APPROXIMATELY +0.10.3 POST-INCIDENT

  Sunday afternoon, Mod waited in the rain for the bus into Belport.

  There was a small group huddled under the bus stop. The crowd was smaller than most days—which fit considering it was a miserable day outside. It was rainy and close to freezing. No one wanted to brave the weather except for people that absolutely needed to. Almost everyone was dressed in work uniforms.

  Mod shrugged off both the temperature and the rain. His body wasn’t bothered by the cold anymore, and his outer layer of disguise nanites was completely water-repellent.

  When the bus finally arrived, Mod filed on with the others. Nanites hid his face and gave him a generic work uniform, and his system spoofed a fake bus pass. Nanite earbuds even played the latest song by Starquake.

  Mod took a seat near the front of the bus and let the others file past him. Soon, he was just another commuter.

  But today he wasn’t going into Belport on business, and he wasn’t looking for a fight.

  He was going to see his family.

  And he’d put it off for far too long.

  ~

  Mod got off the bus and walked the blocks of rowhouses until he came to Hayden Avenue. His parent’s block was quiet, lined with chain-link fences and patches of lawn. If it was summer and the weather wasn’t so miserable, people would’ve been sitting on their porches. Most of the people were his parent’s age and knew each other by name.

  A feeling of homesickness overcame him. The block had barely changed, but his family had. Antony had gone to college. He’d made the football team but was still rehabbing his ankle, and was redshirting his first year. Darryl, Maci, and the nephews had moved out of the city.

  The reason Mod had chosen this particular Sunday to visit was that this was the first time in months that his family had all been in the same place.

  Mod stuffed his hands into his nanite hoodie as he walked. Not because he was hiding, but because it was comforting. He could almost pretend that he wasn’t a cyborg and that he wasn’t a villain. He could almost pretend that nothing had changed.

  A drone circled high overhead, but Mod didn’t pay it any mind. As far as the Summit or the Brotherhood went, there was nothing to worry about. Mod double-checked all of his protocols, but they were all working adequately. Someone might see him walking up his parent’s street, but his identity was hidden from all people and tech that mattered. He walked the street like a ghost.

  Still, there was a pit in Mod’s stomach—a stomach he no longer had.

  He wasn’t sure how his family would react to him showing up. He hadn’t exactly kept in contact since being branded a villain.

  The music in his earbuds faded, replaced by TINA’s voice. “You’re slowing down.”

  “I’m nervous,” he muttered.

  Time slowed to a crawl as Mod walked past those last few houses. As he walked past Darryl and Maci’s car. By the time he got to his parent’s house, it felt like he’d walked ten miles through sludge.

  Mod paused in front of his childhood house—only for a moment. But he saw it with new eyes. The brick front was pitted by decades of life, and he could see every individual imperfection. Even though it was winter, he could tell that Dad hadn’t kept up with the lawn. Strawberry knickknacks lined the windows, but even from the street Mod could see the layer of dust on them.

  It felt like he hadn’t been home in years. It hadn’t been that long… right?

  Mod opened the gate. Even the creak of the hinges sounded different. He walked up and knocked on the door.

  Voices from inside.

  Dad said, “Who could that be?”

  Darryl replied, “I’ll get it. Hopefully, they’re not hungry.”

  Mod let his mask fade. A second later, his older brother opened the front door. Darryl’s mouth dropped open.

  “Hey, bro.”

  It was a long moment before Darryl half-stammered, half-whispered a reply. “Emmett, what the—you can’t be here!”

  “It’s okay. I know about the surveillance. They can’t see me. You don’t have to worry.”

  Darryl let out a huge breath. Then he glanced back several times over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “I just… shit. Come in.”

  Darryl pulled Mod inside, then paused again. “Just… Stay there. Hold on a sec.”

  Darryl walked off again, leaving Mod waiting by the front door. He tried not to listen into their conversation, but it was all too easy these days.

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  “Dad, is dinner almost ready?” one of the nephews shouted. It sounded like both nephews were upstairs playing video games… They must’ve moved the old Gamebox upstairs.

  Darryl stammered, “No, uh—dinner’s not ready yet.”

  Mom replied, “It is ready. What are you—”

  “It’s not ready yet!” Darryl shouted to the boys. Then quietly, he added, “Mom, someone’s here. Nothing’s wrong. It’s alright—I think. And… I don’t know what to say.”

  Mod was already walking down the hallway to the kitchen. He walked up behind Darryl and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s okay, bro.”

  Mom and his younger brother, Antony, were in the kitchen. Both stopped and stared. Dad and Maci were sitting at the kitchen table. Both of them wore equally wide-eyed expressions.

  “Hi Ma. Dad. Tony. Maci. It’s me.”

  Antony walked over—not limping anymore. He grabbed Mod and hugged him tightly.

  “What took you so long?” Antony asked.

  Mod hugged his younger, but bigger, brother. “I couldn’t exactly come by for dinner.”

  Mod looked just over Antony’s shoulder and saw that the rest of the room was standing. Mom and Dad were arguing. So were Darryl and Maci. Any other day, Mod would’ve been able to keep up with what they were saying, but emotion overwhelmed him.

  Maci looked terrified. She kept glancing between Mod and the ceiling—upstairs where the kids were.

  Emmett almost said something, but Mom interrupted him. She stepped forward, but stopped halfway. Tears stained her cheeks.

  “All this time… You couldn’t call to say hello, or tell me that you were still alive?”

  His mom’s voice cut him deep. For the first time in a while, he didn’t feel like a superhero. He felt like a kid again. A kid that had messed up.

  “I couldn’t…” Emmett stammered. “Not until recently. They were watching you guys too closely.”

  It was only half a lie. He could’ve called or texted—could’ve hidden the transmission source… He could have—maybe he should have. But he didn’t.

  “I’m sorry, Ma.” He turned to Maci. “Please don’t look at me like that. I’m not—”

  “Not what?” Maci replied, trying to keep her voice down. She pushed Darryl away. “Did you kill that cape?”

  Kairon.

  “No,” Mod said flatly. “He got caught in the crossfire. I think it was the biomechs.”

  Another lie.

  Dad looked him up and down. “They say you’re a villain. What did you do?”

  Mod took a breath to steady himself. “Can… Can we just sit down? I’ll explain everything.”

  ~

  Explaining everything took longer than Mod expected. So long, in fact, that Maci finally fixed plates for herself and the nephews, then took them all upstairs. Neither Darryl nor Maci wanted the nephews to see Emmett. They either wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t keep the secret—maybe both.

  The rest of them sat around the dinner table.

  No one else ate.

  Emmett explained almost everything. He told them about the accident on Champion street where he almost died, and how Dr. Venture had to rebuild him. He didn’t go into the details, like Mutagen-A or the mods for his prosthetic arm. Dr. Venture had given Emmett the chance to be a superhero. Emmett took the chance and ran with it.

  He didn’t tell them anything about his teammates—nothing about Lock, Clara, McGuire, or Athena—though Clara’s name had been leaked as his accomplice. He glossed over The Freakshow, and didn’t give any grisly details about the war or the aftermath.

  Mom, Dad, Antony, and Darryl listened, only asking the occasional question for clarity. Emmett was grateful for that.

  “So, why break into Gnosis?” Mom asked.

  Emmett sighed, then, in the briefest possible way, explained that Gnosis wasn’t just a beauty company. That they dabbled in mutagens and mercenary work.

  At the end, Emmett said, “Gnosis captured one of my friends, and they were experimenting on them. So, I broke in to get them out. It wasn’t about company secrets or whatever other bullshit the news said.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow at him for the language, then he shook his head. “I just don’t know, son.”

  Emmett glanced from one family member to the next—their faces marred by grief, reluctance, and shame.

  “I couldn’t just leave him in there. I’m one of the only people that could’ve saved him. It had to be me. What else was I supposed to do?”

  Dad wiped his face. “I don’t know. You should’ve come back. To us.”

  Dad looked like he wanted to say more but couldn’t find the words. Mom reached over and held his hand.

  Darryl chuckled nervously. “Maci is not gonna be happy about Gnosis. She loves their makeup.”

  No one laughed.

  Antony was across the table from Emmett, tapping his fingers in thought. “You left out something else. You left out the part where you and your group rescued some hostages during the war. That was you, right?”

  Emmett nodded. “...Yeah, that was me and my friends.”

  Antony smiled slyly. “Everybody likes to think they’re a hero—that they’ll stand up to the bad guy or save somebody… Well, my brother is a hero.”

  Smiles cracked through everybody’s faces. For a moment, it felt like time rolled back. It was just like any other Sunday dinner.

  But it wasn’t.

  And Emmett had to go.

  He stood, but didn’t have time to say the words out loud. His mom and brothers had jumped up to hug him, knocking over at least one chair. Dad was right behind them.

  “...I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Emmett said.

  Darryl wiped his eyes. “I mean, we don’t know when we’ll be back, either. But let us know and we’ll make an exception.”

  Emmett hugged each of his family again, all the while muttering that he had to go.

  At the end, Emmett walked to the front door. Then he glanced up at the ceiling—where Maci and the nephews were still upstairs.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Darryl said sheepishly. “It’s not like that though! Maci… she’ll come around. But the nephews… they miss you, you know? But it’s not a good idea… They saw the news.

  “They’re too young to understand where you’ve been. Too young to get that their heroes aren’t going to be perfect. And that doesn’t make them anything less. Maybe it makes them more.”

  Emmett smiled, but couldn’t find any more words. Then Mod engaged his disguise and walked out.

  He didn’t say goodbye.

  ~ ~ ~