Good point.”

Otis glanced at their sidekick organizing the snacks. “Ward, why aren’t you taking notes?”

Ward fumbled with a small bag of popcorn and hastened to the table. “I’m sorry, sir.” He grabbed a laptop and flipped the cover up.

“You still only use one sidekick?” said Aura.

“Do you know how hard it is to find qualified applicants who can pass our background checks?” Otis said.

“No wonder they don’t last long.”

Kade coughed behind his meaty hand. “Our humans are better than your robotic sidekicks.”

Zee stifled a grin.

“They were android assistants,” Aura said half-heartedly.

“Robots,” Kade muttered.

“And I was against them from the start. Otis should’ve told you that. If he ever talks about me.”

Mark leaned close to Joan and whispered, “This is amazing.”

“When you lose that human connection, you lose control.” Aura waved her hands. A shimmering golden glow surrounded her. “And I know human connection.”

“So we have an expert on Squawk.” Darlene ticked that off on one finger. “And experts on Prowl and Ether, who I am convinced know more than they’re letting on.” She ticked that off. Joan gave her a one-finger salute. “Flight, you are our expert on Quake.”

“The only active one,” Otis said.

Darlene started to speak, then hesitated. Then said, “There is another option.”

“Not that again.”

Kade raised his hand like an obedient student. “Stretch Boy has dementia. I don’t think he’ll be a lot of help.”

Darlene turned to fully face Otis. “We should contact her.”

Perry sucked in a sudden breath. “Don’t,” he said, quiet but weighted.

“She’s made it very clear never to bother her,” Otis said.

“Who?” Mark said.

“This is urgent,” Darlene pressed. “She has the most intel on Big Quake.”

“Guys, it’s just Quake now,” Kade insisted.

Mark bounced in his seat. “ Who? ”

Darlene glanced at him. “Amazing Woman.”

“Amazing Woman?” he scoffed. “She’s still alive?”

“Yes,” Otis said.

“Don’t get her involved in this,” Perry said.

“What is she, a hundred years old?” Mark said.

“Ninety-three.”

Otis shook his head. “The last time I tried reaching out, she said in no uncertain terms am I allowed to contact her again. She lives off the grid for a reason.”

“This is her archnemesis,” Darlene said. “Wouldn’t she finally want justice?”

“She’s out of this life,” Perry said.

Mark leaned forward. “How do you know so much about Amazing Woman?”

Everyone in the room—including Aura—stared at him. Perry scowled. “History.”

Oh. Oh. “She was the Super who betrayed you,” Joan realized.

“She was forced to by the others.”

“Aw man, you must hate her guts,” Mark said.

Perry said nothing, but in that moment, Joan got everything she needed. The woman who had betrayed him, who’d turned him into Breeze, was a Superhero.

Only he wasn’t ranting and raving about her. He’d cared for her.

Darlene broke the silence. “A Superhero pledges to protect the people. She’ll want justice and to defend Vector City.”

“I’d leave her alone,” Aura said. “She put in her time. She’s been through enough.”

“Flight also battled Big Quake?—”

“No, I mean she went through it . You sent her in first, every time, to take the brunt of an assault. She was indestructible, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. She was treated like crap. Being a woman Super in the old days was hard. Not that it’s all that better today.”

“I’m not suggesting she join the fight,” Darlene said. “It would be to help us with a plan of attack.”

Per had the weirdest look on his face. Like he wanted to shout about something, but also troubled in a way Joan had never seen.

Zee held up a hand. “Can we go back to age? Is Quake able to do what he used to? Powers diminish with age.”

“That’s why he’s teamed up with the others,” Joan said.

“Then shouldn’t we want to separate them?”

Huh. Another good point.

Aura tilted her head to see above her screen. “I’ve got to go. Crime never sleeps in Destine. Let me know if you need something. Or, y’know, if you just want to talk.”

She sent Otis a pointed glare before the call ended.

Darlene began to walk around the table. “I’ll reach out to her.”

“She’ll say no,” Perry said. “After what happened with Big Quake, she vowed to never get involved again.”

“She told you that?” Otis said.

“She told you that. In no uncertain terms, as you said.”

“Can we take five?” Mark shook his index finger at Perry. “I have a few questions for my associate that he won’t answer in a room full of people.”

“You can go in the hallway,” Otis said. “While I review notes with Ward.”

“Keep the door open,” Darlene said. “I’ll be watching. We have cameras everywhere.”

Joan ignored her because damn it, she was finally about to get Perry’s origin story. He looked resigned enough to open up.

The trio went to the opposite side of the wood-paneled hall. “So Amazing Woman, huh?” she said.

Perry released a deep breath. “Her name is Augusta Abernathy. She goes by Gus. She came into the art gallery where I was working. We struck up a friendship.”

“A friendship, or a friendship ?” Mark asked. “She’s like, so much older than you.”

“Colleagues. I appreciated her intelligence and wit. She’s a talented artist in her own right.

I didn’t know she’d been sent by the other Supers to see if I had powers.

Eventually Gus told me the truth. The other Supers ambushed me before my first big show opened.

They caught me off guard, and I reacted with my powers.

The gallery was destroyed. I had to leave my dream job. Gus retired shortly afterward.”

“She retired after that Big Quake battle,” Joan said. “Did you have anything to do with?—”

“No. Though people’s fear of him was a lot of why I hid my powers. Gus later told me she was distracted and disillusioned by what her cohorts made her do. It affected her performance.”

“Hang on. She told you later?” Mark’s eyebrows met in the middle. “Have you spoken to her since then?”

“I didn’t for a long time. Not when I became Breeze. One day, she reached out to apologize. We talked, and slowly became friends again. We…” Perry avoided eye contact. “We see each other now and again.”

“ What? ” Joan said, and Mark echoed her.

“We’ve been friends for a while.”

“Friends with benefits, or…” He cringed. “Oh Jesus, she’s a hundred years old. That’s like age gap .”

“She still looks like she’s my age.”

“Yeah, but…”

Joan shook her head at whatever inappropriate thing Mark was about to say about Amazing Woman’s “antique plumbing.” “Do you know where she lives?”

“I’ve been to her house many times,” Perry said.

Mark smacked Joan’s arm. “Is that where you’re going when you duck out of town?”

“Sometimes.”

Joan smacked her brother back. “Do you talk about us? Does she know about us?”

“We talk about you often.”

“For real?”

“She’s given me a lot of advice on what to do with you two.”

“But she was a Superhero,” Mark said. “You just gloss over the fact that you were a Villain who raised two young Villains? That wasn’t… How did that work?”

Perry shrugged one shoulder. “We made peace with our past and don’t talk about that part of our lives.”

“What the actual, actual fuck?” Mark giggled.

“Have we ever met her?” Joan wondered. “Like has she come back to Vector City?”

“No,” Perry said. “She lives off the grid in the middle of nowhere.”

“Now we know why you hate the Supers,” Joan said. “Well, all of them but Amazing Woman.” What the actual fuck indeed.

“They outed you,” Mark said. Sympathetic pain flashed in his blue eyes. “I know what that feels like.”

“It’s why I took you in.” Perry shook his head slightly. “I didn’t know you two were gay. I just knew you had powers and were scared. I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to you.”

“Thanks, Per.” Joan lightly punched his bicep.

“Dude, I told you I was gay,” Mark said. “Remember how I was all, ‘You better not try anything, you old creep.’”

“Old.” Perry snorted. “I was thirty.”

“And how old was Amazing Woman? I mean how old was she when?—”

A thump against the wall inside the conference room was followed by someone going, “Shh.” Ah, leave it to the Supers to spy on them.

Perry glared at the open doorway, but his face said he wasn’t surprised.

For everyone’s benefit, Joan asked, “Do you think you could talk her into coming back to help with this Quake situation?”

“I doubt it,” said Perry. “If you think I’m stubborn and uncooperative…”

“We should get him to ask her,” Kade’s deep voice said through the wall.

“Shh,” someone hissed. Probably Darlene.

Perry stared at the wall. “She’d want to be involved less than we do,” he said loudly enough for all to hear.

Joan flicked her fingers by habit. Four clueless Superheroes, three reluctant former Villains, and one really old Hero who wanted nothing to do with any of this.

Vector City was kind of fucked.