Chapter Twenty — After Action Report

“You should really take a break, sir.”

“Soon enough, Vilmonica,” Ike sighed, looking away from the wall of his office.  Administrator Ichabod had spent at least thirty of the twenty-four hours after he returned from the moon taking care of various levels of panic.

At the top level, there were the superheroes and the politicians.  The countries who had seen what had happened and needed official reassurances with the official story.  A few people who had moon-based or themed powers that found them less – or more – powerful after the split.  King Mesker sending communiques thanks to Moonblast’s silence.  The need to issue official, clear, and soothing statements to the public that wouldn’t be contradicted by some later discovery.

Then there were the considerations internal to Star Central.  Agreements, infrastructure, a need to review everything that might possibly be affected by the phenomenon.  Another pass through their protocols, to ensure communications and responsiveness even when people were remote.  Machine Head’s devices continued to evolve and a large broadcast antenna was slated for the pinnacle of the Star Central building just to ensure people could keep in contact.

Finally, there were the people who had simply looked up at the sky – with the naked eye or the telescope – and seen the moon undergo mitosis.  The people of the Five Cities Alliance were to some extent inured to the kind of thing superpowers made possible, but usually anything that resulted from the clashes between hero and villain was transient and limited.  It might affect a few city blocks, though Ike had made it a point to keep as many high-level super-fights away from the cities as possible.  Intercepting threats while they were still below ground or out at sea had done wonders for Star City’s property values. 

Finally, though, the initial rush of business had been taken care of.  The journalists all had their stories, and while he’d been a little bit circumspect about exactly how and why the situation had resolved the way it did, he hadn’t hidden who was involved.  Of course, it had been The Custodian and Scheherazade, not Hartson and Miller, so it wasn’t like he was doing them an ill turn.

“It’s a shame your vacation was cut short,” Vilmonica observed, genuinely sympathetic.  Though Ike suspected she had enjoyed being fully in charge for the duration.  He couldn’t find fault with her work, either; even with him gone, none of the various villains or villainous organizations had done anything beyond the usual background static.  The cities had been peaceful, the patrols well-organized, the complaints handled. 

“I had never expected to get the full allotted time,” Ichabod replied.  “The universe has a very particular sense of humor.”

“Fair enough,” Vilmonica allowed.  “But your chair has been pinging me with stress telemetry for at least the past eight hours.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Ichabod said, though he hadn’t felt it much.  Rather, the chair had been doing an excellent job post-moon of keeping up with the normal vagaries of his damaged biology — though he was pretty certain he knew why.  As he had told Isaac, he was the gate to dreams.  He was his power, and his power was him.

For the first time in a very long time, he had some degree of control over it.  Things weren’t spinning wildly out of his grasp, rampaging unchecked with only the suppressant drugs and magitek to keep it from emerging to full manifestation.  It meant that the life support chair wasn’t fighting against his natural state anymore, and while aiming for actual healing might be too much, there were changes on the horizon.

“We’re going to have to book in The Custodian for further work, I think,” Ichabod said, as he began closing down the various files he had open.  “His initial pass on my talent was a bit of a rush job, and some more deliberation might result in something close to actually usable.”

Ike had very deliberately asked Hartson to make it harder for his power to wield itself, but that cut in many directions.  Not only could Ichabod not easily wield it consciously, but the resistance to change meant that the normal suppression didn’t do much either.  Fortunately, the manifestations were almost nonexistent, and mostly confined to ephemeral, harmless things like dream-fish and phantom sounds, but the fact that their existence couldn’t be blocked was troublesome.

That was one unpleasant discovery that prevented him from pitching Hartson’s reinforcement to every super in the employ of Star Central.  It was not a unilateral upside, especially for those who worked closely with another super, and could very easily stymie the growth of their younger members.  Resistance to change was resistance in both good and bad ways. A personalized session working with Hartson on specific points might still do wonders, as it had with Miller, but that was a case by case basis and still came with risks.

“Of course,” Vilmonica said, making a note on her own console to put into the schedule.  “That is quite the change in attitude, especially given your last adventure.”

“It’s obvious that The Custodian and Scheherazade aren’t a danger.  At least, of the sort that supervillains pose,” Ichabod said after a moment.  “They are, of course, as much of an unintentional danger as any powerful super, but despite his antipathy toward authority The Custodian has an internal code, and we can work with that.  We have worked with that, in the past.” 

He did worry about Miss Miller’s inclinations if she were ever on her own, but that wasn’t him being uncharitable.  Supervillain recidivism was higher even than that of ordinary criminals, and while the success stories were given an enormous amount of press, they were in the minority.  So far it didn’t seem to be an issue, but he was understandably leery of what she could become given The Custodian’s ability to boost or alter other people’s talents.

That particular experience did mean that he’d put a higher alert on the pair.  They might well be the target of supervillain attacks once the knowledge percolated out, and while they could take care of themselves to some extent, an ounce of prevention was worth several tons of cure.  Especially given that Hartson’s talent had a tendency toward uncontrollable side effects.

“Should I put them on the list of preferred consultants?”  Vilmonica asked, fingers poised over her keyboard.

“I think we have to,” Ichabod said.  It was simply a fact of life that some supers were more important, effective, or reliable than others.  Transportation and healing supers, for example, could demand whatever they liked for their services, and were given special consideration.  On the other side of the scale, Noir Guy was a private investigator whose only powers were sensory, and minor at that.  But he was so good at finding missing persons that he was given preference over actual diviners.

Vilmonica made the entry without further comment, and Ike found that his list of most urgent items was finally depleted.  There were still reams of things to do, but nothing that wouldn’t keep for another eight or ten hours.  Finally he was able to bid her a good evening and retire to his own quarters, where he slept far better than he had in years.

He did not dream.  That would have been redundant.

The following weeks were for the most part business as usual, despite the cataclysmic shift that had just happened. Blacktime made trouble and Glorybeam curtailed it.  Endymion needed help against the biotitan menace.  The druids needed some guards as they tried to negotiate with Lance Ultima for a dragon egg, as they tried every year, and once again were refused. 

Yet something was different.  Change, once started, was hard to stop, and his power was no longer stuck in the damaged stasis created by the Sovereign of Lies.  The life-support chair, after it had been thoroughly vetted and tweaked by Hands, Star Central’s primary tinker, was working better than ever.  Entire subsystems started to go quiescent, their services unneeded as his body began operating on its own.

His sessions with Hartson accelerated the process.  The man had told Ike that he couldn’t fix things, that wasn’t how it worked.  He couldn’t undo anything.  Ichabod understood power nuance and the restrictions of the real world well enough that he never would have asked for such a panacea, but other people would definitely see the talent that way and request services as such.

They weren’t technically keeping track of The Custodian’s clients, but he was sure Vilmonica would have known if he asked.  He didn’t, for the sake of his own blood pressure if nothing else.  Not that it was nearly as much of a problem as it used to be, as the gate repaired itself and things that were previously entirely intractable began to resolve themselves.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all upside.  Each incremental step toward his power being more fully under his control, more resistant to any influence but his own, meant a step toward reality itself having no sway against his talent.  Manifestations became significantly more dangerous, with some judicious testing showing that they were just as he remembered — manifestations, rather than something he, or anyone else, could control directly. 

He hadn’t quite reproduced the exact circumstances that had resulted in Savage and Bubs, but he didn’t want to.  The tests had also showed that many of the manifestations were much closer to truly real than he’d been able to consciously manage in the past.  In some ways, his talent was going further than before it had been broken.

“If it were only my control that were the issue, it would be easier,” Ike confessed to Glorybeam over lunch some weeks into his treatment, on one of the occasions that she was back at Star Central.  Unlike him, her talent had come back more or less as it had been before the suppression.  She didn’t have any issues with her power being too real; if anything, the time unpowered had given her a unique opportunity to reflect and approach her abilities in a new light.  “Even if I don’t have a shadow of his might, I believe I might understand how Teraton felt before he left.”

“A superhero exercises their power with caution and restraint,” Glorybeam noted.  “If you feel that is becoming difficult, you should trust your judgement.  There are others around who have great power and rarely use it for that very reason.  You should seek their advice.”

“Good point,” Ichabod said, casting his mind over records that he had read but weren’t officially kept.  Retired superheroes were rare, and usually were not to be bothered.  There were areas in the Five City Alliance – and for that matter, the Isle of Leaves and southern kingdoms – where no supervillain dared operate.  Park of Ike wished everywhere could be like that, but it would wind up a draconian, totalitarian state of affairs.  The laws of the jungle weren’t the laws of civilization. 

“Is there anyone you would suggest in specific?”  Ichabod didn’t actually know who Glorybeam’s contacts were.  He had not been, at least for the better part of a century, part of the club that included sovereign supers, even if he was theoretically in charge of them.  Part of that was his infirmity; the chair restricted his mobility and anonymity, as well as being full of magic, technology, and exotic energies that would be unpleasant for those of certain senses.  But it was also just his lack of capability; it was hard to stand among the heroes of past ages when his present was so far different.

“I’ll get you a list,” Glorybeam promised, very precisely cutting a bite of her quiche.  He’d always been struck by how ordinary she looked with the helmet off, not at all like, for example, Vilmonica’s fashion-model beauty.  It wasn’t a problem, but more of an indication of a choice, one that explained why she’d been one of the most dependable sovereigns he’d ever worked with.  Her priorities put her own ego down near the bottom of the stack, and that was rare for anyone, not just supers.

It was an important consideration for the future.  Ichabod had seen more than enough paths taken by both hero and villain to think that he would stay where he was, as the head of Star Central.  It was a perfect place for him as superhero emeritus, but now that his power had returned he wouldn’t be able to sustain the required distance.  The temptation – the duty – to personally interfere the next time there was a crisis would take him out of the role of objective and impartial observer, and he wasn’t sure how well he’d listen to anyone trying to tell him his business.

He was glad he’d had the foresight to groom a proper successor in Vilmonica, as he was certain she could take over the operations entirely in the very near future.  With Machine Head’s communications creations, an information super was actually more suited to the role than he was, despite his experience.  It wasn’t a good idea to have the same person running an institution for generations on end, but he’d not had any good reason to stop.

Considering it, he found that he really wasn’t that bothered by the idea of giving up the mantle.  It’d been something he’d done for a long time, and was good at, but the sudden change of circumstances made him find it perhaps less fulfilling than it once was.  Sometimes in the course of events, the ending of a lifetime’s habit was simple and natural.  It was rare, but it seemed this was such a case.

Following Glorybeam’s advice, Ichabod found himself talking with an elderly gentlemen sitting on a park bench in one of the more upscale areas of the city some days later, one of the retired Elemental Patrol that Ike had seen rise and eventually fade during his tenure.  He was one of the people on Glorybeam’s list, and while Ike was technically older than the retiree, that wasn’t the same as having the proper experience. 

“None of us ever managed sovereign,” the retiree mused, running a finger along the strip of eternium that he used as a bookmark.  “But we all learned that it’s not about whether your power grows or fades as you age.  It’s about whether you can let it go and trust the younger generation — or whether your duty is your highest calling.”

“I’m not sure I fit into either category,” Ichabod mused.  He sure wasn’t ready to fade into the background, but neither did he feel an attachment to taking up the nominal hero life.  If nothing else, he certainly wasn’t aging gracefully like the retiree.  After his sessions with Hartson, he was fairly certain he was growing younger.  He might even start sprouting hair again.

“Well, there is the third option,” the retiree said, unconcerned.  “Teraton took it.  Galatea took it, as did The Third Hand.  There’s a whole wide universe out there, where things work different from here.  They say that Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.  There are some who outgrow it or simply deviate too far from what Earth is.”  He reached up to tap the circlet that held his gem.  “These came from someone who encountered the same issue on his home planet, and eventually ended up here.”

“I had not considered that,” Ichabod said after a length silence.  He also hadn’t known the origins of the Elemental Patrol’s gems, but there were so many ancient artifacts and lost power sources that it was impossible to keep track of them all.

“If we had continued on, I think we would have become too much of something else,” the retiree said.  “Either too powerful, too strange, or too enslaved by our own talents to be the kind of superheroes we wanted.  But this is my home, so I decided I would rather be human and enjoy humanity than push the limits of my power.  Which I have never regretted,” he finished, waving a hand at the park in front of him. 

Ike took a moment to regard it.  A few young couples strolled here and there; a gaggle of children climbed trees.  Two elderly women gossiped as they walked their pet mini-raptors, beehive hairdos competing with each other to be the most towering and ridiculous coiffure in the park.  He understood what the retiree was talking about in the abstract, but he didn’t feel some deep and fundamental connection to the place himself. 

Instead, he felt the dreams that underlay it.  The drowsing potential of the park itself.  The lazy summer imagining of the young couples, laying out a halcyon future.  The fond reminisce of bygone days from the older women.  Even the retiree’s dreams spoke to him, those of safety and security for the people he had once protected.

On another layer were the nightmares, fears half-manifested and sequestered, of loss, of embarrassment, of simple and nonsensical things.  Nothing that he wanted to touch, but he could sense them regardless.  An entire world that nobody else noticed, and one that was becoming more real to him than the one most people lived in.  In time, he might strain to tell which was which.

In a way, that answered the implicit question posed by the old superhero.  What held Ichabod around was not the attitude of a superhero.  A hundred years and more without access to his power had buried that.  His loyalty, such as it was, lay with Star Central and what he’d built there, but that was already something that he knew he needed to give up.

“Thank you for speaking with me,” Ike said, after he realized the silence was stretching on.  “It’s helped.”

“Of course,” the retiree said with a smile.  “You may not remember it, but you helped us when we were just starting out.  I’m just glad I can return the favor.”

Ichabod offered the man his hand before steering the life-support chair off and away, circling back toward the converted hovercar that Hands had provided. At the very least, his newfound control meant that he didn’t require a replacement for the travel saucer.  Fortunate, since the budget for even the most modest replacement was shockingly large.

While his thoughts seemed to be converging toward an inevitable conclusion, there were a few loose ends Ichabod felt the need to tidy up.   Debts he owed, which he wasn’t about to abandon, and old friends and acquaintances that he needed to find.  And old enemies.

Blacktime had been a thorn in the side of the Five City Alliance for decades, and the problem was the man was unkillable.  Even for other sovereigns, the time powers were difficult to deal with, and that wasn’t even taking into account his relationship with Glorybeam.  Something that even Ichabod didn’t fully understand, but accepted regardless. 

But maybe it wasn’t necessary to kill him to neutralize the threat.  He rarely cleared a kill on sight order for supervillains anyway, given the amount of collateral damage they could do when backed into a corner, so there was a long tradition of turning or otherwise neutralizing a villain.  Quietly or publicly.  Before, the only handle he had on Blacktime’s behavior was Glorybeam, but now that his power was settling back in there was another possibility.

Blacktime’s motives were simply a desire to own and control.  Simple, but normally very difficult to leverage.  Ichabod, though, could reach out and touch those directly.  Not the base drivers, that sat underneath the man’s personality, but the architecture of future imagining that those drivers had created.  What he dreamed of doing and being.  Gates, after all, worked both ways.

Sadly, he couldn’t discuss it with Glorybeam, since on the topic of Blacktime he couldn’t count on her otherwise flawless professional detachment.  Hopefully she’d appreciate it, though, since Ichabod already had an idea of what alterations he’d make.  Bring Glorybeam to the forefront of those dreams, minimize the aspect of criminal empire.  Introduce the seeds of going legitimate, of earning as much respect publicly has he had in the shadows.

It wouldn’t be instant.  It wouldn’t pay off until, quite likely, years in the future.  It was, in fact, something he would have to be careful not to even admit he could do.  Partly because of how close to mind control it tread, but also because it was the kind of power whose mere existence caused disruption among heroes and villains alike.  Admittedly, most sovereigns had that effect, but if he didn’t trust himself to carry the mantle of a sovereign, there was only downside.

He would be quite tempted to deal with Mechaniacal the same way, but it didn’t seem to be possible.  Either the man was protected against Ike’s power – which seemed likely – or Mechaniacal’s dreams were mundane enough to be lost against the background noise of humanity.  Which depressingly was also entirely possible. 

Or it could simply be that the man was too far away.  His tower still existed in Star City, the facility employing a trickle of machinists and marketing advisors and putting out small tchotchkes and amusements.  It wasn’t competing on anything of significant importance, which was probably for the best since it was obvious that Mechaniacal could have replaced half the industrial base on his own if he really tried.  The tinker himself, though, seemed to be living somewhere in space, and the casual disregard for the distances involved was a bit breathtaking.

He steered the hovercar back toward Star Central, maneuvering it through the sparse air traffic.  Amusingly enough, he caught a glimpse of a crystal-winged raptor flitting along in the distance, and there were only two people in Star City who had one of those.  Although he expected not to see the dinosaurs again for a while, since the Deep Kingdom teleport network had finally been restored, and Hartson and Miller were scheduled to head down once again.  That, thank goodness, was not Ike’s problem.  Nor Star Central’s, as such; it was all a civilian endeavor, and they were welcome to it.

Ichabod had his sights on the far distance.

***

“Thanks for the help, Lou dear!” Dolores beamed at him as he finished shifting a sturdily-built refrigerator into place at the foster care. 

“Sure thing, Dolores,” Isaac said, doublechecking the position with the counter and peering behind it to make sure he hadn’t accidentally unplugged any of the hookups when he was moving it into its nook.  “Just glad to see you got a new place.”

It would be a stretch to say that Mechaniacal’s tower had revitalized the area.  More like taken it over, displacing people and facilities, but that had come with more than adequate compensation and so the foster care had moved into a building that was less blandly utilitarian.  Smaller than the last one, too, which was a good thing.

“It’s been an adjustment,” Dolores admitted.  “It was a bit more expensive than I budgeted for, too. But we got a few donations to help shore up the gaps.”

“Good to hear,” Isaac said, straightening up and carefully keeping his face neutral.  He was one of those anonymous donors, thanks to the income from his super job. Mostly Ike; Star Central paid really well for what was itemized as power consultation services on the invoice.

“Have to say, though, by the time we left I could swear that the old building was cleaning itself,” Dolores laughed, and Isaac nodded along.  “I was just so used to it!  And of course you did such good work, Mister Lou.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll fall into habit pretty quickly for this one, too,” Isaac said, not mentioning that he’d already used his power to make the cleanliness stick a little bit better for the new building. Making a few changes more difficult and a few easier did wonders in reducing the amount of maintenance required. 

“Probably, but it’s so strange!   Better than rattling around in that old place though,” Dolores said, helping him restock the refrigerator with the contents of the previous one.  “Are you doing well though, Lou?  I mean, I know it’s volunteer and all, but you missed a few weeks…”

“Oh, I’m fine,” he assured her.  “I was just really busy with a very big cleanup.  Took a lot of work, but it was worth it.”

“Hah!”  Dolores smiled conspiratorially.  She was aware he had superpowers, thanks to Greg’s attack on the foster home all those months ago, but she hadn’t brought it up and neither had he.  But with a comment like that, she could read between the lines.  Probably not correctly, but enough to figure he was involved in super work.  “Well, glad someone is out there cleaning up messes.”

“Speaking of, I might be gone for another week or more,” he said.  “On vacation.  So if there’s anything else that needs doing, we’d better get it done now.”

“No, no, you’ve done enough,” Dolores waved him off.  “I can dust the shelves myself.  And the new laundry machines make that a breeze.  You go enjoy your vacation.”

“I will,” Isaac assured her, stuffing the last of the packing material into a trash bag.  “Have a nice day, Dolores.”

She showed him out, and he tossed the trash bag into the nearest dumpster before heading off along the street.  Ducking into a nearby alley, he pulled off the bald cap and fake moustache, stripping off the overalls and settling his shirt as he packed Lou’s accouterments into a small bag.  A few moments later, Shay responded to his mental call and fluttered down to land beside him.

“Thanks, girl,” he said as he climbed aboard, and got a scoff through the bracelet as she took to the air again on the way back home.  Clearly she wasn’t all that impressed by his spending time in the less desirable part of the city, especially when there weren’t too many parks around for her to terrorize squirrels or the like, but she’d hung around nonetheless.  Though she was probably just impatient to get going, since they were scheduled to depart to the Deep Kingdoms in just a few hours.

When he made it home, Sarah was finishing up with her luggage, with Astoria waiting impatiently in the garage.  She gave him a hug and a kiss as he wandered up, a spare pencil case dangling from her hand. 

“Orphanage doing okay?” She knew where he’d been, of course.  Despite everything, Lou was still one of his favorite personas and probably the easiest one to use around the city.  Of course, it wasn’t like Isaac Hartson was infamous either.

“Yeah,” Isaac said, giving her a squeeze before taking a few steps to pick up the luggage he’d put by the door before heading out to do his rounds.  “Everything’s fine, but I still feel a little weird.”

“Think something is going to happen?” Sarah asked, taking a moment from her packing to regard him seriously.

“I think it’s more that I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Isaac said, doing one last idiot-check before loading his duffels into Shay’s barding.  There was always something he forgot.

“Well, if nothing has come of it yet, I think we’re in the clear,” Sarah agreed, vigorously scratching Astoria under the chin as they waited.  “And if we’re not, I think even Moonblast would have a hard time finding us in the Deep Kingdoms.”

“Feels a bit like when we went down there the first time,” Isaac muttered, though that was definitely overstating matters.  They weren’t really fleeing trouble, Isaac wasn’t semi-wanted for what he’d done, and he wasn’t nervous about just holding hands with Sarah.  If anything, the official and public sentiment toward The Custodian’s role in what had happened to the moon was neutral to positive.  Aside from a small number of astronomers who were absolutely livid, of course.  There were still screeds in the opinion section of every paper complaining about it.

Aside from that, there was nobody out for blood.  Moonblast hadn’t come by Star City to try and find them, and they’d even received a thank-you and their payment from the new reestablishment embassy.  Most of the lunarians who were on Earth had packed up and left to their respective moons, showing that the majority were just around to try and get help for one side or the other.  Despite being far more of a big thing than dealing with Greg, there was far less fallout.

Of course, it probably helped that he was very firmly on the list of Star Central’s preferred businesses, between working with Ichabod’s talent and providing altered materials for tinkers.  He’d even loaned Cayleb the no-longer-functional demuto, and spent about half an hour listening to his brother rant about the intricacies of what was inside the pocket watch.  From what Isaac heard, Cayleb was still studying the thing months later, even if only a fraction of a percent of it was something that Machine Head could use.

“Well, this time we don’t have to go to a brawl-room,” Sarah laughed, smoke wisping as she rearranged herself to be on top of Astoria’s saddle in response to a horn sounding from outside.  He followed her example, hopping up on Shay and patting her neck as the two raptors padded out of the garage.  James was waiting outside with a tiny motorcade, the man still impressively large in his tailored suit, and this time he had a tactical rig with some large, tinker-made guns and shield projectors. 

“All set?” The question was mostly rhetorical, but Isaac nodded to James anyway as they joined the motorcade.

“We’re good,” he said, and James nodded back before squeezing himself into an armored car suited for his frame.  A ‘919 Holson Arms, which meant someone had imported it from the Mesker Kingdom at some point, which was pretty unusual to see in Star City.  A shame it was just a big brick of a car, rather than the sleeker, if smaller, domestic models.

Sarah still found it hilarious that despite Isaac’s appreciation for cars, he’d ended up with a living mount.  To be fair, he found it a bit amusing himself, but he definitely wouldn’t trade Shay for anything.  He still couldn’t help looking.

Their path, by pure happenstance, took them right through the street where he’d staged his heist as Dimetria, and he couldn’t help but think about how far different his life was now compared to back then.  He no longer worried about Star Central — or for that matter, hated them for their treatment of Blacktime.  After creating so many troubles with his own powers, he was far more aware of all the difficulties and complexities of dealing with supers.

He was no longer just a janitor.  In fact, he wasn’t even struggling with his own power, as he had been back then despite not realizing it.  It was so very easy to envision himself going his whole life without having realized the broader applications of changing inertia if it hadn’t been for his experience with the gang.  Specifically, his encounter with Sarah, which made him certain there was something going on and forced him to look into it. 

There was still more to learn.  There was always more to learn.  But he felt he finally had a true grip on his power, and what would come of it.  What to do with it.

He still had a sleepless night now and then after seeing what had happened on the moon, the collateral damage from what he had set in motion.  It was better than the scorched remains of towns that he’d seen on his tour, but it was still something to grapple with.  Sarah was less bothered by it, being acculturated to such things thanks to growing up in a powered community and being part of a supervillain gang, but he still had the heart of a dreg janitor.

Which was probably for the best.  He knew what lay down the Tyrant’s path, and he didn’t need that at all.  The Custodian was better for him, and there were always messes that needed cleaning up.