+USER 132-411-234 [YOU] CONNECTED+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: Hello.+
+867-530-999: Hello, you’ve reached the Guild. What do you want?+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: I’m looking to meet with the Guild. In person.+
+867-530-999: Are you joining up?+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: No. I’m looking to contribute a little more directly, and want to see where I can do the most good.+
+867-530-999: The Guild doesn’t accept walk ins.+
+867-530-999: If you want to join, you’ll have to go through an evaluation first, and only after a trial period will you be allowed into one of our satellite bases.+
+867-530-999: We don’t trust strangers so easily.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Not a stranger. I’ve helped the Guild a couple times in the past.++867-530-999: Callsign?++132-411-234 [YOU]: Wraith.++867-530-999: Wait one.++867-530-999: Not getting anything on our databases. What faction are you with?++132-411-234 [YOU]: No faction.++867-530-999: …listen rookie, I’d like to help you. But we’ve been burned hard in the past.+
+867-530-999: You know what we do? We’re not just a big name because Dragon used to be one of us.++867-530-999: Being in the Guild means that you hunt the monsters. We fight at A-Class and S-Class emergencies.++867-530-999: If you want a rep, go talk to Armsmaster’s group. They do good work, and everybody loves them.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Who’s your CO?++867-530-999: Jesus, kid. Come back when you’re older. That ‘get your supervisor’ trick ain’t gonna work.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Voyager, Lurch, or Oscar, I’m betting.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Voyager owes me for Cairo in 2014.+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: Lurch was with me at the Birdcage in 2013.+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: Oscar owes me a beer from Samarkand, in 2012.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Go on. Ask them if they know Wraith.++867-530-999: Voyager says he doesn’t know you.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Ask him if Giza is on the west side or the east side of the Nile River.+
+USER 867-530-999 DISCONNECTED+
+USER 543-362-4368 CONNECTED+
+543-362-4368: Wraith. What do you want?++132-411-234 [YOU]: Voyager. Already said it up above, if your answering machine didn’t tell you.++543-362-4368: Yeah no, I’m not buying that. Not from you.++543-362-4368: The hell are you doing?++132-411-234 [YOU]: Honest truth. I want to do more.++132-411-234 [YOU]: I want to figure out where I could help the most. Already talked to Taxman with the Brigade.++543-362-4368: Oh? That didn’t work? What, you didn’t like the idea of rescuing starving orphans from the big fat cats?+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: I’m considering all my options before I make a final decision.++543-362-4368: All options? You gonna talk to Armsmaster? The Wardens? The RAF? The PRT’s little excuse of a team?++132-411-234 [YOU]: All options.++543-362-4368: You realize that if you join a faction, they’re gonna ask you to unmask?++132-411-234 [YOU]: I’m aware.++543-362-4368: I bet you’re real happy about that.++132-411-234 [YOU]: I’m aware.++543-362-4368: Heh. Well, if you wanna swing by the clubhouse, say hi to Narwhal, why not?++543-362-4368: I don’t buy the idea that you’re suddenly over your commitment issues.+
+543-362-4368: …though at the least, I can watch you struggle with ‘em in person.++543-362-4368: Besides, you already passed the entry criteria.++132-411-234 [YOU]: I’m not joining you just to get in.++543-362-4368: You don’t know? Heh. Now that’s funny.++132-411-234 [YOU]: You gonna be a polite Canadian and explain for your ignorant cousin down south?++543-362-4368: Entry to the Guildhall is restricted to members, or any Pilot or Parahuman who helped put down an A-class or S-class threat.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Kind of you to offer participation trophies.+
+543-362-4368: It’s not for attendance at a fight. Only counts if you have a kill claim, full or partial.+
+543-362-4368: And as you well know, so happens that you’ve got a few kills.+
+132-411-234 [YOU]: Be fair, you guys got the last one.+
+543-362-4368: Humble, too.++543-362-4368: You might not be a member, but you’ve helped with the mission. We respect that.+
+543-362-4368: When are you thinking of coming by?++132-411-234 [YOU]: Tomorrow morning. Let’s say around seven.++543-362-4368: Got it. I’ll be off-duty, but Lurch should be around for the morning shift.++543-362-4368: Since you mentioned Oscar, thought you should know. He bought the farm six months ago. Dragonslayers.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Shame. He was a good man.++543-362-4368: He was an asshole. Left his bar tab unpaid, owed something like a hundred people drinks.+ +543-362-4368: You want that beer, ask at base – the Guild keeps its word.++132-411-234 [YOU]: How’d it happen?+
+543-362-4368: Raid on one of our bases. Saint wanted more production equipment. Oscar took three Suits with him.+
+543-362-4368: We tracked down and killed every last Pilot from that squadron. That bastard Saint.++132-411-234 [YOU]: Fucking Saint.+
+543-362-4368: Hey. If you join Armsmaster’s little group of Heroes, do me a favor and give Saint a kick for all of us at the Guild before you kill him.++132-411-234 [YOU]: I’ll try, but there’s definitely a line.++543-362-4368: Yeah, and Armsmaster is number one through a hundred. Still, try for us.++543-362-4368: I’ll let Lurch know you’ll be swinging by.++543-362-4368: Wraith coming by in person… world’s going to hell, isn’t it? Hell freezing over?++132-411-234 [YOU]: If you’re right, then I’m telling everyone it’s because you jinxed it.++543-362-4368: Fuck you Wraith, and I’ll see you tomorrow.+
+USER 543-362-4368 DISCONNECTED+
+USER 132-411-234 [YOU] DISCONNECTED+I disconnected from the satellite uplink with a sigh. With a loud clanking walk, I ‘stepped’ back from the edge of the open airlock in 70 Pine Street, and it closed behind me.A few minutes later, I had dismounted from my Suit, and was back up near the penthouse of Amy’s tower. My guest bedroom was calling my name, and I walked through the gilded and engraved hallways of the old art deco masterpiece with a numb feeling.It was a small thing to set up the appointment for tomorrow, but it still felt like I’d swallowed a rock.
Even though I had visited the Brigade’s base in Nebraska, even though this wouldn’t be the first time, it wasn’t any easier to face my issues like this.
It took only a minute to get back to my guest room, just below Amy’s penthouse.
I glanced at the expensive silk pajamas that had been laid out on the enormous, king-sized bed, and smiled softly as I picked them up and set them aside. I’d brought my own, a more comfortable set of cheap cotton ones. Perhaps one day I’d take Amy up on the offer, and enjoy all the luxuries she was willing to share… but not today.
The next morning, I broke my fast with a quick meal sent up from the restaurant downstairs via the dumbwaiter.
I kept it simple, and got some corned beef hash. It came with two poached eggs that I cut up, mixing the bright yellow yolk with the potatoes, corned beef, and assorted garnishes.
The platter had also come with four additional drinks of apple juice, orange juice, and a glass each of red and white wines, none of which I had requested.
Given that the restaurant didn’t officially open for another hour, I figured that the head chef had decided to handle that little extra himself. The order had come down from the Clinic itself, and there was the chance that I was some high-priced CEO that had he couldn’t dare risk offending. Rather than the reality that I was a very hungry college student that frankly didn’t give a damn.
I went with the pitcher of ice water instead.After finishing up my breakfast, I showered and changed clothes. The Panacea Clinic kept some full-body piloting garments around for Pilots who needed a spare, which was always nice. Then I headed down to the hangar.The enormous loading doors retracted slowly, revealing the New York City skyline as the sun rose.
The morning light was an interplay of gleaming steel and dark shadows cast by the skyscrapers. White stonework glowed a warm gold, and black privacy glass shimmered and twinkled. The streets were already busy with cars, the sidewalks with joggers and dogwalkers. The sounds rose through the air to the top of 70 Pine Street like a symphony that was warming up before a concert.No wonder Amy loves this place, I thought to myself with a soft smile. If I woke up to a view like this every morning, I’d fall in love too.I stepped up to the edge of the landing pad, and fired up my Suit’s thrusters. Gravity tried to pull me back, but I launched out, soaring up, up, and further up.
As I climbed, I peeled through the radio frequencies that filled the air around Manhattan Island. It was a strange feeling, almost like trying to pluck a piece of meat, or a chunk of carrot, out of a soup. After a few seconds, I found the correct frequency.“Hello, I’d like to file a VFR flight plan from New York to Toronto,” I said.I made sure to keep my voice clear, and enunciate properly. New York got a lot of international flights, and they had to deal with all kinds of accents. Might as well make it easy on them for once.
“Roger,” came back the cool voice from the Flight Service Station. “Let’s start with your aircraft identification.”I smiled underneath the bulky neurohelmet. I came to a hover just above Amy’s tower, and held my position there, so that I didn’t start ‘flying’ until I had my flight plan filed.
“DS0039,” I rattled off. “That’s Delta Sierra Zero Zero Tree Niner.”“That’s Delta Sierra Zero Zero Tree Niner,” the flight service specialist called back. “What’s the type of aircraft?”
I frowned, more in amusement than anything else. The FSS station wasn’t an air controller, it was more like a bureaucracy station. The most they did was relay clearances from the ATC for a departure. The FSS wasn’t even a federal agency, in fact – their jobs were contracted out to Lockheed Martin.
Still, the voice on the other end was certainly acting like an air traffic control – repeating my information back to ensure that he’d gotten it right… but he didn’t seem to have recognized the tail number’s prefix, which had been restricted to a specific group.
“Dragonsuit,” I said, with a little wry amusement.
“Oh,” the specialist replied, with surprise, and a slowly growing tone of something I couldn’t quite figure out. “Understood, Dragonsuit. How many people on board?”“Just one,” I said. “Me.”“Alright, Pilot,” the specialist said slowly. Awe. That’s what the tone was, I realized. “Just for the log, I need your callsign and contact information in case of emergency. ”
“Wraith, independent Pilot, no faction,” I rattled off quickly, before he could ask the inevitable follow-up. “Contact info is through Panacea’s Clinic, New York. I don’t do phone numbers. Security concerns. Just pass it onto Panacea.”“What’s your departure time?” the specialist continued, apparently not deciding to fight me on that one.“0620 local,” I said, giving him a time that was only five minutes from now.“Departing from, heading to?” he asked leadingly, but there was a note of amusement in his voice that told me he already knew he wasn’t going to get an airport out of me.“Panacea Clinic, and the Guild headquarters in Toronto,” I said. “I’m VTOL, no need for tarmac.”“Got it,” the specialist confirmed. “Cruising altitude?”“13,000 feet,” I said, suppressing the usual annoyance about the measures.
Aviation was big on standardization for safety measures, and that meant that they still used feet, as America had set a lot of standards when it came to the field.
But Dragon had been Canadian, and her Suits were all programmed to use the metric system, no matter what the FAA insisted on. So I had to convert measurements whenever I was talking to anyone else in the field.
“Flight path?” the specialist continued. “Estimated time en route? Fuel?”“Direct to Toronto,” I told him. “Forty minutes, and at least eight hours.”
“Colors and marking on your ‘aircraft’?” the specialist said.“Grey, no markings other than tail number,” I informed him.
“Alright, got all that. Any last remarks or other information?” the specialist said, clearly not expecting any.“None,” I said, confirming his suspicion.“Alright, got it all down here, and your flight plan is filed,” the specialist said. “Just a reminder, since you’re going to Canada, you’ll need to contact CANPASS before you arrive for customs clearance.”
“I’ll do that, thanks,” I told the man, ‘nodding’ the helmet of my armor.“You’re welcome,” the specialist replied warmly. “Have a safe flight.”
I clicked off the radio frequency. I had still had a few minutes before I hit my official start time, and given how busy the airspace was around here, I might as well keep to it.
Besides, it was a beautiful morning, and I found myself strangely eager to float over the city and just… take it in.After a few minutes, my internal clock dinged, and I took off. As I hit an altitude of a thousand meters, I shifted body-shapes, transforming from my bipedal, humanoid trooper into the sleek and slim form of the aerodyne jet.
I accelerated slowly, keeping underneath Mach 1 until I was at my flight ceiling of four thousand meters and several miles away from the northern edge of New York City.
I kicked it up a notch, and broke the sound barrier. There was no crack of glass shattering, no thunderstrike in the sky – not for me, because I was now moving faster than the sound could catch. The only sound I heard was the rumble of my own engines, the vibration through the hyper-metal alloys of Dragon’s fine work. Anyone who was nearby would have heard it, but there was nobody nearby, of course. I was surrounded by nothing miles and miles of open sky.The world was laid out before me like a map, and I followed the invisible, intangible, but yet ever-present sensation that came from my Suit’s built-in satellite uplink, along with the compass.
If this had been a video game or a movie about Pilots and Dragonsuits, the kind that was getting increasingly popular, I would have seen holographic arrows, or a beam of light to follow. Some clear visual indicator. But reality did not work that way. Not surprising, given that no Pilot ever deigned to help Hollywood – and, frankly, even if any of them did, I doubted Hollywood would listen to them.
No, instead of those visual indicators, I was operating off of ‘feel’, but even that word was… imprecise. I could look at the navigational display for a two-dimensional map if I wanted to, but the rest of this was handled purely through my cyberbrain, in a manner that didn’t really correlate to any of the traditional five senses. It felt more like equilibrioception, my sense of balance.
Being off-course felt like leaning a little too far to the left or right, like I was walking a tight-rope in mid-air.The short flight passed quickly enough, and by 6:35 in the morning, I was approaching the Guild’s famous and dangerous home - dangerous for any criminals, that is.A lot of major cities had changed over the years of the parahumans, especially those touched by Endbringers, like New York. The growth of parahuman criminal networks and hero teams, along with the creeping influence of Tinkers and Thinkers, and of course, their sponsors, be they government or private.
The result, ultimately, was a lot of new buildings that looked very different, and that was about it. No different from a new style of architecture.Toronto had undergone a very different set of changes over the last four years. Above its skies flew patrols of Dragonsuits, the military-only frequencies filled with both formal reports and idle chatter of the patrolling Guild members.
It wasn’t just the Pilots: there was more military radio traffic than Toronto had ever had before, even during the First or Second World Wars. The city’s criminal element had been almost entirely eradicated, leaving only the pettiest of criminals who drew no major attention. There was a constant stream of takeoffs and landings.There were no obviously parahuman-inspired buildings in Toronto. Instead, it was notable simply for the sheer amount of Pilot and military activity present.
Old military bases had been reactivated. Highschool cadet corps were becoming the norm. Dusty graves and monuments were being polished and repaired. Songs of World War One were starting to enter vogue again, and many were wearing the remembrance poppy all year round.
There had been a revival of interest in the Canadian military after Dragon’s death, just like the U.S. Air Force’s own, and it had prompted a lot of the younger generations, myself included, to learn about Canada’s… unique reputation when it came to war.
It was a reputation that many Canadians were becoming eager to continue. The nobility of Dragon combined with the shameful assassination of her death, and the message of her Last Will and Testament, asking for people to stand up and fight.
God help us all, the Canadians were starting to get bloodthirsty again.Of course, they weren’t the only ones.
The Brits were doing the same thing, with their enthusiastic assertion that the Royal Air Force was the world’s only Dragonsuit-equipped military force. They’d brought back the vintage paintjobs, swaddled up the pilots in sleek bomber jackets, sworn them into ceremonial knightly orders, and given them shining swords. It was all propaganda, but it was supportive propaganda, rather than malicious and negative propaganda.
Kind of interesting, how they were reaching back to one of the darker periods of their history for the same lesson they’d learned back then: how to endure.Still, out of all the Pilot factions in the world, the Guild was the oldest. It was no real surprise, since Dragon had been one of their members.
They had adapted to the use of her Suits faster than any other power bloc, and they were one of the only truly hybridized factions out there. Rather than parahumans or Pilots, the Guild possessed both.
Plenty of other groups had tried to do the same and failed disastrously at it – most famously the Parahuman Response Teams – because there was just too much of a gulf between the ideal use of a Dragonsuit, and the ideal use of a parahuman.
You couldn’t send a Suit to patrol a street, unless you wanted that street to look like a warzone. You couldn’t send a Suit to take down a petty criminal, unless you wanted him dead. You couldn’t afford to let kiddy Pilots handle kiddy villains, the way the Wards often did, unless you wanted dead kids on primetime news, shot up like they were in a war-zone.
And vice versa, parahumans only ever got one of three outcomes against a Dragonsuit: meat for the grinder, clever enough to avoid direct attention, or one of the extreme edge-cases that were nigh-unstoppable.
Where other organizations had tried and failed to adapt Dragonsuits for law enforcement purposes, or to change their modus operandi to work with Dragonsuits, the Guild hadn’t.
Their job was much simpler than the Protectorate, or the Kingsmen, or most of the regional teams or superpowers. They didn’t hold territory, or police a region. They didn’t have to worry about using too much force.
The Guild hunted monsters. Something that Dragonsuits were very, very useful for.
A pair of two flying Suits came up to escort me down to the ground. They were Heavy-weight suits, one designed like a futuristic version of an old World War Two airplane, and the other like an overly large dragonfly. Both were much better armed than my Medium-weight generalist – the dragonfly had a pod on each wing for powerful unguided rockets, and the twin-engine, twin-boom fighter had what looked like a pair of plasma rifles in its nose-cone.
They peeled off as I neared the ground, and resumed their patrol. I kept a wary eye as they did, because they were both very powerful Suits. A plasma rifle or a rocket pod by itself was a pretty high grade weapon, and those Heavies had two of either.The Guildhall itself wasn’t that impressive of a building, and neither was its location on the eastern outskirts of Toronto’s sprawl, near the shores of Lake Ontario. The building had clearly been designed for effectiveness over showmanship.
It was made thick concrete walls painted marble white, with faux balustrades as the only visual relief. It looked a lot like a bunker left over from the Cold War, only for a new owner to try to add some old charm from the British Empire to it.
Despite that, it did have a solid, venerable kind of presence to it. The kind of feeling that you got from places like Whitehall in London. Places that had a soul, perhaps acquired from the struggles of those who dwelled within them. There were nearby buildings that were clearly old military garrisons, or headquarters, or bases, with old brick walls and a history of their own.
There was a memorial near the front entrance. I didn’t look at it. I already knew what I would see. I’d watched on the news when they had unveiled it. A monolith of stone, engraved with Dragon’s fake face, the one that everyone now knew was just an A.I.’s representation of themselves. Some poignant words, copied from Sir Terry Pratchett. That mankind was where the falling angel met the rising ape.I didn’t want to go near Dragon’s memorial.
The urge to deface it was too strong. To carve out the otherwise excellent quote with my beam saber, and tell everyone what Dragon’s real last words had been.
Next to the Guildhall was one of the new hangars for all the Pilots, which was much larger, and much more visually impressive. The hangar doors were open at the moment, exposing a view of the vital infrastructure that made a faction possible. It seemed arrogant, reckless even, to allow such things to be so exposed.
I felt uneasy at the sight, especially after what Voyager had told me last night.
If the Dragonslayers were willing to invade a base in enough force to kill Oscar, and presumably more Guild Pilots, then why take the chance by giving them another target like that?As I came down for a landing, I was greeted by a hulking Heavy-weight Dragonsuit that I recognized.
Lurch was a man of few words and many actions, and he’d been a Pilot for about two years, with a debut that was about as hectic as my own. The first fight he ever joined was one of Saint’s infrequent attempts to crack open the Birdcage and free his trapped mentor, the infamous parahuman known as Teacher.
On the surface, his Suit was a bog-standard bipedal, much like my own, only smoother and more human-looking, though nowhere near as much as a biological Suit.
The reality, however, was far different. I’d seen Lurch use its special ability to change forms, imitating everything from a half-serpent lamia to a bear-like predator to even a tunneling worm.
The Mimic bodytype: rare and powerful. It wasn’t a stealthy change, but it offered unparalleled versatility in a fight.
“Lurch,” I said, nodding to the man as I touched down.“Wraith,” he replied, in his deep voice. “Long time. You missed the last jailbreak attempt.”“My Suit was still down from a brawl a week before,” I told him, wincing though my neurohelmet. “Otherwise, you know I would’ve been there.”“Mmm,” Lurch rumbled. “What can we do for you?”
“I’m… not sure, honestly,” I admitted, chuckling. “Why don’t you give me the sales pitch?”“Of course,” he said, nodding gravely. “You have good timing. We have a fresh batch of recruits getting their first briefing in half an hour. You can join them. Get the welcome speech.”“Thank you,” I said, nodding back. “I appreciate the hospitality. I know it’s not normal for you guys.”“You’ll make up for it,” Lurch said, without any real emotion. “Eventually.”The words sounded ominous, especially in that deep, slightly unfocused voice. I wasn’t worried, though. That was just how Lurch was. He was an aloof presence, but he was always there when you needed him.“Let me show you around,” Lurch said, gesturing towards the hangar. “Lot of the newcomers will be interested to meet you.”“I’ll make up for it ‘eventually’, huh?” I muttered, before deciding to try out a joke. “Alright. But no autographs.”“Pity,” Lurch replied, without missing a beat.
I fought down the urge to laugh at his deadpan humor, and followed him into the hangar. His joke had been much better than mine.
Like anyone would want an autograph from a coward like me.