The walk takes longer than it should. The streets are getting bad - not impassable yet, but close, the kind of slick where every step is a negotiation with gravity. Cars are crawling, when they're moving at all. A bus is stopped at an angle on Cottman, hazards flashing, passengers filing out into the sleet. We pass them without looking, two figures in winter coats with hoods up, nothing to see here.

  Amelia's got one of her whips in her hand, coiled loose, ready. I've got my hands in my pockets, fingers curled, feeling the glove lining stiffen against my palms. The cold is brutal but the suit's helping - the sharkskin layer traps heat better than it has any right to. My face is the problem. The mask covers most of it but my eyes are watering, tears freezing on my cheekbones.

  We're three blocks out when we see the first Kingdom guys. Two of them, standing under an awning outside a check-cashing place, trying to look casual. They're not good at it. One of them's got a crowbar tucked under his coat, visible when he shifts. The other one keeps looking up and down the street like he's waiting for a signal.

  Amelia doesn't slow down. She pulls a whip out from her belt - long, thin, and I see the tip glint for a moment - and cracks it once, hard, at the ground between them. I see the light happen before the sound, a sort of thin, reedy wave of luminescence traveling through it like an LED strip all turning on at once.

  Then, the sound.

  It's enormous. It echoes off the buildings, sharper than a gunshot, and there's a burst of orange sparks and white light where the metal tips hit concrete. Both guys flinch. The one with the crowbar actually drops it.

  "Walk away," Amelia says. Her voice through the modulator is deeper than her natural register, flattened, almost bored. "You don't want to be here for some Brain-type's playtesting, do you?"

  They look at each other. They look at us. They can't see our faces, can't see anything except two shapes in dark winter gear, one of them holding something that just made a noise like the world cracking open. With a whip. That made sparks.

  They walk away. Fast.

  "That worked better than I expected," I mutter, quiet enough that they can't hear.

  "I think most people would make the same trade if they just saw that. Nobody wants to be where some supergenius is about to cause a localized earthquake." She coils it back up, clips it to her belt. "Two blocks."

  We keep moving.

  The next group is bigger - four guys on a corner, one of them with a baseball bat, the others with hands in pockets that probably aren't empty. They see us coming. They don't scatter like the first two. The one with the bat steps forward, says something I can't hear over the wind.

  Amelia cracks her flashing whip again, closer this time. Sparks shower across the icy sidewalk. The guy with the bat takes a step back.

  "Message from management," Amelia says, loud enough to carry. "New players on the field. You want to keep your skin, find somewhere else to be."

  It's theater. We're not here to fight these guys. We're here to establish a profile - two unknown villains moving through Kingdom territory, making noise, making people nervous. By the time we get to Alice, there'll already be reports filtering up the chain. Something's happening on Frankford. Something's coming.

  I crack my knuckles. "We've got stuff here that'll hurt you way worse than a gun will. Be a good boy and we'll put in a good word for you once we're done testing it. Maybe get it in your hands. But we don't want any friendly fire, do we?" I call out.

  The four guys melt away into the sleet. One of them's already on his phone. Good.

  One block out. I can see the hardware store now, the one with plywood still in its windows. There's a black SUV parked out front - Argus Corps markings on the side. Three figures in the perimeter: Patriot in his stupid flag-themed combat armor, Jett making small talk with some civilian, and Captain Devil doing that thing where he stands very still and watches everything at once.

  And there, coming out of the hardware store with a box in her hands, is Maya Richardson.

  Except it's not Maya. It's Alice, wearing Maya's face, wearing Maya's concerned expression, with Maya's big hair and dark skin, wearing Maya's big puffy jacket. She's talking to the store owner, an older guy with a bandage on his forehead - probably from the break-in last night. She's nodding, sympathetic, saying something I can't hear. Playing the part perfectly.

  Miasma's not visible. Which means he's inside, or around the corner, or - there. I catch movement near the unmarked car parked behind the SUV. He's leaning against it, arms crossed, looking bored. Close protection position. Exactly where he needs to be.

  "There," I say.

  "I see her." Amelia's already pulling out the other whip close to the front. I remember her making this one. Line. "Ready?"

  "No. Let's go anyway."

  She throws Line up and it catches the fire escape railing two stories up. The leather goes rigid as she pulls, and she starts climbing, hand over hand, fast and smooth. I follow on the ladder itself, the Remora gloves gripping the frozen metal rungs so hard it feels like they're fused to my palms.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  We don't hide. That's not the point. We climb up to the roof, then we climb back down - on the other side, the side that faces the street, where everyone can see us. Line wrapped around a drainpipe, Amelia rappelling down like she's done this a thousand times. Me following, finding handholds on the brick that shouldn't exist, the gloves turning every crack and ledge into a grip point, bounding down like a superhuman instead of like an extremely athletic teenager. Everything looks more enhanced when you're in a scary costume.

  We land in the middle of the street and take our hoods down. Amelia brings out the sparking whip and cracks it - hard.

  "Maya Richardson," Amelia calls out. Her voice carries even over the wind. "Message from management."

  Alice-as-Maya freezes. I watch her face - Maya's face - cycle through reactions. Confusion, then fear, then the kind of controlled calm that politicians learn. She doesn't run. She steps back toward the store, toward the civilians, which is exactly what Maya would do. Protect the optics.

  "The article this morning," Amelia continues, walking forward slowly. I match her pace, flanking left, keeping my body loose. "That's on you. You made things hot. Management is... disappointed in your performance."

  Argus Corps is moving. Patriot's already stepping forward, putting himself between us and Maya. Jett's elbows snap out like she's cocking a shotgun in each arm. I try not to look at Captain Devil. But he's flanking me, and it's making my heartrate skyrocket.

  Miasma hasn't moved. He's still by the car, watching. Waiting.

  "Stand down," Patriot says. His voice is exactly what you'd expect from a guy who calls himself Patriot - loud, commanding, used to being obeyed. "You're outnumbered and outmatched. Surrender now and this doesn't have to get ugly."

  "Wasn't talking to you," Amelia says. She's not even looking at him. She's looking past him, at Alice, at Maya's face on Alice's body. "We're here for her. The rest of you can walk away."

  "That's not happening," Patriot replies.

  I get the doohickey prepped on the back of my utility belt. And then I whip it out. And then Amelia moves.

  A third whip comes out from the back, the back left of her belt, so she can cross over, grab it, and snap upwards in the returning motion. It uncoils like a living thing, snapping toward Patriot's face. He's fast, faster than he should be, peak human reflexes living up to the name. He gets his arm up in time to block, and the whip wraps around his forearm instead of his face. It cracks limply around his limb, wrapping around it faster than I can see.

  That's why she has the fourth whip. Four out of four. This one is flat, stumpy, brown and black, and it moves in a way I thought whips couldn't move, not that I spend a lot of my time thinking about them. It curls, coils, and loops, whirling around itself, aiming for Patriot's ankle. He hops over it, and while he's airborne, Amelia pulls with her other hand.

  Well, Amelia tries to pull. It gets him off balance. Then, he grabs her long whip, the third one, the one for hurting, thin and narrow like a sword's blade, and as he falls he yanks her. It's tug of war, and she's not ready.

  I'm already moving. Not toward Patriot - toward the civilians. The store owner, a couple of people who came out to see what the noise was, a woman with a kid who should not be here, what is she even doing out in this weather with a child--

  I pull the thing from my belt. It looks like a weapon. It's shaped like a weapon, all angles and implied threat, matte black with a little red light on the side that blinks when I press the button. It's a prop. The red light is an LED. The whole thing is plastic and pepper spray.

  But they don't know that. I think about Jordan's fake prop gun, and how everything we do is just replays of the same tricks in different contexts. What did Jordan call it? A Graviton Beam Emitter? From... Blame?

  "Everyone back!" I shout, and my voice comes out wrong through the modulator, harsh and mechanical. "Inside! Now! Move! Or I'll turn you from meat into neutronium in an eyeblink!"

  The woman with the kid moves. The store owner moves. People scatter, running for doorways, for cover, away from the scary villain with the scary weapon. I'm herding them like sheep, and they don't know I'm doing them a favor. Amelia has ended up in a snowbank when I wasn't looking, getting her bearings while Patriot tries to bear down on her, all whips retracted. All I heard was cracking under my voice, but I wasn't looking enough to see. I have to just trust her.

  "Jett!" Patriot's voice cuts through the chaos. "Devil! Get them into custody!"

  Jett hesitates. I see it - the pause, the calculation. She looks at Patriot, looks at me, looks at the civilians I'm menacing, looks at Maya.

  "We need to get the councilwoman out first," she says. "Then the civilians. That's what a hero does."

  "That's not the priority. Apprehend--" Patriot protests.

  "Miasma, you cover Maya. I'll block the route," Captain Devil orders, invisible claws raking snow and ice out from the sidewalks, smashing it down into malformed, lumpy bricks. "Jett, you handle the civvies."

  "That's not what I--" Patriot starts. Then he stops. "Fine. Delegation. I can handle these upstarts."

  He doesn't even sound mad anymore, which scares me.

  "Gear three!" Jett roars, her skin going flush red in an instant. That's some serious firepower she's bringing out as the first move.

  Patriot turns himself back towards Amelia. "Let me show you newbies what a superhero... team looks like."

  Jett already is flying towards me, throwing herself off the ground at cannonball speeds, until I aim my prop at her and she grabs the ground to disengage. Captain Devil's got Alice by the arm and is guiding her toward the unmarked car, toward Miasma, who's already opening the back door.

  "Get in," Miasma says, and Alice does, because that's what Maya would do, that's what a scared politician would do when her security tells her to get in the car.

  The door closes. The engine starts. I watch the car pull away, tires finding traction on the icy street, and something in my chest loosens. That's it. That's the trap closing. Alice is in the car with Miasma, heading somewhere secure.

  Protective custody. Mission accomplished.

  Amelia is cracking the sparking whip and the hurting whip at Patriot, one in each hand, like a swordfighter from a movie. I can smell him - I can smell each tiny cut forming as she lashes into his face, cuts microtears in his costume with the metal parts of the sparking whip, tears tiny little gouges into his skin.

  But he's a soldier. He doesn't flinch, and he's used to pain.

  Amelia brings down both whips, trying to hit him in the balls, and he snatches both of them out of the air. "Stingray, let go!" I yell as Jett flies past me again, narrowly avoiding getting spear'd in the stomach by her skull. She skids to a halt in front of a scared looking old man and spreads her arms out wide.

  I watch two whips fly through the air in the middle of my vision. Thankfully, not with an Amelia attached to the end of it. But that's still two down, and her other two aren't made for combat, I don't think.

  "If you want to mad science anyone, you're going to have to get through me, first. Shark boy," Jett hisses. "Or whatever the fuck."

  "Remora. Don't forget it," I hiss back, the modulator breaking my voice up into an electronic rasp. I look around. Most of the civilians are gone, herded out by Jett or Captain Devil. Storefront guy is cowering in his store. There's a big wall of snow that wasn't there a minute ago, and Patriot is bearing down on an Amelia missing two whips. Tactics blur in my head. The Multiplex in my brain and the Jordan in my brain are fighting. Effectiveness vs Theatre.

  Theatre wins. I point my prop towards the storefront.