“This is beyond us.”

  Sarah bristled at the moonie’s words, even if she made sure her smoke didn’t let it show on her face. She hated being outclassed by the other powers around her, and that’d been happening with depressing regularity of late. Back when she’d been Smokeshow, the one thing she could really hold to was that her power was really good. Maybe not enough to beat Dad, but Sarah knew that she was probably tactical-class. Or could be, if she wanted.

  “Run for the embassy,” Isaac decided. “I reinforced the front wall, it might keep.” Technically, he wasn’t in charge of their little group, but Sarah had already noticed that he was both used to making decisions, and couldn’t stop himself once he started on something. Which was certainly part of her attraction, but after discussing his power Sarah couldn’t help but notice that both of them were just being swept along by it sometimes — and she wasn’t sure Isaac even realized it yet.

  Clouds boiled furiously in the sky, moving unnaturally fast as the group broke into an outright sprint toward the embassy. For once they didn’t bother with trying to go around the traffic, Savage and Lia bulling straight through the mounted dinosaurs that filled the streets like cars. The moonie created magical force walls and the cyber-raptor just physically bulldozed any of the smaller dinos that tried to give them grief. The amount of force at play made her wince, as even back in the gang people didn’t play that roughly, but she had to accept that was just how the ikiski worked.

  For her part, Sarah pushed a column of smoke into the air. Not as high as she once could have managed, but enough to get a better view of what was coming. It looked like a rolling thunderstorm, with small bits of lightning flickering within, but rather than thunder it echoed out the distorted music they were hearing. The lightning rapidly became more powerful, more frequent, the strobing illumination giving a glimpse of the form within its attendant cloud: enormous slabs rotating around a miles-long spear, translucent even in silhouette. The moonie had been right; that was beyond them.

  “Okay, that’s a sovereign threat,” she said, pelting along the mosaic tile that made up the streets of the ikiski city. “That thing’s huge.”

  Next to her, Isaac glanced up at the rapidly-approaching not-a-thunderhead and his eyes went distant in the way she’d come to associate with him using his power in an esoteric way. No telling what he was doing, specifically, but she could feel the shift in atmosphere. It was subtle, and while he didn’t call his power particularly potent, being able to influence subtle things had a potency all of its own.

  Eyeing the looming catastrophe, Sarah couldn’t help but let options run through her head about how to use her current, reduced power to better effect. It had been obvious that she was so used to the power of her normal tricks – widescale illusions and smoke form – that she hadn’t bothered with more subtle and nuanced tricks. In the brief time they’d had, she hadn’t been able to nail some of the smaller tricks that her time off had made her think about.

  Perhaps she couldn’t turn herself all to smoke at the moment, but maybe that was for the better. Unless she was aiming for a pseudo-teleport, an instantaneous transition, it was a genuinely terrifying experience. She could lose her identity and sense of self in the smoke, a sensation that had stopped her from experimenting much on those lines. But individual body parts or objects should be within her means, if only she’d worked at them.

  The thought continued even as a port opened in Savage’s armor and he ejected a set of discs into the air, snatching them and handing them out to the rest of their group. If Sarah could move things like that around at will, then they wouldn’t be reliant on someone like Savage. She could be her own porter and distributor.

  “Twist on,” Bubs said in his disturbing voice, and Sarah rotated the handle in the small disc, a faintly shimmering bubble appearing around her. The general kind of tech was familiar; Dad had imported a bunch from Tinkertown and it’d been stored in the armory. Not that she’d ever needed to use them.

  The protection seemed utterly inadequate as the crystalline entity finally attacked. The dissonant reflection of the music reached a peak and the air visibly distorted as a shockwave slammed into a section of the city. A warbling distortion cut through the ambient music, and a billowing cloud of debris plumed into the air. The ground shuddered, and a moment later a spray of gravel pelted their energy shields, pinging off with watery thumps as the projections rippled.

  “Head for the teleporter! I’ll be right behind you!” James voice came through their pins. They were nearly at the embassy, but getting the hell out of there seemed a far better idea. Yet it still took another few steps before any of them were able to slow down and change direction.

  “Tricky,” Isaac muttered. “Sorry about that.”

  “S’fine,” she said, almost by reflex. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.” Her words were punctuated by another screaming detonation of a sonic attack from the shrouded entity that was suddenly above them, its size making its incredible speed surprising to the naked eye. The noise was followed by a prismatic bolt of energy that swept across a series of buildings in the distance. In moments, multicolored crystals grew up around them, encasing them in gemstone.

  The song that filled the city petered down, replaced by the sounds of energy discharges as crystaltech weapons opened up – a bit late, in Sarah’s opinion – and sent blue-white bolts into the sky. The result was a shrieking piece of disharmony and a fusillade of the sonic attacks. Some ran into distortion fields or dampening auras, but others landed and shook the city with the splinter and crack of stone.

  One was really damned close, and they sheltered in the lee of one of the buildings as the shockwave passed. Sarah sent a tendril of smoke out past the walls, familiar enough with that kind of surveillance and more than capable of looking around corners. Isaac glanced her way, making a one-handed sign for the others to hold, and she had a pang of jealousy that he seemed to know these people better than he knew her. But at the same time, it felt good to be able to use her power again, to be more than just Sarah again even if she wasn’t quite Smokeshow just yet.

  “Clear,” she said, and their little group hustled around the building, skirting around the new crater and passing wrecked houses. There were, thankfully, very few bodies in evidence. Probably there were shelters somewhere, like in Star City, and everyone else was fighting. Off down the road she could see a few mounted ikiski firing upward with their personal arms, long emerald batons that emitted spiraling green bolts. An ikiski squad flowed past and around them as they continued onward, forcing Sarah to dodge some quadrupedal dinosaur with what looked to be artillery mounted on its back to reach the site of the teleporter.

  It was in pieces.

  The crystaltech had been shattered, and the metal tinkerwork shredded by debris, the pieces scattered over the former site of the teleporter. There was no telling if there had been a direct hit, or it simply hadn’t been well enough defended, the result was the same. It was gone.

  “Heck,” Isaac muttered under his breath, his hands working, making fists and then falling loose again. Sarah grabbed one and then triggered her comm pin.

  “James, the teleporter’s down,” she said, hoping that he’d have some way back. Surely everything wasn’t built around a single way in or out.

  “Oh,” his voice came back, crackling with static. “Well, maybe you can— no. Just stay—” His voice was drowned out by more shrieking from the massive form looming overhead, as one of the thirty-foot-tall ikiski that had been at the diplomatic summit took to the air. Crystaltech wings spread wide as it darted in with a massive blade, dodging prismatic blasts.

  Blasts that hit the city below. Exactly where the ballroom was, and where James still was. The entire area was suddenly trapped in crystal, a towering diamond edifice replacing the buildings. Her heart dropped into her shoes, and she almost crumpled, only Isaac’s grip holding her up.

  “James!” She shouted, staring at the inert lump of crystal.

  “He can be recovered yes,” Gratin said, speaking quickly, voice raised over the sounds of weapons and the screeching of the crystalline entity. Isaac jumped, not having realized the little cook was still with them, but Sarah cared more about what he said than his sudden reappearance. “Decrystallizing can be done but it takes a Great King. To return to the surface though — the other pole is the only place.” Gratin gestured straight up, and Sarah reflexively squinted through the bright haze that replaced the sun at the far-away ceiling that was the south pole of the world.

  “Shouldn’t we just hunker down and stay here until help arrives?” Bubs asked, burbling the question as another shockwave cast debris that pelted off their shields.

  “Very much no,” Gratin said. “Even if the city is fine then a Great King is not someone for you to meet no.” The little lizardman turned to face her, looking more solemn than he usually did. “I don’t want any of you hurt please. The Great King here is not good for you no. Make for the south pole, to return to the surface, and I will catch up if I can yes.”

  Sarah felt her heart soften at his tone. She didn’t totally understand what Gratin’s objection was, but he clearly cared, and that mattered a lot. The little cook had been there since she was a kid and, despite being part of whatever ikiski stuff was going on down here, he was definitely still one of the family.

  “Can you make sure that someone decrystallizes James?” She asked directly, wincing as another sonic attack reached a particularly ear-grating tone. They weren’t exactly out in the open, hunkered against the side of a partially-ruined building as they were, but there probably wasn’t much time to have a proper discussion.

  “Yes very,” Gratin said, looking uncommonly serious. “He will be fine I promise.” Then he smiled again, all teeth. “Miss Sally would kill me if he weren’t!”

  Isaac squeezed her hand – she hadn’t realized she was still gripping onto him – and she drew herself up. She still felt awful, but if James was okay, or would be okay, she had to worry about herself and Isaac. They were still in the middle of a massive fight, with attacks strong enough to destroy buildings being thrown around.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Isaac said, and Sarah blinked as Gratin simply vanished. She caught a sense of something, a feeling a bit like when a hovercar repulsor spooled up, but that was all.

  “Closest edge of the city is that way,” Lia said, pointing along one of the roads then snatching her hand back as a chunk of rock pinged off the shield just beyond her extended finger. Isaac just squared his shoulders and started off.

  Sarah could feel the change as he went along. It wasn’t mind control, though she understood why he was afraid of it being so. The best way to describe it was that some things were just easier, like having a wind at her back. Not that it made the impossible, possible, but rather it made some things that were already there, more.

  It was a feeling that she seized on, because she wanted to be more. Needed to be more, and not just what Smokeshow was before. Sarah wasn’t just a grumpy goth girl, and her power wasn’t just useful for combat and crisis. Perhaps she could have gotten James out of there if she’d had more experience, if she’d been more proactive. If she had just done something.

  She wrote her frustrations into her smoke, sending it out ahead to try and clear the way, using her illusions to steer aside an armed ikiski group running their way. Lizard-men holding crystalline guns pelted past them, going the other direction, just as one of the prismatic bolts swept across the way, less than a hundred feet ahead. A great wall of pyrope and peridot sprang up a moment later, blocking them off, and Savage immediately took a sharp right to parallel the blockade. Sarah pounded along the street with everyone else, glad that she wasn’t too out of shape, until another shriek from the cloud-shrouded entity above heralded another blast of the sonic detonation.

  “Heck,” Isaac said, vastly understating the situation as the distortion swept toward them, pursuing a group of mounts with thin crystalline wings extended. “I got this! Grab on!” He pulled Sarah against him, and she latched on despite the temptation to try and turn herself to smoke. The moonie wrapped a long-fingered hand around Isaac’s other arm, and Savage clamped a mechanical arm around Isaac’s leg. The elemental, however, just sank into the ground, and Bubs simply thinned out to near-insubstantiality.

  She felt herself become oddly light and floaty, and braced herself as the shockwave hit. Instead of it hammering her like she expected, the world blurred around her as the four them were picked up and hurled away. Sky and ground careened wildly, and fragments pinged off their shields in a rapidly ascending scale as the energy protections were stretched to their limits.

  “What the hell?” Sarah kept a strong grip on Isaac as they finally slowed, flying through the air high over the city without any real sensation of movement. Heavy wind set them speeding along in a shallow arc as gravity pulled them down into boiling storm clouds, surrounding them with fog.

  “A trick I learned by accident,” Isaac said, having to shout over the crosswinds blowing them this way and that. “Probably won’t work against anything really powerful, but it’s better than getting flattened by something like that.”

  “I don’t like it,” Savage declared, though maybe because one mechanical arm extended from his armor was locked around Isaac’s ankle, and he was dangling below them. “But yes, better than dead.” Lia merely hummed, still gripping awkwardly to Isaac’s arm. Her runes lit, and their random, wind-blown trajectory smoothed out, aiming for a landing spot well outside the city limits. A few clicks of the comms pins showed they were already out of range of Bubs and Stratum, with no return signal coming from the last two members of the Brute Squad.

  They were miles away from where they’d been, almost out of the city already, and dropping down toward thick jungle. Like Hyperborea above, it was a hot, riotous jumble of plant life and, despite the sounds of the crystalline entity not so very far away, was obviously teeming with dinosaur life. Sarah braced herself as they rushed downward, but the moment they hit a limb as broad as a city street, they stopped with unsettling abruptness. Savage hit first, acting as a fulcrum to send the rest of them sprawling along the wood without any feeling of impact.

  “Ride’s over,” Isaac said, sounding a little shaken as he stumbled to his feet, and the normal weight and movement returned to her limbs. Savage let go, followed by Lia, and Sarah rose to her feet, taking a long drag on her illusionary kiseru to steady her nerves. It wasn’t just the narrow escape; it was that she had been entirely helpless.

  Sarah looked toward Isaac and decided to take a page out of his book. He hadn’t let anything stop him, and she was determined to do what it took not to be helpless again.

  ***

  The human’s power was extremely odd.

  Alianora of Mare Crisium, known as Lia to most humans, found that to be generally true, but was especially so for the one who now called himself Isaac. Most human powers came in one of two flavors: strong that affected much, and weak that affected little. Isaac’s power was strongest when it affected very little of consequence — the physical forces. Her divinatory runes screeched warnings in her head about how Isaac had changed certain aspects of her very self, fundamentally and irreconcilably. Until he changed her back, of course.

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  The weaker effects though, wove themselves into the fundaments of the universe with unsurpassed subtlety. Even her magical examination couldn’t yield much about the precise mechanics, let along the scope, but it crawled into the workings of creation in ways that her cleverest magics never could. In ways she doubted even the finest runecasters could have managed what, effectively, a blind man performed. Yet it wasn’t a strong effect. The amount of force there was only a pace or two from negligible.

  As with any human superpower, the best tools of runic scrying only went so far — and Lia didn’t even have the best. The means and methods through which human powers worked was just too strange and alien to be understood. It certainly didn’t help that humans saw them an entirely different way than any silver-blooded lunarian, prizing some things that lunarians didn’t care about and ignoring or scoffing at things almost anyone would give a finger or even a whole hand to be able to perform.

  It more than justified Lia following him to the Deep Kingdoms, even if she did hate the lack of any true sky. Unlike the royalists, she was weaker so far from the lunar globe, but it was her duty to follow whatever lead she could find. The issues posed by Mechaniacal had been a useful excuse for bringing the rest of the Brute Squad with her, but she would have found some reason for it. Now, though, she had reason to regret bringing everyone, considering what had happened. Neither of the missing two members were likely to be much harmed, but that wasn’t a certainty.

  “We don’t have communications with Stratum or Bubs,” Savage said, clearly following at least part of the same line of thought. He deactivated his shield, a portion of his armor opening up so he could stow it away, and the others followed suit. The shields wouldn’t have much more time anyway; they were very much emergency measures, and would have to be recharged when they got back to the surface if not replaced entirely.

  “We know where we need to rendezvous with them,” Lia said as she handed him her shield. Between potentially risking Isaac and potentially risking the others of the squad, she preferred to keep Isaac alive and able to demonstrate his talents. There weren’t many supers who were willing to engage with lunarian runes, and it was only very recently that she found what might be different — the magical dead zone where Mechaniacal’s lab had been, and where in her very brief investigation a number of human children had grown up.

  Not that being reared in a magical dead zone granted anyone special dispensation. More the reverse; she suspected that Isaac would be more susceptible to any direct magical effects. At the same time, his formative years had passed without the influence of Earth’s own magical background, so he might not have a particular predisposition away from foreign magic systems. Other agents were quietly looking for these other human children, hoping to find more candidates for recruitment to the reestablishment cause. There, they had an advantage as Princess Liesta – also known as Moonblast – did not dwell in Star City at all.

  “We’re going to need something better than our feet,” Isaac said, absently rolling a length of cord between his fingers. “And food, water, shelter…” He ticked off items on his fingers. “Probably more. I’ve never been out of Star City before.”

  “I went camping once,” said the other human, Sarah Miller. For some reason, she didn’t seem to like Lia, even if she wasn’t openly hostile. She had been easier to find information about, as The Right Honorable Sally Miller was from a long line of powerful individuals within Star City, but none of that information had included details on Sarah’s power. Which was less interesting than Isaac’s, anyway. “But only once.”

  “I did spot some outlying settlements while we were in the air,” Lia volunteered, invoking some small illusion runes and the memory-rune she used to scry her own mind, summoning a picture of the curved world below them. The inside-out nature of the Deep Kingdoms made it fairly easy to spot distant cities and towns; simply looking up, anyone with a sharp eye could mark the centers of various kingdoms.

  “At least I know we can barter,” Isaac said, squinting at the map.

  “Savage can speak the language,” Lia said, tilting her head at the cyber-raptor, who growled unhappily. He had been in ill sorts – for him – ever since arriving.

  “I can, but nobody here is going to listen to me,” Savage grumbled, his artificial voice still managing to convey his disgruntlement.

  “If you will allow me, I can attempt to extract the language for a translation spell.” It was how she spoke the surface language, after all. Though the ikiski language likely would require adjunct runework to account for the difference in sounds.

  “Fine,” Savage said ungraciously. “When we get somewhere civilized.” Lia inclined her head, as indeed there were already large avian and reptilian heads poking through the foliage to regard them hungrily.

  “I can shield us,” Sarah said, smoke boiling up from her lips. “At least I can try.”

  Lia, unfortunately, didn’t have much that could help. Her specialty was in divinations and information, but everyone could do enough basic runework for constructs and shields. It wouldn’t do much to match the force everyone else could bring to bear, but she would do the best she could to keep everyone alive. Especially Isaac.

  She was beginning to think his power might finally break the stalemate on the moon.

  ***

  “We have good news and bad news.”

  “Better than only bad news,” Ike said, regarding Mocker and Vilmonica where they sat in his office, the warlock lounging in a seat while the information specialist remained primly upright. “Let’s hear it.”

  “To begin, we believe we have tracked the whereabouts of Isaac Hartson,” Vilmonica said, lifting a remote and aiming it at one of the screens. Amused, Ike didn’t interfere as she took over one of his projectors to show the transcript of an audio recording. From the labeling, it came from Machine Head’s interaction with Hartson, which the man had at least thought to properly record even if he hadn’t let the conversation filter out to the main surveillance room.

  In hindsight, that had been for the best, since it let Ike keep Hartson’s theoretical capabilities under wraps. Not that Machine Head hadn’t gotten scheduled into a lot of security retraining so he wouldn’t do something like that again. Virtually every super had some sort of baggage, but they were meant to be intelligent and not potentially imperil Star Central.

  “They attack at a distance, and it doesn’t wear off.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Yeah, saw it happen. She’s still depowered.”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  Ike immediately saw what Vilmonica had latched onto in the short exchange, and nodded to her. She nodded back.

  “Cross-referenced with his prior identities and no official report of a depowering other than Glorybeam, it was obvious that it had to be a supervillain,” Vilmonica said, her diction precise. “We have a limited insight into supervillains, but keeping in mind the associations Hartson disclosed, we have reason to think the individual in question is Smokeshow, who hasn’t been seen since before Gloryfall.”

  “Do we know who Smokeshow actually is?” Ike asked, pulling up the file that Star Central had on the super in question. With his clearance, he could see the unofficial notes from less-than-reputable or legal sources, as well as things that weren’t supposed to be public knowledge. The official separation between super and civilian identity was a major point in keeping some very powerful people from making some very detrimental choices for everyone involved.

  “We do now,” Vilmonica said, just as he found the proper entry in the file. “It wasn’t exactly a secret, but we hadn’t fully connected known files before.”

  “Ah,” Ike said as he looked over the information. The Right Honorable Sally Miller was a descendent of one of the founding families of Star City centuries ago, and while it had been some time since they’d produced a super, let alone a sovereign like Momni-glow, they were still very important. Old money and new, and deep in the government.

  “Her son, James Miller, departed to the Deep Kingdoms on a diplomatic mission only a few days ago. Along with his normal staff, he brought his sister and a civilian meta by the name of Bulwark.”

  “Our elusive Mister Hartson,” Ike guessed.

  “I believe so. A further note, however — the lunarian at Justice for Hire used the diplomatic train and credentials to follow soon after.” Vilmonica gave Ike a significant look, and he sucked in a breath. The lunarian connection was still an enormous question mark, and the perfectly neutral but perfectly accurate runework on Ravdia’s armor had even Moonblast concerned about what it might mean. It was something they had to chase down. “Unfortunately, that isn’t the bad news.”

  “Let me guess,” Ike sighed. “The teleporter in Hyperborea is down.”

  “Worse than down,” Mocker said, interjecting at last. “It’s completely unlinked. Other end’s destroyed.” Ike suppressed a sigh. It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened – the Deep Kingdoms were a primal, violent place – but the timing was alarming, and not just because of Hartson’s presence. While Star Central had little to do with the diplomatic relations between the Five City Alliance and the Deep Kingdoms, he was at least aware of what was going on.

  He had a duty to report the teleporter issue to Mayor Ducatt, for one – although Mocker had probably already done so – but the responsibility for solving it rested on Ike’s shoulders. Which would mean either finding a super to transport people overland to Hyperborea, then down the thousands of miles to the Deep Kingdoms, or negotiating with The Mountains at the south pole for access. Or find someone who could get there directly.

  The question was what risk he preferred to take. The still-mysterious Hartson, with all the potential mischief he could get into closeted away with lunarians and the Deep Kingdoms, or Mechaniacal, who had motivations as yet unknown but likely couldn’t be kept ignorant of Hartson’s location for long. Several close sweeps had uncovered three different surveillance devices, so Ike couldn’t be certain Star Central remained uncompromised. Ike tapped his fingers against his chair and decided he’d rather go with the devil he knew.

  “I hate to say this, but I think I’d trust Mechaniacal to offer transport down there over Blacktime or the cultists of The Mountains,” Ike sighed. He paused a moment, half-expecting Mechaniacal to invite himself into the conference somehow, but when no polished and precise voice intruded on the meeting, he continued. “There are too many holes in our knowledge of Hartson and, even that aside, we need to keep our relationship with the Deep Kingdoms.”

  “He’s cooperating well enough for now,” Vilmonica agreed, though she clearly wasn’t any happier than he.

  “I wish he wasn’t squatting on the magic-dead area. It hasn’t been an issue before, but now…” Mocker shook his head. “It’s all too coincidental that a lab was smack dab in the middle. I’ve sent word to some of my colleagues to keep an eye out for other null magic regions in case he has more of these scattered around, but they’re few and far between in civilized areas.”

  “We’ll have to wait for him to become a problem,” Ike said grimly. So far communications with sovereigns of other nations were very tentative, both because of potential eavesdropping and because there just wasn’t any immediate call for action. While Star Central had good relations with most sovereigns, that wasn’t enough to ask them to risk themselves against someone like Mechaniacal. Not without any doomsday device in the offing.

  He tapped at his chair controls and dialed up the supervillain tinker. Of course Mechaniacal had a valid phone number, registered with the system in a perfectly legal way. It felt almost like mockery, but was easier than the more esoteric ways that Mechaniacal communicated.

  “Director Ichabod!” Mechaniacal’s voice was as cheery as ever. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve located our wayward meta, but there is an issue in reaching him,” Ike said without any preamble. “He’s in the Deep Kingdoms, but the teleporter is nonfunctional.”

  “Ah, yes, reaching that far can be an issue,” Mechaniacal agreed. Even going straight down the polar axial bore involved thousands of miles of hostile terrain; crystalline entities, lava beasts, and feral civilizations, not to mention heat, pressure, toxic atmosphere, and all kinds of environmental effects. “I do, in fact, have access that I am willing to share. Perhaps you could clear your rear lot for me?”

  “Yes,” Ike said, toggling over to the intercom and issuing the necessary orders before looking up again. “Mocker, will you go with him? Take the new comms relay.” For all the trouble Machine Head had caused, the brand new communications station should have the range, even if each receiver had to be hand-built. Far better than the previous models, which had a range of under a mile without relays. That would allow Ike to ride along without needing to actually be there physically. More, Mocker could at least leave of his own accord, retreating to his sanctum, even if he didn’t have the ability to teleport to wherever he wished.

  “Guess so,” Mocker sighed, drawing himself up and sketching a bow. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  “Excellent,” said Mechaniacal. “I am looking forward to seeing this meta in person.” The line clicked, and Ike nodded to Mocker, who disappeared in a swirl of black. The next few minutes were spent setting up the appropriate surveillance feeds, connecting to the large omni-range transceiver in the basement and the linked camera, pinned to Mocker’s collar. Mechaniacal’s arrival was obvious enough, a loud whirring noise echoing over the back lot as a car-sized sphere slowly faded into existence, three stumpy legs resting on the asphalt and an arrangement of whirling, parasol-shaped array of glowing tubes extending from the back.

  Mocker emerged from the back door, waving a hand in the direction of the surveillance camera as he approached Mechaniacal’s contraption. An otherwise seamless section of the hull slid aside, a short flight of steps unfolding to touch the ground as the tinker himself appeared, bowing to Mocker and gesturing inside. The warlock fiddled with the armband, sound cutting on halfway through a sentence.

  “ —a smooth ride. Not to worry, we’re not even going near the dimensional boundaries.”

  “Oh, that’s just so encouraging,” Mocker said, stepping into the conveyance. The linked camera showed that the interior had broad viewscreens on the walls and several comfortable-looking couches, as well as a refrigerator. It looked simple, but Ike was almost certain the vehicle was far more than a simple teleporter. Probably some iteration of the man’s time machine, something that nobody had ever actually found.

  The camera swiveled with Mocker’s perspective to follow Mechaniacal as he strode to the far wall, where there was mounted a complicated control panel of buttons, dials, levers, and gimbaled knobs. The tinker played the controls like an organist, an armillary sphere depiction of the Earth forming above the panel and a red dot sliding from Star Central down to the interior at the north pole.

  “Next stop, the Deep Kingdoms,” Mechaniacal said, and threw a lever. The lazily spinning parasol blades picked up speed again, the metal sphere fading from the rear lot. Surprisingly, the signal remained strong, interrupted only by occasional bursts of static, demonstrating that Machine Head genuinely had cracked all-range communications.

  “Still reading you,” Ike muttered into his microphone, and Mocker nodded as he watched the displays swirl with myriad colors. Mechaniacal seemed happy to discuss trivialities during the transition, surprisingly enough opining on the chances of the Star City SuperJump team. Ike wouldn’t have taken the tinker for a sports fan, and in fact had to look up some of the names himself, but it seemed Mechaniacal’s knowledge was genuine. Or perhaps he was just messing with Ike, since it was not at all a secret that Mocker was recording.

  Regardless of the reason, it was less than five minutes before the displays cleared and showed an all-around view of a devastated city. Some buildings were intact, but many were not, while others were entombed in jagged monoliths of crystal. For anyone who had seen crystalline entity attacks, it was obvious what had happened, though the actual entity itself was not in evidence. Or at least its remains were indistinguishable from the other rubble.

  Ikiski were milling about, but generally congregating around a nearby compound, and Ike could see why. The walls were the only things standing in a large swath of obliterated buildings — and more importantly, one of the paths of crystallization led straight up to the wall and stopped. It took a moment for Ike to realize that the compound was the embassy.

  “Well, isn’t that interesting?” Mechaniacal said, tapping his fingers on his cane as he looked at the intact walls. Ike worked the controls on the camera, zooming in on the scene. “Standard ferroceramite, I would imagine with mestite doping to judge by the color and honeycomb reinforcement given those wear patterns. Certainly shouldn’t have been enough to stand up to what destroyed everything else.”

  “Yes, we can all read between the lines,” Ike sighed, not needing Mechanical’s monologue but keeping the microphone off so he didn’t sound petulant.

  “Let’s see if we can figure this out,” Mocker said, a pool of darkness opening up beneath him. He dropped through, and the camera fuzzed briefly before Mocker appeared in the middle of the compound. The top of the manor there had been shorn off, but everything behind the walls was intact. Including the people.

  Scores of the smallest ikiski were still sheltering behind the walls, even though by Ike’s understanding they should have had their own hideaways. Some of them stared at Mocker, though the warlock had the presence of mind not to try approaching any of them, simply lifting his hand and muttering incantations as he interrogated the past. Before he got very far, a half-sized ikiski approached, waving a claw in greeting.

  “You are from Star City yes? I am Gratin,” the little lizard-man said.

  “The Miller’s cook and Deep Kingdoms liaison,” Vilmonica put in, speaking for the first time since Mocker had left. “Someone in a position to know.”

  “Mister Gratin,” Mocker said, with gesture of one hand to show that he’d heard Vilmonica’s interjection. “Do you know the whereabouts of our delegation?”

  “Maybe some yes,” Gratin said, waving his hands about. “Mister James and staff is be waiting to be decrystallized. Mister Stratum and Mister Bubs are sequestered. I sent the rest to the south pole,” he finished. “No humans should be here when the Great King arrives, no. And now with this…” Gratin waved at the still-intact walls. “It is the best for now if Mister Bulwark is not here while passions run high. There will be many who want this yes.”

  “I assume by Bulwark you mean Mister Hartson?” Mocker asked without prompting, as Ike began making notes on yet another one of Harson’s alter egos. He had more than some shifter metas, and while none of them would hold up to deep scrutiny, something had to prompt that scrutiny to begin with.

  “Indeed yes,” Gratin said, bobbing his head, which confirmed that Bulwark was simply a useful piece of anonymity rather than a fully realized identity.

  “He is a citizen of the Five City Alliance,” Mocker pointed out. “If one of the Great Kings want to claim him, it’s going to cause problems.”

  “It is not that simple no,” Gratin said seriously. “To be allies you have to show your strength! This is much strength yes. The Great Kings will want to work with Mister Bulwark yes. You must find him please before anyone else.”

  “That does seem important,” Mechaniacal’s voice said, the man himself having approached out of sight of the camera feed. Mocker turned, taking in the old tinker and the small spherical drones floating at his shoulder. “Perhaps I can help.”

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