Ms Miracle’s reaction times were far beyond those of a normal human, her speed something exceptional, and as such she had one arm around Hooded Hawk’s chest, clamping her back against her own, and the other over her mouth, before the Hawk could open her mouth fully to speak.

Annie’s response was almost reflex. The arm that wasn’t completely pinioned jerked backward, her plan being to drive an elbow into the other woman’s kidney, a sudden blow that would lead to the grip being loosened and her being able to free herself - or at least, that would have done if Ms Miracle’s resilience was human or even near-human. As it was, the sharp jolt of pain followed by the tingle along her elbow told Annie that she’d just succeeded in tickling her own funnybone. Perhaps if her utility belt had still been with her, if they hadn’t been all but undressed…

Making her way back to her feet, Mercy stepped across, pulling the other woman’s hair back from her ears. She checked for an earbud, and found one, which she fished out and tucked away.

Her breath recovered, she flashed Ms Miracle a quick smile. “Good to see you,” she said.

“You too,” Amy told her. “Although I’m seeing more of you than I expected.”

“Right.” Mercy nodded. “My secret’s at least partially out. We’ll have to deal with that after this, though. I’ve got enough to be concentrating on with this.”

“Sure. You said mind control ring. The one you were looking for, or the Ophidian Circle?”

“The one I was looking for.” She met Annie’s eyes and smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” she said, “but you did try to reprogram me. It’s a bit of a giveaway.”

“You don’t suppose she’s in charge?”

You don’t need to investigate Hornet.

“Odds are against, I think,” Mercy told her. “Something about what she said… it feels like she’s trying to protect someone.” She glanced down at Hooded Hawk’s widening eyes and half-smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “If it helps at all, I don’t hold it against you.”

Once again, Annie twisted in Miracle’s arms, trying to find the turn that would help her escape, but the other woman was just too strong. “We should get her to lockup, then,” Miracle said.

“Actually, no.” Vivian smiled. “I have a funnier idea.” Turning back to the rubble they’d been extracted from, she lifted a couple of slabs in what she was fairly sure was the right area, and was delighted when she found her costume, partially mangled but still broadly intact.

From the boot she extracted the control rod she’d taken from Vulcan’s forest hideout. A squeak of surprise escaped the Hooded Hawk.

Vivian grinned.

“What do you have there?” Amy asked.

“Well, my guess was that it was the key to Hornet’s problem, and therefore to hers, too.” Vivian set it aside for a moment, stepping back into her costume. She pulled most of it back into place, but left the helmet off. They were still in a somewhat urban area; the fact they had some space where they could talk without being heard was largely due to the demolition and collapse. As breathing windows went, this wasn’t one designed to last, and she wanted to at least be dressed by the time a news camera got in view. “Her reaction kind of just confirmed the guess. Check this out.”

She activated the control stud on the rod with her thumb. Hooded Hawk’s muffled squeals of protest cut off mid-syllable, something both the other heroines present knew from experience was very hard to fake. Given that she also went fully rigid at the same time, they both felt pretty confident.

With her free hand, Mercy flipped up another of the slabs of rubble, revealing the battered Hooded Hawk costume underneath. “You’re going to get dressed,” she told the Hawk, “and you’re then going to let my friend fly us out of here so we can talk somewhere private, and you’re going to be as good as gold for me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Vivian blinked several times. “Well, that feels a lot weirder to hear than it used to…”

“When did you ever used to hear - no, wait. That happened to me at least once, didn’t it?” Amy asked. “When I got handed over to you by someone who wanted to prove a point?”

“Yup. Turn her loose, Miracle. She’s on our side for the time being.”

Ms Miracle released the Hooded Hawk from her grip, and the nonpowered heroine hurried to climb back into her torn costume. Just in time; as she was settling her cowl back into place the first news helicopter onto the scene showed up.

“Let’s get out of here,” Miracle said, just as Vivian said “Take a couple of steps forward, then collapse into my friend’s arms like you’re passing out.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Annie answered. Two wobbly steps later she was abruptly dropping forward. Ms Miracle scooped her up and the two took flight.

*

“Opinions?” Tracy Hathor asked. Hornet, Harrier, and Paladin were clustered around a monitor, watching the news footage, They hadn’t managed to get a good zoom in before the fliers had taken off; there was only so much detail to work with. Paladin’s jaw was clenched tight, a muscle in his neck flexing in what looked a lot like a man trying to get his own fears and anger under control against great provocation.

There was a moment of awkward silence, all three of the gathered heroes tacitly acknowledging that usually when that question was asked of them, the best insight came from the woman being flown elsewhere.

“Well,” Harrier said in the end, “Mercy isn’t a robot.”

“Go on,” Hathor said, her tone thoughtful rather than irritable.

“You wouldn’t put a wig on a robot. So it’s been a human inside that suit the whole time. Or a human-looking alien I guess.” A handful of costumed heroes and villains laid claim to alien heritage; a couple had even had other members of their species follow them to Earth.

“Meaning?”

“If Castor could get a chip implanted in me, we can use his tech to implant her,” Hornet said. “So there’s some good news. The bad news is that she’s clearly friends with Ms Miracle, so we’re going to have to handle this carefully, however we approach it.”

“Plus we don’t know the current situation,” Paladin put in. It clearly didn’t sit well with him; he was visibly frustrated. “If she’s still on their good side, all well and good. But we can’t prove that.”

“Right.” Hathor nodded. “We may need to just go hidden.”

“As you wish, Mistress,” Hornet said. There was a firmness about the way she spoke that signalled to the others: this is the line we’re taking. Tracy caught the message too, and smiled in amusement. It felt good when her first lover asserted herself on Hathor’s behalf.

Then the loud click of the office door opening heralded surprise visitors.

*

In Seattle, Renee Wilson made the final sweep across the wall with her paint roller, set it down carefully, and stepped back, hands on hips, to consider the effect she’d achieved on the second coat.

This was the first apartment she’d owned, the first one she had the right to make her own, and she’d lost no time in choosing and buying paints. Most of her stuff was still in boxes in the middle of empty rooms; it was a perfect time to get it all set up.

A strange chirping sounded from behind her. At first, Renee figured it had to be an alarm belonging to someone else in the apartment block, maybe waking them from a nap or reminding them to take their meds, but there was something vaguely familiar about it.

Eventually she realised it was something of hers, something she’d been given a couple of years ago and promptly forgotten about.

The last time Colonel Sun had reared his head, Renee had been one of the first to rally to fight against him, getting there around the same time as the Justice Guard. In her costumed identity of Suprema, she’d kept up the fight alongside the Justice Guard as the battle ranged further and further, crossing state lines before eventually fetching up not far from New York City.

Afterwards, she’d received an offer to join the team but had politely refused; for Renee, being constantly on call was the part of having powers she liked the least, and in fact there were weeks when Seattle didn’t see Suprema at all.

In spite of her refusal, they’d offered her a commcard with an invitation to keep in touch. Bulwark had smiled. “We all have our own ways of doing this,” he said. “But even if we work solo, sometimes it’s good to have an easy way to yell for help if you want it.” Holding it out, he managed to make it sound perfectly normal, not a brag nor the first step in manipulation. “We’re lucky enough to be in a position to listen when people yell.”

She’d taken it, and she’d put it somewhere, and she’d forgotten about it until a week earlier when she’d found it again while clearing out drawers.

And now it was ringing, and she realised she’d forgotten about it again.

It took some digging to find it, but the call never broke. When she finally pulled it out, the little video screen on the card showed a computerised sketch of a face. She put her thumb over the card’s own camera.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Suprema. This is D.A.N.I.E.L. of the Justice Guard. I was hoping we could talk.”

“D.A.N.I.E.L.?” She blinked. “Talk about what?”

“Are you still based in Seattle?”

“I am.” Suddenly she was wary. “What’s happened?”

“I have Stormcaller and Maxine Power inbound, but was hoping as a person already in place you might be willing to help us. The Ophidian Circle has recently had to depart San Francisco at speed. Because of that speed, they did so in a way we could track, and as a result we have a great opportunity to bring their threat to a close.”

Renee considered for a few moments longer, but her jaw had set into a determined line already; feeling the tension in her jawline, she realised she’d already made her decision. “At least for now,” she said. “Alright, I’m in.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” D.A.N.I.E.L. said. “Will you need any time to prepare?”

She tried to remember which of the moving boxes she’d put her costume in. “Probably not too long,” she said in the end.

*

Hornet had always prided herself on her quick reactions in combat, and her son had inherited the same thing. As they recognised the silvery suit Mercy wore coming in, they both sprang straight into action.

From Tracy’s perspective, two of her protectors blurred forward almost immediately the door had opened, before she had even had a chance to recognise what was approaching. It was a rush of power to see that kind of loyalty, as well as tremendously reassuring.

It was a lot less reassuring when the blurs halted with a few yards still to cover before they would have reached the door. As quickly as they had sprung into action, action left them, with the two simply hovering upright in midair.

The now-helmetless Mercy finished stepping into the room. She was carrying something in one hand, and the moment Tracy saw it, she felt her heart sink. The control rod was all too recognisable at this point.

She wasn’t about to go down that easy, of course. “Seize them and disarm her!” she commanded. Harrier started forward from beside her; Paladin and Hornet surged forwards again.

To Tracy’s perspective, Ms Miracle effectively appeared suddenly in front of Mercy, her arms outstretched, stiff-arming her allies backward.

In that time, Mercy said, firmly, “Stand down.” And then, turning her head to Hathor, she went on. “We can keep doing this, or you and I can accept the situation as it stands. You going to cooperate?”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment at being called out and with rage at the fact of being countered. It wasn’t that long ago that she didn’t wield this kind of power, but now it was under threat she really understood just how strongly she’d taken to it.

How could you go back to not controlling the powerful when you knew how good it felt?

Her mouth set in a sour line, she answered, “I don’t see that I have a lot of choice here.”

“Well, no.” Mercy, whoever she really was, gave a lopsided smile at that. “You mind if I tell these three to go patrol a while?”

Tracy made a noise in the back of her throat. It was the only way she could think of to express the disgust she felt. Evidently the heroine took this as assent. “Hornet, Paladin, whoever you are, go patrol the city. Fight crime.”

The three of them left and Ms Miracle shut the door behind them. Tracy stared daggers back at them, the two powerful blondes standing in front of her. They might as well have been actively taunting her with her lack of control over them, she thought.

Her thoughts turned toward the other gadgets in Castor’s lair. Some of them would be useful; Hornet had even suggested, many times, that she should inventory them carefully.

She’d got sidetracked partway through doing so when she’d discovered a database of San Francisco community members that Castor had put control chips into. Over the past months she had renewed the habit, carefully keeping her superhumans out of the loop as she did. It wasn’t necessarily about making them do anything, but she liked the thought that if she ever needed to, she could.

She frowned. There was something about Mercy, now she was unmasked, which scratched something at the back of her mind. Or was it something about the two of them together?

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“While I’m wearing the silver, call me Mercy,” was the only answer she received. “Anything else gets complicated.”

“What about when you’re not wearing the silver?”

“We’ve got other things to worry about, wouldn’t you say?” Ms Miracle interrupted. “Well, not worry exactly,” she amended. “Although I can’t imagine you’re happy about this.”

Tracy stared at her, mouth open. “Wait,” she said. “What is this?”

Mercy came closer. “Honestly, our hope is that it can be a negotiation,” she said. “We just needed to make sure the conversation we wanted will actually take place first.”

“And if you’re wielding superhumans against us, that’s not guaranteed,” Miracle agreed. The two of them were moving closer to where Hathor said, but they were staying out of easy reach of one another. They thought she might have more traps ready, Tracy realised, and they were trying to avoid her springing them.

The fact she might actually have some traps ready and just had no idea what they were, where their effective placement would be, or how to trigger them, made this a lot more painful.

She looked between the two of them. “You know,” she said, “I think you may assume I’m a villain. I don’t really feel like I am.”

“Funnily enough, our friend agreed,” Mercy said. “Me, I was all ready to cause some real problems. Vulcan tech being active is a big concern for a lot of us, you know?”

“I suppose so,” Hathor returned evenly. “Some of it honestly could have been put to better use legitimately.”

“Are you including the mind control tech in that?” Ms Miracle asked. Her smile flashed, the tone of her voice was saccharine.

That was what seemed so out of place here, Tracy thought suddenly. It was like the two women had decided to good-cop-bad-cop her. “I haven’t read the manuals, if it comes with any,” she said. “I get a genuine impression that Hornet has found her recent… resurrection is overdoing it, let’s say return… to be somewhat therapeutic. I grant you, without Vulcan I don’t know that she’d need the therapy.”

The two heroines present exchanged smiles at that. They didn’t look completely hostile smiles, but whatever joke the women shared was a private one. She didn’t know it, or what ramifications it might have.

She didn’t know enough. When you weren’t sure of the situation around you, the sensible thing to do was not to talk, in case you talked yourself into trouble. She was finding that hard.

“There’s some advances here in genetic manipulation,” she said. “They’re amazing. They definitely work. The data I have on them suggests they hold up long-term.” After a moment, she added, “I’m not sure I’d want to roll them out through Hypercorp, though, just because of the legal minefield. No question they’ve been tested, but sure as hell there wasn’t any ethics oversight on that testing. He went from alien to human.”

“Alien?” Ms Miracle seemed surprised. The thin smile on Mercy’s lips suggested she might have guessed something along those lines for herself.

“No idea where he got the source material from,” Tracy answered. “I really don’t; the records he keeps are annoyingly fragmented. I think he intended to die before anyone found his secret, and he wanted to leave them all guessing what else he’d been involved in. Or it was a test of his own memory. It can’t have been an attempt to hide his guilt, there’s too much there that’s an admission of one thing or another.” She thought she had the measure of them now, through these conversations. A negotiation, was it? Well, she had plenty of practice with those. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you’re looking for?”

Ms Miracle smiled and turned away from the conversation, sitting down at another of the control consoles in the lair. Mercy spoke up, turning Tracy’s attention back to her. “It’s not one thing specifically, Ms Hathor,” she said. “Bear in mind, until we were able to debrief Hooded Hawk we weren’t sure you were involved. It was just as possible Hornet had been uncovered in a remote lab and only the technology in that lab was compromised.”

“There are remote labs?” She wasn’t able to stop the note of frustration from sounding in her voice. This was something else she probably should have known if she hadn’t got sidetracked during inventory several times, or if she’d been comfortable doing even the dubious bits of the inventory in front of her obedient heroines. She was already hiding enough from Hornet so that her lover could still feel good about their morality, it didn’t need to be more.

“Afraid so,” Mercy said. “I got this from one of them, as you probably guessed.” She lifted the rod, then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, does it, Miracle?”

“Nope.” And this was said with such a note of triumph that Tracy looked over at her, surprised.

The monitor beside Ms Miracle was showing something new; a slowly swirling spiral which seemed to crackle with distortion as it passed over specific points in the screen. Tracy’s brow furrowed. “Is something wrong with my systems?” She asked. “I don’t know if… if…”

She had been saying something. She knew she had been saying something. As she stared she tried to remember what it had been. The thought was out of reach somehow. “If,” she added, and felt as if she’d made a meaningful contribution. Her lips stayed parted and opened as she continued to stare.

This felt a lot like hypnosis was supposed to feel, it occurred to her. Not that the thought stayed in her mind long.

“Just relax,” Miracle urged, her voice a coo, warm, welcoming, knowing, somehow conveying a sisterhood. “Everything’s better when you relax,” she went on. “Have you noticed that?”

Her scalp was tingling. The more her head tingled, the less it seemed odd that she wasn’t really thinking. She tried relaxing, so she could test what the nice blonde heroine had asked her. It turned out relaxing made her head tingle more. She was smiling, mouth wide with satisfaction or pleasure or just the joy of relaxing.

“Don’t think,” Miracle was saying. “Just let yourself go. You know it makes sense.” Smiling broadly, Tracy let go.

It was the first time in a long time that she hadn’t clung to control with everything she had. The difference in how she felt was vast, but her mind was sufficiently unfocused as to have lost track of it. Comparison did not need to be made, and so it seemed that comparison couldn’t be made.

The thing that was hidden behind the spiral, that the spiral seemed to distort as it passed over, was almost visible to her now, and she was more interested in allowing it to become visible than she was in thought. It made more sense to let herself go.

“You will not be arrested,” Mercy said. “You will not be imprisoned. But you will be good for us. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Tracy heard herself saying. Her voice was somehow distant from her, as if whatever they were talking about was mostly irrelevant.

The thing below the spiral was a face, a computer-generated face with an inscrutable smile, as artificial as the spiral above it. Tracy answered its smile with one of her own, lopsided and happy.

“We need you to tell us everything you’ve done with Vulcan technology,” said D.A.N.I.E.L.

Tracy began to do so. The AI listened, as did the two heroines, both of them quietly craving the same obedient peace that Hathor was experiencing in that moment.

She spoke for a long time, and she held nothing back. It was easier to hold nothing back, because that didn’t need her to monitor what she was saying and make judgements. She could just talk.

The more she talked, the lighter and happier she felt. It shouldn’t work like that, she thought. But it seemed as if it did.

She was fairly sure this wasn’t meant to be a good thing, but it certainly seemed to be.

*

Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, her vision swimming, as Tracy Hathor started to wake up properly.

She was in her office, having moved there at some point after turning the tables on the two meddling heroines. They themselves were kneeling in front of her, at her desk, their eyes glassy, their lips parted. Their thighs were spread, their hands resting palm-up on their thighs, and their heads tilted up to face her.

How she’d nodded off with this kind of thing to enjoy, she had no idea.

The lair’s entry, set into the floor of her penthouse office, whirred into action. Someone else was approaching, someone who knew how to open the door. There weren’t many of those. Most of them would only make the situation better for her; there was one outlier, technically, in that if Castor escaped prison they were going to have trouble coming their way. Tracy had decided some time ago not to worry about that unless she heard about a breakout on the news; if she didn’t hear about one before he arrived, she would find out too late to worry anyway.

In any case, she felt perfectly calm and relaxed, and looked up as the ceiling separated. Part of it lifted up to allow access, part descended slowly toward the floor, halting at intervals to become steps. Down the side of those steps there was a ramp, but more important was what she saw waiting at the top; her heroines and hero, back from patrol.

She smiled at how worried they looked. “Welcome, welcome,” she said. “Come on in. Look what I have!”

They obeyed her summons, of course, but Paladin and Hornet in particular seemed cautious, coming only slowly and looking at her new conquests as if they must be some kind of trap. Tracy simply smiled warmly. “No, we’re not going to be keeping them day to day,” she said. “But they and I, we have an understanding now, don’t we?”

Mercy and Ms Miracle glanced at each other and shared a private smile. “Yes, Mistress,” they said, almost in perfect sync. She felt the same shiver of anticipation up her spine that she did whenever Hornet said the same thing.

Her original squad still seemed uncertain. “Is everything alright, Mistress?” Paladin asked after a moment longer.

“Of course it is,” she said. “Oh, we had some concerns. Of course we did! But did you think these two could outwit me?”

The hesitation before reply could have been hurtful if she was more vulnerable to criticism, of course.

“Mistress is in complete control,” Mercy said. “Just as she should be.” She looked over her shoulder. “Mistress sets you to work as heroes and heroines. That’s the way control should be. No guilt.”

“No guilt,” Ms Miracle answered, her voice an echo. It touched Tracy, she wasn’t quite sure why, but the trust they were showing in her was delightful.

Especially because she had been using Hornet for other things, too, and getting away with it by telling her to forget, in between times. It would be easy for her to continue like that if she chose.

She just chose not to, any longer. Now the network she had built would be activated only when her computer asked a favour of her.

“No guilt,” Hornet echoed. There was a lightness to her voice; whatever weight or worry she had been carrying was gone now. Tracy smiled warmly. It was good to know you had made things better, even for your slaves. Especially so for Hornet. The two of them had discovered the intoxication of power and powerlessness together; their connection was something special. She shivered.

“Everyone,” Tracy said sharply, clapping her hands together. “Attention!”

Immediately everyone fell into the correct pose, backs stiff, legs straight, arms rigidly by their sides, heads back. The two kneeling new additions had launched slightly into the air in their haste to do so; all the same, there were now two rough rows of three apiece, lined up in front of her.

Tracy licked her lips. She would have to send her newest conquests off soon, to hide what they now were. But she could certainly afford to have some fun first, and so could her merry and obedient band. “You know, Hornet,” she said, “without Ms Miracle, you don’t get freed.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“And Paladin, you didn’t know she was going to do that for you.”

“No, Mistress.”

“Both of you, get Miracle naked. You’re going to show her your gratitude. Paladin, you can fuck her. Hornet, you’ll worship those luscious tits of hers.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

There was a knowing smile on Mercy’s face that seemed odd for someone mindless, but Hornet didn’t question it.