She found herself sitting in a car with Recompense that looked surprisingly normal, wearing the same clothes from the night before, anticipating how she would go back to her mother and what sort of lies she would use. If she rehearsed them enough beforehand, she’d almost be able to believe them herself.

  “Nervous?”

  So caught up in her own mind, she barely registered the word. “What?”

  “I asked if you were nervous,” Charles said. They’d stopped to pick up breakfast, so he could grab another coffee and she could pick something that at least looked appetizing. The bowl of egg whites, greens, and veggies sat on her lap, halfway eaten. She did have to admit, it was good.

  She shrugged. She wasn’t nervous, exactly, but her stomach continued to knot around the little bit she’d managed to stomach, so it wasn’t exactly normal.

  “Nervous is normal,” Charles said, as if reading her mind. “Even experienced heroes get nervous.”

  “Is this your way of saying you’re nervous?” Vivainne asked, eyeing the older hero. He’d been on the scene for all of Vivainne’s childhood, a figure children and adults alike looked to for salvation. Despite his ranking, he’d helped in saving the world more than once.

  “Would it make you feel better if I was?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  Vivainne found herself smiling. She had chosen this hero for a reason. She could have gone to anyone, run up to a hero on the street and begged for help, and they would have helped her. But for her entire childhood, Recompense had been the best, the most reliable, the smartest. She didn’t need brute force, or earth shaking power. She needed someone with brains, like her. And more importantly, her mother. If Vivainne wasn’t smart enough to outsmart her mother, she needed someone else who was.

  Someone who believed in justice, in compensating villains for the pain they caused. Recompense, more than anyone else, was known for putting villains away. Not just stopping them, preventing them, or salvaging what was left behind. Rather, taking them down, locking them away, and ensuring their victims got the help they needed in return.

  “I know you want us to put you in jail,” Recompense said. “Do you expect your mother to come bail you out?”

  “No, I plan on escaping,” Vivainne said. She’d been thinking about this, and it was the only way to avoid suspicion. She didn’t have her ID on her, and she could tell her mother she refused to talk to the cops before being able to escape. “So preferably, I’d like it if you would avoid turning on your evisceration ray, or whatever you have set up.”

  “That can be done,” Charles said with a chuckle. “I’d like to set up weekly check ins, at the very least.”

  Viv shook her head. “Not sure I’ll be able to do that. My mother is really controlling. And paranoid, at times.”

  “About you?”

  “About everything.” Vora was, above all else, a careful woman. There were times that, despite all she’d done, Vivainne admired her. Building a tech company from scratch, to the point of its widely acknowledged acceptance, was no small thing, and the work she did with it wasn’t the issue. It was the fact that she used it as a front to do invasive and dangerous research and experiments on supers that was the problem, and her knowledge could break a society that had finally settled into a sort of piece after decades of unrest.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Will she be suspicious of you?”

  “Not as much as others,” Vivainne said. Vivainne had never argued with her mother, never opposed her. By the time she was old enough to realize how messed up it was that Vora had experimented on her, she was old enough to know how to keep her mouth shut. And until she graduated highschool, Vora had mostly ignored her. “I am her… I don’t know how to put it. Not her prodigy, but her legacy, I suppose.”

  Charles nodded, keeping his eyes on the road, the Tower coming into view down the street. “You’ll have to play into that,” he said. “Make her think you’re playing along, working with her. Make her feel like you’re invested. Get her to show you everything she's working on. We need to see proof of her crimes, and her threat level.”

  “What do you mean, see?” Viv asked. “You can’t put a camera on me.”

  The look Charles gave her made her squirm. “Not on you, no.”

  ****

  Vivainne stared down at the miniscule items, unimpressed. “You want me to wear contacts?”

  “They’re cameras,” the tech said, a young man with pride radiating off him. “Uninvasive, undetectable. Perfect for spy work!”

  “And what about when I need to go to the bathroom? Or shower?”

  The tech paused, mouth half opened, and shot a look at Recompense. “Close your eyes?”

  Charles sighed and stepped over to the table, an electronic tabletop that could project holographically above it. He closed the case, lid snapping shut. “If you take them out, they’ll turn off. They’re powered by your body heat, and they immediately transmit to our servers here. Everything you see, we’ll see.”

  Vivainne nodded, then looked up at Recompense. He’s donned a lighter version of his iconic red and brown uniform, a domino mask and a suit in the same colors. Many of the people in the tower seemed to do the same, simple obfuscations of their identity, even for the support and techs, like the one in front of them. “Is that it? No magical bulletproof vest? No transportation focus?”

  Eyebrows raised, Recompense stared at her with a mix of amusement and exasperation. “Do you need any of those things?”

  She shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt.” Plus, it would be nice to have some level of protection or insurance.

  “We have audio recording,” Charles said, picking up another small box. He pulled this one forward, opening it to reveal a small, unassuming black hair tie. Frowning, Viv picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It looked just like any other elastic hairband, a small seam in the middle, no other imperfections.

  “This really records audio?” She looked between the tech and Recompense, eyebrows raised. She’d been raised around some of the top tech in the world, but still failed to believe they could fit any sort of microphone into something so small and flexible.

  Recompense pointed at the tech, who pressed a button on the tabletop. Vivainne’s jaw dropped as her voice played again through hidden speakers, clear as if recorded by a proper microphone.

  “Now that is impressive,” Viv managed after pulling her jaw off the floor. She’d known Recompense’s tech was good, but had never imagined it was this unnoticeable. She took the band and exchanged it for the one already in her hair, refixing the ponytail she had containing her long hair. A few pieces of black hair clung to the normal hair band, which she tossed in the nearby trash can.

  She looked up at Recompense, not ready to say what she knew she needed to say. “Anything else?”

  “No,” he said. “Everything is ready when you are.”

  “I guess it’s time to put me in jail, then.”

  Recompense delivered her to the jail hours after he should have, without the watch she always used to keep track of time. Without it, she had no idea how long it had been or what sort of time she was making with her escape, but it would have been suspicious if she still had it.

  She sat alone in the cell, fingers digging into the seam of her black skinny jeans as she waited for the guard to walk away like planned. They would give her an opening for escape, Charles had said. She just had to take it.

  Vivainne pushed off the bench, a sticky residue clinging to the surface. She didn’t want to sit on that anyway.

  Walking up to the edge of the cell, she peered out into the hallway, watching as the police officer walked away from the holding cells. This was her shot.

  She turned away, reaching into her core as she sprinted to the darkest corner of the cell. The darker it was, the easier it would be for her to use her power.

  Squeezing herself into the dim shadow, Vivainne activated her core, and her whole body went fuzzy as it turned into darkness and pressed into the metal cell wall.