Retroactivity Read online

  “What if it did? Then I’d have a concussion and Schlep would be out one of his nice new whiskey glasses.”

  “What?! Are you throwing MY stuff in there?” shouted Asclepius.

  Keystone rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, fine. If our fearless leader’s Aug-3 power somehow fails him and I break your glass on his head, I will buy you a new glass. I will buy you a whole set of glasses. And the whiskey to go in them. Fine?”

  Asclepius walked down the hallway and stuck his head into the living room. “Hey Foresight, if I split the whiskey she has to buy with you, will you let a glass hit you in the head?”

  From the kitchen, Keystone hucked a balled-up napkin in his direction. Asclepius ducked back into the hallway shouting, “Don’t hit the healer!”

  “It’s a napkin, you wimp!”

  “How would I know that?” Asclepius called back, staying safely behind the wall. “You just threw a tumbler at him!”

  On the couch, Foresight laughed until his sides hurt.

  “Camaraderie,” he repeated, wiping his eyes. “Functioning like a well-oiled machine.”

  “Hey, on that topic,” Keystone said, “I want to talk again about adding a piece to that machine. We need more offensive power.”

  Foresight waved an arm at her. “We’ve been over this. We’re defensive-focused. Makes us look good. And we always bring what we need.”

  “Says the guy who didn’t get a bullet through his shoulder today,” retorted Keystone.

  “It’s fixed, you whiner,” noted Asclepius, who had now judged it safe enough to enter the room. He crossed to the bar to pour himself a whiskey.

  “Fixed now,” corrected Keystone. “And it still hurt when I got shot. I didn’t forget that just because it’s better now. The pain didn’t unhappen.”

  Asclepius shrugged and ran a hand through his wavy brown hair, briefly stirring its neat lines. “I wouldn’t say no to adding a fifth, Sight. Couldn’t hurt to get a for-real bruiser.”

  Foresight lifted an eyebrow. “And what am I, then?”

  Asclepius laughed. “You’re a dandy, man. Half of the point of a bruiser is to look big and imposing so that no one even wants to fight. Sure, you can win, but you can’t stop it before it even starts.”

  He paused to take a sip of his drink, then added, “Let’s put it to a vote, is all I’m saying.”

  “Is Mimic even here?” asked Keystone.

  Foresight pointed lazily to an empty chair. The other two turned to look as a rumpled, gangly man in his early thirties faded into view. He shook his head.

  “Your power’s a cheat,” he told Foresight. “There’s no point to being an invisible man if you always know where I am.”

  “Technically, I don’t know where you are when you’re camouflaged like that. I only know where you will be when you’re not. Then I just point to that spot right before you drop the disguise.”

  Mimic shook his head again. “If you say so, señor. Thinking too hard about how that works gives me a headache. I can’t imagine living it.”

  “It is my cross to bear,” said Foresight. He lifted his nose into the air and affected a noble pose, a stance which was only minorly spoiled by the hand he stuck behind his head to catch the whiskey bottle that Keystone had thrown at him.

  “Seriously? Come on! That’s expensive!” Asclepius complained.

  “Bambino, you’re not even old enough to be drinking it,” said Mimic.

  “I think it’s a gray area,” said Asclepius. “I’m certainly under the age where I’m allowed to put alcohol into my system. But since it’s instantly metabolized, can that really be said to be the case?” He took a long pull from his glass.

  Mimic grinned. “You’re certainly philosophizing like you’re drunk.”

  “Okay, but back to the point at hand,” said Keystone. “A fifth member.”

  “Fine,” said Foresight. “We’ll look for one.”

  “What?” asked Keystone, surprised. “I thought you didn’t want one.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then—dammit, could you let us just do things in a normal order for once? You know, forward in time?”

  “So you’d still like to take the vote, then?”

  “Yes,” Keystone groused. “Though I suppose it’s pretty obvious now. Everyone in favor of—oh look, it’s the three of us. And opposed?”

  Foresight casually raised his arm. “Shock and surprise, I am outvoted.”

  “You can really suck the fun out of a good victory, Sight,” Keystone told him.

  “Yes, I knew you’d say that.”

  “You’re not making it better!”

  “Children, children,” said Mimic. This earned him a glare from Keystone, and he raised his hands in a half-shrug. “What? As elder statesman here, I consider it my duty to step in when young tempers flare.”

  “You don’t have aug reflexes,” she told him. “I can land a hit on you.”

  Asclepius hastily shifted his glass out of her reach. Across the room, Mimic’s form blurred, shifting into a second, scowling copy of Keystone.

  “This is what you look like when you’re angry,” the new Keystone said, pulling an ugly face. The actual Keystone swung out her arm with a shriek of frustration, and Mimic toppled over backwards, along with the chair he was in. Beside Keystone, Asclepius was shoved from his barstool by an unseen force and knocked unceremoniously to the ground. Whiskey and ice cubes flew from his glass, spraying in a fan across the kitchen.

  “Come ON!” he protested. From the floor, the fake Keystone laughed.

  “Stop hitting yourself!” she called, extracting herself from the fallen chair.

  On the couch, Foresight snorted in amusement. “Elder, yes. Statesman, less so.”

  “I blame this environment,” Mimic said, shifting back to his normal, disheveled form. “Hanging out with you teenagers is rubbing off on me. After all, if you wrestle with pigs, you’re bound to get muddy.”

  “You can go any time,” Keystone said, though there was no rancor in her voice.

  “Nah, you all need me to keep you in line. Besides, if I left, then you’d need two new members.”

  “You’re invisible half the time and in disguise the rest,” Asclepius pointed out. “We could replace you just by talking to the air. And since the air wouldn’t get Keys all riled up and make her spill my drink, it might even be a trade up.”

  “You wound me, hermano,” said Mimic, one hand pressed to his heart.

  “You’re not even remotely Mexican,” Asclepius told him.

  “And you’re not remotely Greek, Asclepius. Yet here we all are, borrowing cultures.”

  “So who do we want for the team?” Keystone asked, ignoring their banter. “Someone big. A fireman type. Large and in charge. This team could use some eye candy.”

  “Please. Have you seen my abs?” asked Asclepius indignantly. “I’m sculpted.”

  “No, you’re wiry. If you worked out, maybe you’d be sculpted. You’re wiry, Mim’s lumpy like a pair of pantyhose stuffed full of potatoes, and Foresight is—well, Foresight’s fine, I suppose. But still not really muscley.”

  “I say we get another woman on the team, fix this gender balance,” said Asclepius.

  “Do you really want another woman who can take you in a fight?” retorted Keystone.

  “Oh, you think you can take me?”

  “In a heartbeat! I wouldn’t even break a sweat.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Asclepius challenged, on his feet.

  “I’ll even give you best out of three,” said Keystone, rising as well.

  “Focus up for five minutes, please,” drawled Foresight from the couch. “Or I’ll tell you who wins the fights before you have them.”

  Both teens reluctantly sat back down, eyeballing each other.

  “It’s me,” Asclepius mouthed, pointing a thumb at his own chest. Keystone mouthed it back at him, motioning to herself instead.

  “I am, as I’ve said, against adding a team member
,” Foresight began. “I think it’s likely to upset the dynamic.”

  “Can you see that?” asked Keystone.

  “No, not that far out. I’m simply noting that we have a very particular balance here, and adding a new element can be disruptive. Since you’re all in favor, though, I think it’s best to mitigate the risks through careful selection.”

  “You want to hold interviews,” Asclepius said flatly. His face revealed what he thought of this prospect.

  “I want to hold interviews,” Foresight agreed. “And yes, I want you all to be involved in that.”

  “I’m going to need more alcohol for this process,” Asclepius complained.

  “Drinking doesn’t have any effect on you,” Keystone pointed out.

  “I’m willing to keep trying.”

  “I’ve got a friend over at the Department of Augment Affairs,” Mimic offered. “I can wave him, see what he can help set up.”

  “Do that, please,” said Foresight, rising from the couch and straightening his suit jacket. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. There’s a shoplifter currently in the jewelry store down the block.”

  “Backup?” asked Asclepius.

  “Not for this. Honestly, I wouldn’t even bother reporting this one to the police except for the mystique-building it’ll do. The more people learn that we can stop their crimes as they’re being committed, the less work we’ll have.”

  “Too much mystique will put us out of a job,” said Asclepius.

  Foresight smiled. “We should be so lucky.”

  Mimic held the door for Foresight as he left the spacious apartment, following him out into the entryway. “Sure you don’t need an assist?”

  “This is nothing, a penny-ante burglary,” said Foresight. “But it’s on the local news tonight if we don’t stop it, and it’s a two-minute walk from here.”

  The elevator doors opened, and Foresight stepped inside. “Back in nine minutes. Tomorrow, twenty or thirty, and not really. And obviously you weren’t really going to ask me that last one.”

  “What?” asked Mimic, confused, but Foresight just smiled as the elevator doors closed. Mimic shrugged and pulled up his friend’s wave contact.

  “Judah!”

  “Hey, Mat! How’s it going, sahib?”

  “Well! Busy, but well. Speaking of, is this business or pleasure?”

  “Business, business. But drinks tonight, perhaps? I can take time off from saving the city if you can.”

  “Let’s do it.” An invitation to McAvoy’s at 9 PM nudged at the edge of Mimic’s attention. He brushed it away, sending it to nestle in his calendar.

  “So, Mat. To business. We’re looking to expand the team, and I figured that a director at the Department of Augment Affairs might be able to be of some assistance.”

  Mat’s image frowned slightly. “You know I still hate this private superhero thing you’re doing, right?”

  “Si, and you’re still wrong to. We’re doing good work out here, Mat. Everyone else can only react. We can stop crimes in progress.”

  “Yeah,” Mat said flatly. “I heard there was a shootout today. Your future-reader couldn’t have gotten you there before that happened?”

  Judah spread his hands. “Say he could have. Would you have us stop people before they have committed a crime, on the accusation that they were going to? That, mon frère, is not a path I’d care to follow.”

  Mat shook his head. “I don’t know. It reeks of vigilantism.”

  “So nu? Show me a better path, and I’ll follow it. Or at least consider it. You’re still not infallible.”

  “Not by a long shot!” Mat laughed. “A vague nudge, that’s all I get. I can’t even tell if it’s my augment or just a regular old baseless feeling most of the time. Either way, though, I feel like private superhero teams are a bad idea. I’m just expressing my opinion as your friend.”

  “And as your friend, I’m ignoring it. Can I still get your help?”

  “Bold technique,” replied Mat, laughing again. “Sure. What do you need from me?”

  “Names from your catalogue. Bruisers, specifically, preferably over six feet tall or otherwise physically imposing. Aiming to add a visual element of ‘you can’t win this fight.’ Should reduce things like that shootout you were complaining about from earlier.”

  “All right,” said Mat. His image looked down and typed on an unseen keyboard. “When do you want this by and how many names do you need?”

  He smiled and added, “And aren’t you worried that I’ll take this opportunity to sneak a spy onto your team? Don’t tell Foresight I asked that, by the way.”

  “I’ll have to ask—oh, what a jerk,” said Mimic.

  “What?”

  “Foresight. On his way out, he said, ‘Tomorrow, twenty or thirty, and not really.’ There are your answers.”

  “You asked him about the spy thing? Will ask, will have asked…I don’t know what the tense is for things that now never actually happened in the future.”

  “I guess? No, he also said that I wouldn’t really have asked him that last question. So I don’t know. Maybe in some version of the future, I would have.”

  “That augment sucks,” Mat said earnestly.

  “He’s a force for good, man. Let him have his fun.” He paused, and when Mat made no response, added, “And thank you for your help on this.”

  “Ah, you were going to do it anyway. This just makes it more efficient. And I am going to try to seed the team with people I have a good feeling about, at least.”

  Judah grinned. “Appreciated. Now get to work! You’ve got things to do before happy hour tonight.”

  “Yeah, extra things thanks to you! Go help an old lady across the street or something.”

  “Keep holding down that desk, habibi.”

  Mimic walked back into the apartment to find Keystone straddling Asclepius, pinning him to the floor. Asclepius was yelling, “You sucker-punched me! You broke a rib!”

  “Oh, you’re already healed, you baby.”

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt! Isn’t that what you were saying earlier? I don’t punch you!”

  “That’s one of three,” said Keystone, standing up and reaching down a hand to help Asclepius up. “Make a better showing next time or this’ll be over fast.”

  Asclepius took her hand, then yanked hard and rolled backward, kicking his feet into Keystone’s midsection to send her somersaulting over his head. He scrambled toward her to press his advantage, but she aimed a kick at his face, shouting, “Cheater!”

  “This is why I have to take calls in the hallway,” Mimic told them.

  The next morning, Mimic returned to the top-floor apartment to a much more sedate scene. The kitchen island was piled with the aftermath of brunch, and he poured himself a glass of orange juice before joining his teammates in the main living area, where a collection of documents were being displayed on a projection on the wall.

  “Morning, Mim,” called Keystone. “You ready to do this?”

  “Yeah, you ready to burn an entire day asking strangers the same nonsense questions to see if they want to aug-date us?” added Asclepius, his voice laced with sarcasm.

  “Bez muki nyet nauki,” said Mimic, seating himself. “Let’s get going.”

  “You know we’ve all learned to just tune out your random gibberish, right?” asked Asclepius. “I don’t even hear it anymore. It’s the same as if you’d said nothing at all.”

  “It’s all part of my camouflage,” Mimic told him. “I’m training you not to hear me. It makes me all the more subtle.”

  “C’est malin,” Foresight said, drawing a laugh from Mimic. “Now, shall we?”

  “Yes, e pluribus unum,” said Asclepius. “Tempus fugit.”

  “Who do you want to start with?” asked Keystone.

  Foresight gestured, and one document expanded to fill the wall. It was the biography of an Aug-2 going by the name of “The Golden Ruler,” which drew an immediate snort from Asclepius. Her pictu
re showed an imposing woman with dark brown hair cascading over an impassive golden mask. She was clad in gilded breastplate and gauntlets, and posed with a spear as tall as she was.

  “Okay, dumb name, but I’m liking the look,” said Asclepius. “Matches your suit, Sight, so that should make you happy.”

  “Aug-2 Kinetic, subclass Organic,” read Mimic. “Retaliatory damage. Sounds promising.”

  “Wave her and connect us,” suggested Keystone.

  Foresight nodded, and the documents on the wall shrank down to a corner. A life-sized image of Golden Ruler filled the space.

  “Hey, she’s taller than you, Mimic,” remarked Asclepius. “Not bad.”

  “Hello?” Each of them received the voice through their wave earpieces and saw the same projection standing rigidly in the middle of the room. It was a three-dimensional version of the picture currently on the wall, and clearly not a live image.

  “Good morning,” replied Foresight. “We’ve received word that you’re interested in joining an aug team. We’re recruiting. Are you free to talk?”

  “Oh? Yes, we can talk,” said Golden Ruler. Her image continued to stare straight ahead, unblinking.

  “Hey, can you go to live feed?” asked Asclepius. “It’s weird staring at this statue.”

  “I’d rather not until I know more about you,” she replied. “So, brass tacks: who are you?”

  “The Augmented Avengers,” said Asclepius.

  Keystone rolled her eyes. “That is a terrible name.”

  “You come up with a better one, then!”

  “Anything. Anything is better than that.”

  “We are a group of like-minded individuals,” Foresight said, ignoring his two compatriots, “who feel that by working together, we can help improve the world, or at least our small part of it.”

  “So you’re a private aug team?” Golden sounded skeptical.

  “We are,” Foresight confirmed.

  “I’ve seen you on the news, I think,” she said. “New in town?”

  “Fairly recently formed as a group,” Foresight said. “Hence the lack of a name.”

  “And you’re looking for a fourth?”

  “Fif—” began Asclepius, only to be hit by a pillow from Keystone, who made a violent shushing gesture at him. She cut her eyes to the empty space on the couch where Mimic had been before the call.