It would definitely have been more sensible if Terry Wilson had left the armour alone, or practised only on his own property away from any possible observers.

But Terry Wilson was not a man who enjoyed being told what to do or not to do, and so as the sky darkened her powered the armour back up, took to the skies, and opened up the throttle along San Francisco Bay headed into the heart of San Jose.

He’d been to his destination only once before, and at that time the intention had been to buy the company out, one of a number of startups working on technologies that would have been useful to HyperCorp interests.

Puriteo had been their target by Castor’s decision. Wilson knew that meant that there was some aspect of their water purification technology that could factor into a Vulcan scheme, but hadn’t cared; there would be money for the both of them in it, and power for the both of them.

Power.

Wilson couldn’t believe that, all these years, he’d considered the cold manipulation of other humans to be the true definition of power. Manipulation was power at a remove. It couldn’t compare to being able to get it done for yourself, and Terry Wilson found it extremely frustrating that he’d only come into this power so late in life. He’d believed, whenever he successfully pointed Castor at one of his own targets, that the exercise of power had truly been his.

There would be fingers pointed, of course. But none at him; the first question would be how Castor had done it, and once it was clear he couldn’t have, maybe it would even help his friend.

Which was why it was perfectly fine, Terry Wilson reassured himself, to hit Puriteo. The fact it could be tracked back to HyperCorp made it too many questions; the finger, if it was pointed anywhere, might end up levelled at Hathor.

He came in low over the Puriteo security wall, skimming over their parking lot and picking a window to hit at speed. Vulcan had definitely smashed through walls, but Wilson wasn’t quite sure how badly the suit would let him feel it.

So instead, armoured arms were raised in front of an armoured head and the two of them met double glazing at speed, doing nothing to the armour, not even chipping its paint. If it was paint, and not some weird molecular bonding trick; Wilson wouldn’t have put that past Castor.

He was in; the alarms were going off, but he was in. Walking now, he moved through the corridors, thankful for the helmet’s low-light vision, looking for the prototypes room.

The suit was fast at full speed, but he’d still had a little time to reflect. Terry Wilson had planned originally to make this a theft, but HyperCorp couldn’t use the tech without acknowledging a connection. Castor probably could have, happily, for whatever plan he’d had; Vulcan didn’t exactly care about rights. But one thing Wilson was very, very clear on: He wasn’t Vulcan. The suit wasn’t a new identity. It was a tool. Thinking otherwise was absolutely how someone could go crazy.

When he discovered the prototypes room, therefore, he didn’t try to take them; instead he powered up the blaster in the suit’s palm, pasted targets all over the things in the room with the helmet’s eyeline-tracking lock on system, and laid waste to the room.

Satisfied, he turned around, and came face to face with the hovering form of Paladin.

*

Sofia’s head felt strangely fuzzy as she gazed out of her conversion tube at her Mistress. This wasn’t just the delicious tingle of obedient bliss in her head, either; there was something else happening, some strange itching at her scalp.

Then the fuzziness started to spread, not just near the control implant in the base of her skull (her single most prized possession, and the one thing she and not her Mistress truly owned to keep).

The itching became a scratching in her shoulder blades, a brittle prickling along her upper arms, a spreading heat in her breasts, hips, buttocks and thighs, and a strangely beautiful discomfort around her ankles and her toes. Through it all, her control implant kept her perfectly serene.

She didn’t want to move, and in any case the paralytic agent in the gel where she floated prevented anything but the most basic, automatic actions unless a command particularly inspired her to respond. But she was aware that the transformation was beginning, and would have liked to know what she was becoming.

The quality of light in the tank seemed to shift slightly, but then Sofia realised what was actually happening; her hair had been shed, and was starting to slide down through the gel, blocking some of the light she saw. Sofia was sure now that the scalp scratching was some new growth, displacing her own hair.

Did that mean the intense version of the feeling in her shoulders was something similar? What would grow from her shoulders?

She saw something change in the two faces watching her; the grim certainty in Mistress’ jawline stayed certain but became far less grim, her face lighting up in a delighted grin. Hornet’s expression was a contrast, watching in startlement as Sofia felt the pangs of her shoulders blossom, her… her something… spreading out of both shoulderblades, new muscles forming, bones extending beneath them as tendons knitted together and Sofia knew that what was emerging were her wings, flaring as wide as they could against the paralytic, the wingtips rising up to frame her head for the onlookers.

She could feel them now, feel her feathers coming in, as her chest and her hips and ass began to swell, and Mistress’ grin grew wider and (somehow) greedier. Sofia wished she could more easily compare herself to Hornet; it felt like she might measure up.

She probably shouldn’t feel so happy about that, she thought, but she did.

Her wings felt strong. She wanted so badly to fly. She wanted to fly for her Mistress.

*

“Whoever you are,” Paladin said, “just know that this isn’t going to end well for you if we fight.”

“Fuck you,” Wilson answered, but the hero heard nothing. There was evidently a necessary toggle for the suit speakers to cut in. He cursed himself and jerked his chin down to bring up the HUD, then started flicking through it.

Trial and error had told him that fast changes in the direction his eyes were looking bounced through menus, slower changes allowed him to see the options. When Castor got out, Terry Wilson firmly intended to tell him what he thought of the man’s user interface design.

Paladin floated closer by about a pace. “We don’t have to fight, though. If you stand down now and come quietly, we can work something out. I’m much more interested in knowing where you found that thing.”

Paladin clearly hadn’t thought even for a minute that Vulcan was still active, which perhaps didn’t bode well for Wilson’s theory that he could muddy the legal waters for his friend; on the other hand a jury wouldn’t know Vulcan the way his most frequent adversary did. That, Wilson consoled himself, might be enough.

And then the menu brought up an option with BETA written above it in orange, and he stopped to read the three word description, and he stopped worrying about the upcoming court case as a group of new possibilities emerged.

*

Despite being married to Vulcan’s modern nemesis, the man who’d risen eventually to replace Hornet as his most frequent and determined adversary, and in spite of having a secret identity of her own, Annie Mack had never delved into Vulcan’s plans, background, or where he stored his gear.

There was a simple reason for that; she didn’t share her husband’s near-invulnerability. In point of fact, when she’d started her career as the Hooded Hawk, she’d had no powers at all. Those had come through a frankly implausible series of events involving a mystic amulet, a band of dark cultists, and a sinister ritual that went awry.

Annie certainly didn’t want to make light of her powers, but when compared to Milo, the ability to glide and some enhanced senses didn’t really seem like much. It had been smarter - not easier; at times it had been incredibly frustrating, but smarter - to take a back seat against Vulcan and concentrate on other threats in the Bay area.

This didn’t mean she didn’t take pride in her work; that evening, she’d wrapped up a long running investigation and prevented the murder of the District Attorney and a number of his top prosecutors, as well as uncovering the mob ties of his deputy, and after leaving the police station having given her testimony, she’d been gliding home when she saw that the Kite Bandit was back in action.

KB was never exactly a problem, and she’d left him tied to a flagpole by his streamers and was restoring his stolen booty to the building it belonged in when she caught sight of figures flying around the top of the HyperCorp building.

Well, Castor was behind bars, the power suit wasn’t out there, it was probably safe. She headed over to investigate.

*

Hathor watched her new creation pivot and almost dance in the night sky outside the tower, Hornet hovering nearby to stabilise her. She’d been worried that the woman might not master her wings swiftly, although now she saw the graceful swoops and loops that Sofia was capable of, telling Hornet to be ready to catch felt like it had been unnecessary.

The woman’s body was a little curvier than Hornet’s; she kind of wanted to see if that motivated Hornet, or if only the control implant gave her motivation. If she wasn’t imagining things, Hornet was enjoying herself in obedience, and that meant she could do even better for her Mistress.

…Tracy had decided, now she’d heard it from two different luscious pairs of lips, that she really liked the word ‘Mistress’. She liked the instant deference. She was beginning, she thought, to understand why Castor had thrown so much money at his villainy, had devoted so much attention to the illegal parts of his activity.

Was that someone she wanted to be?

She didn’t have time to think about that for long, though, at least not then; instead she saw someone approaching in the air, the dark red of their costume almost hidden against the night sky but visible nonetheless.

“Ladies,” she called sharply through the open window. “Attend me.”

“Yes, Mistress,” they chorused - God, but she could get used to that - and as one they moved in closer to her. Fleetingly she wondered if she could get away with pulling them in and closing the window, but it seemed certain they’d been spotted.

Tracy fiddled with Castor’s remote and a set of lights built into the base of her window, pointed outward, came on; with the extra illumination she recognised the woman approaching immediately.

“Now,” she said quietly to herself, “What are you up to, Hawk?”

*

Terry Wilson armed the system and set the lock-on, then cycled through his options again until he finally found the suit speakers.

Meanwhile, Paladin had floated forward again. The man, Wilson thought, had probably trained in this, or at least read the theory; he could move faster than most humans could see, but if he started from far enough away that was still time for a finger to curl on the trigger, for a button to click live on a detonator.

And in any case, the man didn’t seem to have it in him to establish his power through fear. Terry Wilson always found that a sign of true weakness. A psychological weakness, he would say; anyone who wasn’t ready to rule by fear would back down in the face of anyone who could.

Paladin instead wanted people to think him gentle, despite his power. That made him weak. That was why Wilson knew this was a fight that was his to win.

“Back off, buster,” he said. Paladin’s forward movement halted and his face registered polite surprise.

“Buster?” He was smiling gently, disarmingly, but Wilson knew better than to be disarmed. “Not heard that one in a while. Sir, it’s pretty clear you’re old enough to know better.”

“Yeah? Well, respect your elders,” Wilson said. He raised his hand and triggered the system, and a small, hollow disc rocketed out of the suit’s wrist toward Paladin.

Wilson was feeling pretty good about his comeback. Meantime, Paladin twitched to one side, out of the way of the risk, but it corrected its course and accelerated with magnetic propulsion, and as it flew the hollow disc opened out, snapping into place around Paladin’s neck.

The hero stiffened, and on Wilson’s helmet HUD, a circular progress meter appeared. The number within the circle started rising slowly; the circle itself was slowly turning from red to green.

Paladin frowned and lunged toward him, and only the suit’s own proximity response system activating and jumping him an ugly, crablike sidestep out of the way kept him safe. Wilson still wasn’t where he needed to be with the suit, he thought; but it turned out that didn’t matter. The suit could do at least some of the job for him.

Leave it to Castor to have cheated the whole time, he thought, but to have made it look for all the world like he was doing it all for himself. The man rigged every system he saw.

Right now one of his latest prototype toys was rigging the nervous system of a superhero.

Paladin’s second thrown punch missed for the same reason, although Wilson felt like he was reacting faster himself. But as much as Wilson had always dismissed the man as all brawn, no brains, he wasn’t done fighting and he wasn’t about to stay with a tactic he couldn’t make work.

Instead he clapped his hands together hard, the shockwave from the impact taking the Vulcan armour off its feet and knocking it backward into a wall. The suit’s prox sensors were busy dealing with that when the first of Paladin’s follow-up punches landed, and even with the suit doing everything it could to cushion it, Wilson’s head rang from the impact. His knees wobbled and he knew without the armour they wouldn’t be holding him upright anymore.

“This must be the latest prototype,” Paladin mused. “And this must be the crap he always threatened me with. You think he finally got it right?”

Which would have chilled Terry Wilson to the core, the idea that it might not be working properly, except for one thing.

Paladin’s voice had hitched, or perhaps stuttered, or even skipped, on several of the words he’d said, and each one had been accompanied by a jump in the percentage readout on the Vulcan HUD. It wasn’t full yet, but as he raised an arm to take the impact of a huge overhand punch, he decided it was time to push his luck, and he yelled “STOP HITTING ME!”

There was, almost instantly, a moment of silence as Paladin obeyed the control collar.

Maybe the beta had worked better than Castor had expected, or maybe he just hadn’t had it loaded into his other suit. But Paladin had stopped throwing punches.

“Stand to attention,” Wilson blurted, almost gasping his words, his heart hammering in his ears as he collected himself. The superhero did so.

Paladin opened his mouth, and Wilson triggered the MUTE option on the collar. The hero’s mouth immediately shut back into a tight line.

Wilson straightened back up, having caught his breath. “Oh, he’d have been having a field day gloating if he’d got this on you,” he said. “You should count yourself lucky I just care what you can do for me.”

*

The Hooded Hawk glided in close to the penthouse window of the tower and paused, hanging in the air. She didn’t recognise any of the three women in front of her, but two of them felt familiar somehow, and she knew that when she finally did recognise them, she’d feel a fool for not recognising them earlier.

The blonde, in particular, was naggingly familiar. Given she was hanging in the air, she was definitely a super, and if Annie thought she recognised another super but couldn’t place them it probably meant they’d changed their costume.

Being honest, neither of the fliers were in good costumes, but-

“Just powered up, huh?” she asked the one with the wings. Quite a cute face was framed by short, vibrant orange feathers with brown striations, and her forearms also had something that could best be described as a fuzz of short feathers. Her bare feet - assuming they were bare feet - looked like the skin was thicker and more resilient, with heavy furrows across it, but wicked claws extended from the heel and two of the toes.

Above this she was wearing what looked like nothing more than tight spandex cycling shorts - giving well-defined thighs and ass even more definition - and a sports bra. That wasn’t a costume; that was what you put together in a panic when your abilities manifested.

She wasn’t at all surprised to get an uncertain nod from the birdwoman.

“Hooded Hawk,” the woman stood in the window said. “We meet again.”

“Do we?” This, of course, was the other thing that could happen when you thought someone looked familiar. Every so often they’d tell you why themselves.

The woman nodded. “A couple of years ago, and I’m not particularly surprised you don’t remember me. I was coated head to toe in a nanodrone control suit at the time, along with all the other execs from my company.”

That Annie remembered. “Then I can’t know you from there. But I feel like I - oh. Yes, of course. You’re Tracy Hathor.”

The woman smiled. “Well, yes. This is my office now.”

The blonde spoke up suddenly. “How can we help you?”

“Uh -“ Annie blinked. There hadn’t actually been anything she was going to ask them about, other than their identities. “Honestly, I just saw some folks in the air I don’t usually see and figured I’d say hi,” she said, taking advantage of the fact she was answering the blonde to study her face. It was really starting to annoy her how familiar it was.

It couldn’t just be the change of costume, she decided. She’d have placed that by now. There had to be some other context - but what other context did she encounter superhumans in?

And just like that, it clicked. She extended a shaking finger, staring in surprise. “You’re-“

“Hornet,” Hathor cut across her firmly, “Grab her. Cover her mouth.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Oh, fuck-

With reflexes honed by long experience, Annie was turning to flee before Hornet finished responding, but it barely mattered.

Her top speed just wasn’t that high when flying, and whoever this was, they were easily stronger than her. She was caught up one-armed and that was enough to pin her down; her own flying power was easily cancelled out and overcome by the other woman’s, and before she knew it she was being bundled inside the penthouse, the windows closing behind her.

Hathor told the other one - Harrier, apparently - to search her for a communicator, and Harrier was gentle but frustratingly thorough, coming up with both the slim device she and her husband used for secure messaging and the commcard she’d been given at one point by the West Coast Angels. They were both placed on the big wooden desk that dominated Hathor’s office, and then Hathor did something with the remote control she held and suddenly the big wooden desk was far from the most notable thing about the office.

The laboratory that opened up clearly belonged to Vulcan. Annie twisted her head free of Hornet’s hand long enough to say “Anyone working with Vulcan makes me sick.”

“Lucky for you, I’m not,” Hathor said. “But I’ve got these assets, and I’d be a fool not to use them. And a bigger fool not to protect them.”

Well, it wasn’t as if anyone knew she and Paladin were married… it was worth a bluff. “I’m perfectly willing to keep your secret, if we can talk about it.”

"See, now…” Hathor looked at her. “I tried trusting someone I couldn’t verify, just recently. And it didn’t go well, did it, Harrier?”

“No, Mistress,” the birdwoman said. She flushed and bowed her head as if regretful. Annie liked her situation less and less.

Hathor drummed her fingers. “I’m really tempted to make myself a matched set,” she said. “But… no. Put her in the fourth tube, Hornet.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Hornet acknowledged, and as much as the Hooded Hawk struggled, it wasn’t long before she found herself sealed up in a paralytic gel. There was a sudden movement in the gel, like a current, up near her head, and then there was a sharp shock to her spine.

Her vision swam, seeming to blur for a second. The edges of everything in the room outside the cylinder became sharper, brighter, her already heightened senses pushing to new levels. Looking at Hornet with these clearer eyes she couldn’t believe she hadn’t realised sooner.

For a moment something seemed to flash on and off in the lower left hand corner of her vision. She couldn’t shake her head, nor close her eyes, nor even simply try and blink it away, but it settled and was gone soon enough.

There was… a discontinuity. A gap. Ms Hathor was clearer and more visible than the superhumans surrounding her, her presence dominating the room. She seemed larger, somehow. More important.

Annie wondered how she could turn this into a happier ending. The word ‘family’ swam into visibility for a moment in a smooth sans-serif font, then was gone. Moments later, it was replaced with block capitals:

ACCESSING