The Kingdom's Manhattan office always feels like a mausoleum to me. The antiseptic smell, the pristine white walls, the hushed atmosphere - it's like visiting a corpse dressed in its Sunday best. I sit in the reception area outside Mr. Antithesis's office, my leg refusing to stay still despite my best efforts. I've been here countless times, but today the air feels different. Heavier. Like the pressure drop before a hurricane. And it's not just because of me.

  I could make it easier, of course. Or harder, if I felt like putting myself through bullshit for some reason. But I don't, because I know the score. There's a small, unobtrusive mark on the floor, in the tile, where I have to sit behind. The 50 foot mark, with a little wiggle room, so that no matter where the boss man is in his office, I won't get in his power's range. Especially important today.

  Today, Porcelain is in there.

  The thought makes my stomach clench. Two apex predators in the same room, neither able to show weakness. I've seen what Porcelain can do - seen him punch through reinforced concrete like it was wet cardboard, seen him walk away from a direct hit with an RPG with nothing but a torn jacket. The man who calls himself the strongest superhuman on Earth isn't making an empty boast. Anyone in the business of murder knows who he is. Most people in the business of governance know who he is, too.

  Mr. Antithesis knows who he is. And I'm sure Porcelain knows who Mr. Antithesis is, too. The two most unbeatable superhumans in the world, face to face for the first time. I'm surprised nobody's started swinging yet.

  The intercom on the receptionist's desk has been silent for forty-three minutes. No screams, no crashes, nothing to indicate the nature of their discussion. The office is too well soundproofed for that. It's the silence itself that's unnerving.

  I check my watch again, then my phone. Nothing from Lisa about tomorrow's committee meeting. Nothing from Lena about the week's Hypeman sales, or from Buddy about establishing our third and fourth warehouse. Just the endless waiting, the uncertainty of what comes next.

  The door opens.

  Porcelain emerges first, his massive frame filling the doorway before he steps through. Unlike Mr. Antithesis with his immaculate suits, Porcelain favors military-style clothing - today it's a dark jacket stretched across his broad shoulders, combat boots heavy enough to crack the laminate flooring. His beard, thick and neatly braided, ends in a gold cap that catches the light as he turns toward me.

  He stops, and our eyes meet. I rise to my feet, political muscle memory taking over as I extend my hand. "A pleasure to see you again," I say, my voice steady despite the alarm bells ringing in my head. The door slides shut behind him.

  His grip envelops mine completely, and there's a moment where I feel the potential in those fingers. The knowledge that he could pulverize every bone in my hand without effort. He doesn't squeeze in the slightest. He doesn't even move. He just sort of lets me limply... molest his fingers, in my best attempt to handshake him.

  "Mrs. Zenith," he says, voice low and deliberate. "Always moving up in the world."

  It's not quite a compliment, not quite a threat. I nod, professional smile firmly in place. "We all have our paths."

  "Indeed," he replies, releasing my hand. "Your employer and I have reached an understanding. He'll brief you on the details." He steps past me toward the elevator, then pauses, turning just enough to catch my eye again. "Best of luck with your protestor problem, Councilwoman."

  "Thank you," I reply, because what else can I say?

  He nods once, then continues to the elevator. I watch him go, maintaining my composure until the doors slide shut. Only then do I allow my shoulders to drop, just slightly, as I exhale.

  The intercom crackles to life. "Mrs. Zenith." It's not Mr. Antithesis's voice, but the flat, digital tone of his automated system. "Mr. Antithesis requires twenty minutes. Please wait."

  Unusual. Typically, I'd be called in immediately after a meeting concludes. Mr. Antithesis doesn't like wasted time.

  I sit back down, crossing my legs at the ankle, the picture of patience. But as the minutes tick by, I become aware of sounds from beyond the heavy door. Muffled, distant, but unmistakable. Thuds. Crashes. Something that might be splintering wood.

  My heartbeat quickens. Never a good sign when you hear those sorts of noises coming from your boss's room.

  I glance at the intercom. No update. The sounds continue, punctuated by periods of silence that somehow feel more ominous than the destruction.

  Nineteen minutes and forty-five seconds after the instruction to wait, the intercom activates again. "Mrs. Zenith. Enter."

  I stand, smooth my pencil skirt, and approach the door. The polished handle feels cool against my palm as I turn it and step inside.

  The office is unrecognizable.

  Mr. Antithesis's workspace has always been immaculate to the point of sterility. Every surface gleaming, every item in its designated place, the air itself seeming filtered of impurities. The visual embodiment of his need for control.

  Now, it looks like a tornado touched down. The heavy mahogany desk is untouched, but I can't say the same for everything else around it. Shards of what might have been a crystal paperweight glitter across the floor. Bookshelves have been emptied, their contents scattered. The metal wastebasket that normally holds destroyed stress balls has been dented inward, as if crushed by a tremendous force. The large tub of hand sanitizer has spilled across the desk, pooling on the polished surface like blood.

  And in the center of this devastation stands Mr. Antithesis, looking as composed as ever.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Almost. His suit is still immaculate, his posture perfect. But his knuckles are raw, nearly bleeding from what must have been repeated impacts. His breathing, usually so controlled that it's barely perceptible, comes just slightly faster than normal. And his eyes are twitching slightly, red and raw like he'd been crying. I try to imagine it. It's not an image that I can form. He runs his hands through his hair and then retrieves a handkerchief from his desk before dabbing sweat from his forehead.

  Down, girl! Bloody white boy in a business suit covered in sweat, you're better than that.

  "Mrs. Zenith," he says, and his voice betrays nothing of the destruction around him. "Thank you for your patience."

  "Of course," I reply, stepping carefully around a broken chair leg. "I take it the meeting with Porcelain was... challenging."

  Mr. Antithesis glances around, seeming to fully register the state of his office for the first time. "Yes," he says simply. "We encountered some points of disagreement."

  Understatement of the century. I've never seen him acknowledge even the most minor frustration, let alone whatever triggered... this. I move toward the one remaining intact chair, careful not to look too directly at the evidence of his loss of control. Like a parent pretending not to notice a child's tantrum, once it's over.

  "I imagine you're wondering why I called you here today," he continues, as if we're having a perfectly normal business meeting in a perfectly intact office. He gets a new stress ball from his desk and begins methodically crushing it between his fingers, like he's trying to massage someone's heart back to life.

  "I assumed it was related to Porcelain's visit," I reply.

  "Yes." The stress ball deforms in his grip, the material straining. "Porcelain has made a request. One we cannot refuse."

  I wait, outwardly patient. Inside, anxiety builds like the pressure system before a storm.

  "He wants us to extract someone from Daedalus Correctional Facility."

  I can hear the gentle creaking of a nonexistent string above my head. Tied to it, of course, is a giant fuck-off sword that's going to skewer me any time now. Of course. If your blackmail victim is slow-rolling you, go above her head to her boss. I mean, it's what I'd do. I can't be too mad.

  "Who?" I ask, because it's the only question I can form.

  "Daisy Zhen," he says. "Deathgirl."

  "I see," I say, pretending this is the first time I'm hearing about this. "And I assume refusing is not an option."

  "No." Mr. Antithesis's fingers tighten around the stress ball until it finally gives way, splitting open with a soft pop, thick, gelatinous... stuff spilling out from the inside. He chucks it at the wastebasket without looking, and gets another one, and gets back to squeezing. His knuckles strain, pulsating from white to red as he squeezes. "It is not."

  "May I ask why he wants her?"

  "He's informed me that the government has put Daisy back in contact with her parents, and they are making a concerted effort to therapeutically fix her. He has informed me that he would prefer that not happen," Mr. Antithesis croaks, his voice clearly raw from yelling. If he has an opinion on the matter, he's not going to share it.

  "How quaint," I say, folding my arms over my chest, and then thinking better of it. Back down by my sides.

  "He has also made it clear that he will expose your connections to the Kingdom of Keys if we aren't able to break her out of Daedalus," he says, face visibly twitching. He's clearly trying to control it, and it's clearly not working. "What a strange man. Why does he not simply kidnap another poor immigrant child?"

  "I understand," I say, trying to suppress any visible fear. "What did you negotiate?"

  Mr. Antithesis moves behind what remains of his desk, straightening a lamp that somehow survived the destruction. "Red Calf will provide operational support - personnel, equipment, some intelligence on Daedalus's systems. We will handle planning, logistics, and ground coordination."

  "And the risk?" I ask. "When Daedalus is breached, every federal agency in the country will be looking for those responsible."

  "Which is precisely why Red Calf will take point on the actual infiltration," he says. "Their operatives will handle the most visible aspects. They simply gave an itemized list of the most important members of the Kingdom of Keys that they'd like to see there, and how your powers will be useful to the effort. How they got such a list is beyond me."

  I flinch. It's a small mercy, at least. Better to have Red Calf's international mercenaries as the face of the operation than the Kingdom's Philadelphia branch. Still, the risk is astronomical. Daedalus isn't just a prison - it's a fortress designed specifically to contain the worst people in the world. The most dangerous people. Not just supervillains, but the misanthropic supervillains, the sadists, the kinds with no compunctions about killing people. For whom violence is like breathing. The kind of nutcases we have no use for.

  "This is insanity," I say before I can stop myself. Then, it just starts coming out. "There's a reason nobody has done this. It's the most heavily guarded place maybe on the planet. They specifically split up members of criminal groups among the Hells so that there's no coordination or incentive to rescue someone. It's nestled in the middle of the mountains with no easy access to and from. They've even got help from the fucking Mounties. Ocean's Eleven this isn't. The people doing financial crimes are locked up elsewhere, there's no financial incentive. Most of these guys are too unstable to exist in polite society. They aren't even useful. What does Red Calf even have to gain besides Deathgirl?"

  I flick a hand out, agitated. "Anything useful you need from Deathgirl we've already got in a petri dish. He could just talk to Mrs. Xenograft. I have to assume chaos is the primary objective here, but why the fuck would you want a bunch of psychopathic murderers flooding the Northeast? I thought Red Calf was beyond this sort of Rogue Wave bullshit. If he wanted to regime change the Rodriguez administration I know for a fact he could just walk up and turn the President into a red smear on the wall and nobody could do anything about it."

  Mr. Antithesis's expression doesn't change, but something in his eyes sharpens. I inhale through my nose. I can hear his voice in my head - control yourself, Maya. "I'm well aware of the operational challenges, Mrs. Zenith. I'm also aware that we have no choice in the matter. Porcelain was quite clear about the consequences of refusal."

  I take a deep breath. Control the emotion, control the situation. Calm yourself. Visualize pretty pink flowers. "I understand," I say again, more measured this time. "And I assume my role will involve weather manipulation to assist the operation?"

  "Yes." He nods once, brisk and businesslike despite the chaos surrounding us. "Your abilities will be essential for creating conditions that hamper security response while providing cover for the extraction team. He's informed me that there is a position up the mountain that would be very conducive to mudslides, downhill floods... lots of options."

  I've used my powers for the Kingdom's benefit many times over the years - creating fog banks for operations requiring stealth, generating wind patterns to disrupt surveillance drones, producing localized rain to wash away evidence. But this... this is different. This is federal. This is the kind of operation that ends careers, that destroys organizations, that gets people killed or worse. Not to mention the fucktillion dollar penalties on even misdemeanor acts of weather alteration. Weather alteration in commission of a federal crime? Really bad. In commission of this particular crime? They don't even have numbers for the amount of life sentences and fines I'll get shoved up my asshole.

  "AaaaaaaauUUUAAAAAGGH!" I scream, unable to help myself, gripping my hair. I almost start pulling. Then. I take another deep breath. Control yourself, Maya. Control yourself, Maya. Control yourself, Maya.

  "I concur," Mr. Antithesis cracks. The upper corners of his lips twitch.