Chapter 111 Cutting A Deal [Alia Morose]
What a disaster.
My na was Alia Morose, codena Tigress, the exclusive tracker for the SRC’s special task force… the one assigned to keep tabs on Eclipse, prevent him from joining the Ten, and make sure he didn’t set the entire hierarchy of powered politics on fire. So, what was I doing right now?
Failing my job. Spectacularly!
Eclipse just robbed a damn bank.
And where was I when it happened? Chasing my own tail across half the district. Literally. He’d led in circles so cleanly that I ended up right back where I started with nothing but my pride bleeding out on the sidewalk.
“It wasn’t my fault!” I snapped, waving my credentials at the security officers like that would help. “Your surveillance system didn’t pick him up. That’s not on !”
The bank manager, a man whose mustache looked like it had personally fought wars, turned beet red. “Not on you? Not on you!? My vaults were emptied under your nose, Agent Morose! Look around you, the vault’s empty!”
“Technically,” I said through clenched teeth, “it was behind my nose. I wasn’t even here!”
“Exactly!” he shouted, as if I’d confessed to murder. “What kind of governnt agent doesn’t even guard her own mark?”
I counted to three. Slowly. Carefully. The claws beneath my gloves ached to co out, but assaulting a civilian wasn’t going to improve my day.
Internally, though? I wanted to scream.
Eclipse. Again. Every ti I thought I had a pattern, he changed the tempo. Every lead ended cold, every data trail short-circuited itself. Caras went blind. Witnesses forgot faces. Even scent tracking failed, which shouldn’t ever happen, not with my power.
I could track anyone across a city by sll, heat, or literal pulse. Yet sohow, Eclipse always felt like he didn’t exist at all.
“I swear,” I muttered, rubbing my temple, “he’s doing it on purpose. It’s like he knows exactly how far to push before I snap.”
The manager blinked. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, forcing a tight smile. “SRC business. You’ll get reimbursed.”
No, he wouldn’t. I just lied. I’m great at this agent business, but Eclipse was making look bad.
The bank manager looked unconvinced, but I didn’t care. I’d already tuned him out, focusing on the air, the faint tallic tang of ozone still lingering near the vault entrance. Not a power residue I recognized, but there was sothing faintly electric in the aftertaste.
“Hmmm… I wonder what the motive is for robbing this particular bank.”
The bank manager, of course, just wouldn’t let her go. He was red-faced, veins bulging on his forehead as he waved his arms around like a conductor of chaos.
“You were supposed to track him, weren’t you?! What are we even paying the SRC for if you can’t catch one masked thief?” he shouted, his breath thick with cheap coffee and stress. “Do you know how much money was in those vaults? How many clients are calling right now? You people are supposed to be heroes!”
Ugh… Did he an that literally? Because right now, I’m on my civilian identity. I didn’t respond. He’d been repeating the sa tirade for ten minutes already, and every word only made the ringing in my ears worse.
“He wasn’t alone,” I muttered.
“What?” the manager barked, blinking as if I’d spoken in another language.
I ignored him. Power developnt ca slowly for shifters, and most often, they were late bloors. I was the sa. But there were ways to compensate for early developnt by focusing on other aspects of a superpower. For example, the five senses and a sixth… That was why I was so good with hunches, and why I fancied myself a detective like my father.
I walked around the vault, breathing in and trying to taste sothing in the air.
“The witness report said there was only a single one out of them, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” the manager answered, a little quieter now. “Why does that matter?”
I didn’t reply. My sense of sll had beco my best tool, ever since Wolfe made sll Eclipse’s jizz to “get familiar with the target’s scent,” I’d been cursed with knowing it too well. Disgusting as it was, it worked. I could track him within five hundred ters. Maybe more if I had his personal or most recent clothes.
From the traces in the vault, I could tell Eclipse wasn’t alone this ti. His intangible, empath, and enhancer traits left the usual residue, but there was sothing else… a faint static sting that hinted at electrical interference. A fourth signature.
Before I could follow the thought further, Leverage appeared at the vault entrance, balancing several cups of coffee in her arms. She started handing them out to the guards, the manager, and finally to .
“So,” she began, taking a sip of her own, “how are you doing, partner? Any clues?”
“Nothing conclusive,” I said, glancing around the vault again. “But there might be an accomplice.”
Leverage smirked. “Funny, because according to the reports, the only one caught on cara was Eclipse… and his bike.”
I looked at her, deadpan. “Maybe the bike’s sentient. You know, gaining powers through chanical enlightennt.”
“Ha ha ha ha, very funny,” she remarked, rolling her eyes. “Artificial intelligence had been banned since the war, you know?”
Right now, Leverage was in her civilian attire, a white blouse, neat slacks, and hair tied back, pretending to be an SRC liaison officer for the victims. It fit her perfectly: polite smile and practiced empathy.
I asked, “Aren’t you, like, rich? Did they really leave you here with ?”
Leverage scoffed, “It’s to build character. And for your information, I asked to be here.”
“Wow, so dignified…” I mocked, drawing a glare.
She tilted her head. “Co to think of it, you’ve never called by my na before, Amy…”
“Don’t call Amy,” I said sharply. “Call Agent Morose… or my other na in private. I strictly separate professional life from personal life.”
A voice from behind interrupted, smooth and calm. “That’s an admirable work ethic.”
It was Nicholas Caldwell… otherwise known as Eclipse, and infamously known as the Monster of Markend.
He looked different from the last ti I’d seen him. Not physically… Minus the mask, he was the sa man, but there was sothing in his eyes, sothing tired and old. He walked casually in from the sa door Leverage had co through, as if he’d just strolled in for a eting.
The guards around us reacted fast, drawing their weapons and shouting warnings.
“Hands where we can see them!” one of them yelled.
But Caldwell didn’t even flinch. Before any of them could pull the trigger, he phased through the floor, a blur of distortion and soundless motion, and reappeared a heartbeat later right beside the bank manager, gun now pressed against the man’s temple.
“Shit, he learned new tricks,” Leverage hissed, pulling her handgun and aiming steadily. “Don’t you dare, Eclipse… You’re surrounded, and I’ve got nullifier-rated bullets in here!”
Good bluff, but I didn’t think it would hold.
Caldwell’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smirk. “No, you don’t have nullifier rounds on you. I can tell when you’re lying. Also, for your information, phasing through the ground and reappearing sowhere else isn’t a new trick.”
He was right. That wasn’t new. If Caldwell could phase through walls, then doing it through the ground was the sa principle, just faster and more precise. But this fast? He’d gotten sharper, faster, and more confident.
Then I caught his scent, transford into a faint motes of light. There was also testosterone, the faint static tang of his powers, and sothing else… a woman. His accomplice was a woman.
Before I could act, a heavy tallic clang echoed through the room, and the vault doors slamd shut on their own, locking us all inside. The guards panicked, shouting over one another, but Caldwell stood calm in the center of it all.
“I just want to talk,” he said, his voice even and controlled. “There’s really no need to escalate over this.”
I kept my voice steady. “If you don’t want to escalate and just talk, then there’s no need for violence. Put your gun down, and let go of the handlebar there.”
The bank manager’s face went crimson. “Handlebar!?” he spat, offended.
Caldwell did as asked. He let the man go, and then, with impossibly calm movents, took the gun apart in his hands and set the pieces on the floor like he was folding a napkin. The bank manager dove behind a guard; the guards opened fire. The shots ca out hot and useless, each round phasing them through, harmlessly drilling through their bodies and embedding in the vault’s thick steel.
Leverage kept her pistol trained on Caldwell, knuckles white, not daring to pull the trigger. Negotiation was the only option that might let us walk out of this alive.
Caldwell’s lips curved. “Done?” he asked, arrogant as ever.
The guards froze stiff. The bank manager was practically whimpering. Being locked in a vault with a cape who’d killed dozens of other capes did nothing to steady my ribs. I caught Leverage’s eye; we nodded. She eased her finger off the trigger, turned on the safety, set the weapon on the floor, and gave it a little kick away from us.
“If you want to talk, then talk,” she said.
“I want to talk with Wolfe,” Caldwell answered.
I took a chance. I drew my phone, thumbed the screen frantically, and lied, “The vault is too thick, so I won’t be able to contact him. Maybe if you open the vault door?”
“A better lie,” he said, “but I see through it all the sa.”
My chest tightened. Please don’t kill us, please don’t kill us, please don’t kill us… I mouthed it in my mind like a prayer.
He added, cool and dry, “I wouldn’t kill you.”
Maybe he was reading minds. Maybe his empathy was just too sharp to miss the texture of fear. My phone lit up, Wolfe’s na cascading across the screen as my phone called him. A cold spike hit my stomach. If Caldwell got Wolfe on the line and made demands, the leverage against the SRC would be catastrophic.
“Turn it off!” Leverage barked.
“I can’t!” I said, panic making my voice high. I slamd the phone down and stomped it until the screen spiderwebbed and died beneath my boot.
Caldwell watched with that bored, patient look and shook his head a little. “Futile endeavor,” he said. “My partner already grabbed the number from it the second you showed it to . The CCTVs were looped before you even walked in. Nobody’s going to co save you, except Wolfe. So count your lucky stars if you want to walk out of here alive.”
To say I was worried would’ve been the understatent of the century. My heart pounded like a drum in my ribs, and every instinct scread at to shift, to let the tigress out, and to grow claws and fangs and pounce. But what would that achieve? Probably just accelerate my own death. I sincerely hoped that one day my claws would gain nullifier properties… sothing to even the odds against monsters like him.
The worst part wasn’t even the fear of dying. Instead, it was the exposure. We were in our civilian identities. If Leverage or I revealed our powers here, with witnesses and caras, even if those caras were looped, it could co back to our families. Even if we survived, the aftermath would be ruin.
Caldwell’s voice broke through the silence. “I’m willing to let the others go,” he said, “if you let touch you.”
Leverage bristled, snapping, “Fuck you, disgusting pig.”
I groaned. “Phrasing, dude. You want to use us as hostages, right?”
He turned to his left, speaking to no one. “It’s not funny. It’s an honest mistake.”
Leverage frowned, whispering, “Who are you talking to?”
“Don’t ask him that,” I hissed under my breath.
I’d read about cases like this… psycho-capes. They were the worst to deal with. Their instability made their powers mutate in unpredictable ways, sotis making them exponentially more dangerous. If Eclipse had gone completely insane, we were as good as dead.
I thought of Mourner, another cape who started as an intangibility type but mutated into a speedster because of his fractured mind. The SRC had spent months trying to contain him. The idea that Eclipse might be like that made my blood run cold.
I took a deep breath, forcing my voice steady. “We’ll cooperate,” I said, raising my hands slightly. “Just… don’t hurt anyone.”
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