A Novel by Matthew Drury Streetsofragesaga.Net

A novel by Matthew Drury streetsofragesaga.net

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Licensed by Copyright Promotions, Ltd.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Other titles in this series:

Streets of Rage: The Complete Saga (2014)

This one goes out to all my real friends, from London to Los Angeles, from Sittingbourne to Long Beach. Are you ready for one more SOR novel? Let’s Rock this Shit!

“Ten years have passed since the fall of Mr. X and his Syndicate. The city has been at peace... until now. A new crime empire has arisen, corrupting everything good in the city. It is rumored to be led by Mr. X's own children: the Y Twins.

Former detectives Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding join forces with their old friend's daughter, Cherry Hunter, along with Floyd Iraia, an apprentice of the brilliant Dr. Zan.

Together these four vigilantes stand against the Y Syndicate on the... Streets of Rage.”

PROLOGUE TEN YEARS LATER

People’s Republic of China March 2039

The four unarmed, suit-clad government men and their civilian entourage stood shivering at the edge of the cliff outside the gates of the prison. This coastal area of China could be extremely cold in winter, but the cold was decreasing: this was March, and the weather was already starting to warm up for Spring. Behind the crowd stood two US Special Forces soldiers wearing black berets adorned with a patch depicting the US flag with the flaming sword of Damocles on top, flanked by uniformed soldiers holding their rifles pointed at the ground, fingers curled over the outside of the trigger guards. Stitched below the winged parachutes on the soldiers’ right sleeves were small black diamond patches, no bigger than a thumbnail. They were an elite unit. Adam Hunter and Estel Aguirre were in charge of the special forces unit, and were here on behalf of the United States of America overseeing a very high profile prisoner transfer. Estel was a tall muscular amazon woman in her early thirties with blond hair, shaved on the sides, with a long braid, while he was an African-American man in his late forties with short dark hair. He wore green sunglasses. A buzzer sounded and the gates opened. More soldiers emerged and fanned out, escorting a man wearing a prisoner’s shock belt. He was Japanese, in his forties and menacing, eyes like a pit viper. He was muscular, scarred through years of physical trauma, with shoulder- length black hair peppered throughout with streaks of gray. He was being led toward an unmarked armored vehicle in a waiting convoy by the side of the road.

Leon Shiva. Former Head of the New Syndicate, before that the right hand man of Mr. X himself. Overseer of various illegal scientific research projects during the days of the Syndicate Wars, and arguably one of the most dangerous men alive – now reduced to this. Restrained, having spent years in prison already. The United States had only just won a months-long renegotiation with China - where he was eventually captured by Interpol – to have Shiva transferred onto US soil to face prosecution there, where most of his recorded atrocities were known to have occurred. Adam smirked, watching the man’s defeated walk through the prison gates. How things had changed. One of the soldiers was barking orders to his subordinates. People started moving around. Then in the next moment, Adam and Shiva’s gaze met solemnly across the crowd. But instead of the haunted, defeated expression that Adam had expected to see… no, wanted to see in Shiva’s eyes… there was one of fiery determination. Adam frowned. Leon Shiva smiled widely, as if amused, or satisfied at a hidden thought. A young soldier touched the older man’s arm then, to help him into the armored vehicle. “Right this way, transfer – ” The small guardhouse some twenty meters away suddenly exploded, blowing apart concussively. There was a flash of light, a loud, flat bang! – and the building tore to pieces. Glass blew out. Wood sprayed. Flying shrapnel. A wall of flame. Adam hit the dirt instinctively. Estel dived for cover behind a telephone pole. A piece of shrapnel imbedded itself violently right next to her head in a blur of motion. Carnage. Noise. After what was little more than a few seconds, the tumult began to fade, echoing deeply, flames raging to the sky.

Smoke rolled everywhere, beams collapsing in crackling heaps. The guardhouse was no more. Estel climbed to her feet, dazed; she stared incredulously at the rubble then glanced over toward Adam, who was also getting up. He seemed a little shaken but unhurt. At the same time, the pit viper – Shiva – struck the soldier dead beside him. Impossibly fast, he executed a gravity-defying flying double kick that snapped the soldier’s neck before anybody else could even react. “Final Crash!” Another soldier snorted in panic, quickly jabbing a button on a remote control unit. Fifty-thousand volts of electricity erupted from the shock belt, jolting Shiva’s body. An ordinary man, perhaps, would have dropped instantly to the ground in agony... but not Leon Shiva. Incredibly, he had managed to stay on his feet. Teeth gritted. Grunting. Muscles quivering from the punishing electric current. Staring back at his tormenter. A full four seconds... “What the fuck…?” The soldier released the button, still in full panic, blinking. The flow of electricity stopped... and the pit viper was already moving toward him, hatred glowing in those eyes – How…? “Fuck!” “Open fire!” Adam Hunter’s mind barely had time to process everything that was happening at once. Suddenly bam - ! Concrete blew out not two inches from where he stood and he ducked, moving into a jog. He saw Shiva striding quickly across the road, toward the edge of the cliff, away from the fray.

Estel rolled, came up screaming at Adam, gun out, moving fast, shoving for the suits and other civilians to get down. Gunfire was coming from everywhere, forcing the soldiers into defensive tactics. “Jesus!” she yelled. “We’re being flanked. Where the Hell did this come from?” She started running hard and fast, both guns drawn now, knocking people ass over teacups, wondering how their intelligence had seemingly failed so utterly. Adam had his gun out now, moving at a dead run toward the edge of the cliff. There wasn’t time to think. People were all around him, confused, and he couldn’t get a clear shot. He was sweeping the gun back and forth, bodies crossing in front of him, all the wrong bodies goddammit! He moved forward, shouting “Get down! Down!” Just then, a Bell Cobra attack helicopter crested the edge of the cliff in an explosion of sound, rising like an avenging angel. It hovered, shattering the air with turbo-throb, blasting the entire area with a roto- wash of loose dirt, tables, chairs, paperwork, debris… everything that wasn’t nailed down. There was screaming, chaos and frenzy. And in the midst of all this – Leon Shiva, with no expression, stepped onto the chopper casually and was hauled inside. The chopper roared like a behemoth, tilted, then slipped over the side of the cliff and plummeted away. Adam Hunter was not impressed, and made a dive flat at the edge of the cliff, nearly flinging himself over the edge, gun extended like it was a part of his arm, finger flat on the trigger, blowing shot after shot at the retreating chopper. Bam-bam-bam! His face was contorted in a rictus of animal concentration. His shots connected with the pop spray of fiberglass, but it was to no avail, as the chopper was already flying away. Adam dumped his magazine, stuffed in a new one, and kept firing. A couple seconds later, Estel walked up beside him and stared over the edge, gun held loose at her side. Adam kept firing until his

magazine clicked empty. He grunted, staring. People were screaming, running away. Adam refused to look away from the retreating chopper, which continued following a course out over the sea. Hands clutching the barrel. Finally, he relaxed, and closed his eyes. Estel stared. “Hey.” Adam turned. “You’re on fire.” Adam looked. The back of his special forces jacket was completely ablaze. “Shit.” He took it off, flinging it aside. “Never a dull moment, huh, Adam?” He looked at her. “Not since I met you.”

Wood Oak City Harbor

The sun was beginning to rise over the fog, casting magnificent rays, as the merchant ship floated into the city harbor. It was a massive steel beast, weathered from years of constant operation. The name of the vessel was stenciled in faded mahogany red on its barnacled outer hull: CS CELESTE. As the ship emerged from the bank of morning fog which coated the ports here in the east of the city, two figures emerged from one of the cabins and walked onto the wooden deck. The first man carried a mop and bucket which he dropped unceremoniously to the deck. He was in his sixties, Asian. Whistling a low cheery tune, he got to work on his daily chore of washing salt from the decking. The other man was no stranger to these parts. In many ways, this was his home. Or at least, it had been, years ago. He took a pack of cigarettes from his backpack, lit one, then moved to a side rail and gripped it with his left hand, smoking with the other.

He watched the city as it began to scroll past slowly in the fog. In the year 2039, Wood Oak was considered a modern multicultural and thriving metropolis of the 21st-century, and it showed. Dozens of tall urban skyscrapers towered over the horizon in a dense, intimidating cluster, sleek and modern with all the latest tech, though it hadn’t always been so prosperous. Back when he lived here, it seemed smaller, though it had always seemingly been overrun by corporations, corruption, organized crime and gang violence. As the ship neared the shore, the past few years seemed to melt away and the man smiled at the pleasant and not-so-pleasant memories that drifted across his mind. He took a drag of his cigarette. He was somewhere in his late forties with a thick, bushy blonde beard surrounding his jaw. His blonde hair was long, spilling over his eyes and neck at the back. This was the first time that Axel Stone had set eyes on the city in nine years. The bitter memory of his divorce from Blaze Fielding and his leaving the city washed over him. It had not been pleasant; in fact it was one of the hardest things he had ever gone through in his adult life. Ultimately, Axel had wanted Blaze to be something she wasn’t. “You always saw me as this poor little orphan girl. But I don’t need to be saved anymore, not by you, not by anyone. I’m strong enough to just be by myself, to find happiness in my own self. It’s the way I learned to be during all those years alone in the world, and it’s the way I intend to live my life because that’s who I am… I don’t need external validation from someone who wants me to change into his mother. I can’t be that person. I’m sorry.” He’d had a hard time moving on from that, and people ended up turning against him, before his self-enforced exile from the metropolis. Since then, he’d tried to use what he had learned from her, from her unique and beautiful perspective on the world, to better understand himself and become a better person for the future moving on. For a long time after the divorce his feelings for her had persisted, and it drove him to try and find what he thought he needed elsewhere,

doing things he shouldn’t. Making rash choices. But after a time he realized how his own toxic thinking had ended up killing something inside of him, instead of actually resolving his issues. He understood how narcissistic he could be, and the death of his parents and his first wife was never an excuse for his behavior. Self-realization was a never- ending part of growing up, he figured. But he had finally come to terms with the misery he had been forced to endure. This homecoming could be a way of healing old wounds. Blaze had contacted him a few days earlier with an urgent message, asking him to return to the city. She believed that the Y Syndicate was a real threat now and something that could no longer be ignored. The ship slid alongside a jetty. As he stood at the railing, Axel could see people moving around below, crew and customs personnel going about their business. Behind them and all around, cargo containers were stacked and being hauled by the shipyard crane. He took the final drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt over the side into the jostling water. The Y Syndicate had been a rumor for some years now. Axel had always taken it for a joke. The Syndicate, Project Y. After everything he had achieved during the Syndicate Wars, after everything he had been through, everything he had seen…He figured he wouldn’t even be doing this if Blaze didn’t think it was so important. Otherwise… Sailors were securing the vessel. Axel hoisted the backpack over one shoulder and moved away from the hand rail. He took advantage of the hustle and bustle around him to make his way quietly off the ship and onto the jetty, bypassing the customs terminal, jumping a barrier. Somebody in high-visibility overalls jabbered in garbled bursts as he turned his way anonymously into the city’s adjacent industrial district without being stopped. He turned around the corner of a building, and in a moment, he was gone. One of the customs officials working the jetty watched him go, figuring he wasn’t getting paid enough to chase down some random

guy. He turned to speak to his colleague, who also stood watching, white-faced: “Hey, Surger. Who the Hell was that guy?” The colleague, Surger, spoke in a whisper. “You’re not gonna believe who that was, man. It’s incredible. I haven’t seen that guy’s face in years. Where the Hell has he been?” The first man, Gudden, shuffled some papers, shrugging. “So who was it? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” Surger took off his cap and wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. “I think I just have.”

This part of town was dominated by the primarily Mexican gang, Los Muertos, whose heavily-tattooed members could always be found in its bars and clubs, and marked the area with graffiti. As Axel walked quickly down an alley in a northerly direction, he saw rows of curling concert posters, advertising gigs for ‘DJ K-Washi’, a local musical prodigy who had quickly become one of America’s most successful chrome-electronica artists and a multi-millionaire celebrity. Axel instantly recognized the artwork on the poster, a striking image of a robotic head on a fiery background, as the cover art for K-Washi’s debut album, “World Behind The World”, which had released in 2030, nine years earlier. Everybody familiar with popular culture knew that image. Axel disregarded the thought and found his way to Van Buren Street on the corner of First Avenue, where a neon-lit dive venue called the Frog Pond was open. He went in and ordered a beer at the bar, then sat down right there. He was right on time. The bartender was in her twenties, tattooed, black. Her name was Trixie. “Wait,” she said, narrowing her gaze as she pulled the drink. “I know you. Aren’t you famous?” Axel looked at her. “Maybe. Depends on who you ask these days.”

She smiled, turning to another female member of the bar staff. Blonde, white-skinned. “Hey, Crystal. This guy. Isn’t he like ‘Rock’ or something?” “Moonrock?” Somebody turned on the jukebox over by the pool tables. A man was bent over, cue in hand, trying to pot the black. “No, ‘rock’.” She bit her lip, placing the freshly-poured beer down on a coaster. “No. ‘Stone’. Axel Stone, that’s it. From Firestorm.” Her eyes glimmered in recognition. “That’s awesome! What are you doing here?” She rang him up on the cash register. “It’s a long story,” he told her. “I’m meeting someone here, actually.” “Does trouble just come looking for you?” He smiled. Paid for the beer. “Something like that.” The blonde girl – Crystal – was collecting empty glasses from around the bar and feeding them into a dishwasher just out of sight. “Hey, didn’t that nuclear explosion that happened in the Old North of the city twenty-four years ago have something to do with you?” Trixie started pouring a drink for somebody else, one of her regulars, sat nearby. She shook her head. “No, no. He’s one of those vigilante heroes that took down the people responsible. Firestorm. Detective Agency, right? I remember my dad used to talk about that stuff all the time. It was a crime syndicate, some corrupt politician, that set off the Rakushin bomb.” Axel nodded as he gulped some of his beer. Gasped in satisfaction as he placed the glass back down. Old memories seemed to be in free- flow. “Yeah. It was a long time ago. We did what we could for this city, and then we all moved on. A lot has happened since then.” “That explosion is the reason the North of the city is still so dangerous,” said the blonde. “Nobody I know has managed to move on from it yet... my grandpa lost everything that year, and the school…” She trailed off. Her tone had gotten spiteful, but he could understand where she was coming from.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Axel told her. Officially, the Old North of Wood Oak City had been a no-go zone ever since the Project Y Incident, but it hadn’t stopped desperate people from living on the scorched, irradiated land. The door to the place opened. A group of five or six people entered then, chattering excitedly. A large, tattooed Maori man in his twenties named Floyd Iraia was among them, smiling like a Cheshire cat. Some cash exchanged hands, there were friendly words, a pat on the back, then he approached the bar to find Axel, managing to turn the heads of more than a few people along the way with the state-of- the-art chromium-prosthetic limb replacements – cybernetic arms – under his shirt. “Axel. It’s good to see you, man.” Floyd’s voice was deep and masculine as they fist-bumped. “I can’t believe you actually came! Thought you were totally gonna stand me up.” He smiled impishly at Trixie, who stared back at him, seemingly fascinated. “I’ll have the same thing my friend is having, babe.” “You got it,” she said, and moved to grab a clean glass. “I just hope this is all worth my while,” Axel told Floyd, taking a deep breath. He forced a half-laugh, but didn’t seem amused, then averted his gaze. He hadn’t shaved for weeks. His hair was long. He smelled strongly of cigarettes. He looked like shit, pushing fifty… At least, that’s what was going through Floyd Iraia’s mind as he sat down, studying Axel’s appearance out the corner of one eye. He’d only known Axel Stone personally for a couple of years, but of course he’d heard all about his exploits with the LAPD, Dr. Zan and Firestorm during the Syndicate Wars a decade earlier. Admittedly, in person, Axel seemed a little washed up now, like a shadow of the cool, heroic leader he seemed to become during the days of Mr. X’s Syndicate. They’d met through Dr. Gilbert Zan, of course, who had become something of a mentor and father figure to Floyd in the years since his construction accident. But while Zan, Blaze and the others seemed to have moved on from those old days and found themselves doing other

things now, it was like Axel still lived in the past to a certain extent, haunted by the experiences that molded him. “So what made you decide to come back?” Floyd asked, genuinely curious. “Are you still having those recurring dreams? It’s a long way from Alaska.” The line of questioning made Axel want to throw Floyd into a wall. But he kept his emotion below the surface and allowed it to evaporate. “It’s actually halibut season in Sitka right now,” Axel told him wistfully, “and there are no roads that connect it to the mainland, so the only way to travel there is by plane or by boat. The Tongass is so beautiful this time of year. So isolated.” Trixie came with Floyd’s drink, and he paid with cash. “That sounds dope, brother. If only I was so lucky.” Axel drained his glass, unmoved. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have come back if anyone else had asked me. If it’s important to Blaze, then… well. It’s important to me.” His face was stern, determined. “Listen, man…” Floyd lowered his voice. “I’m glad you reached out to me first. You know Blaze Fielding requested the help of Dr. Zan as well, but with his age and his condition there’s not much he can do and if you’re here too… everything I’ve heard about the Y Syndicate must be true. I just… I don’t really know what we’re supposed to do about it.” Axel sighed. “What exactly have you heard about this Y Syndicate?” Floyd swallowed a big gulp of beer. “Rumors really. Rumors that won’t die off. Corporations joining together in shady production deals, people going missing, or doing strange things and then having no memory of it afterward. Things getting covered up. You know it’s the corps that run things in the city these days. The cops, the Mayor…everyone is in their pocket.” Axel didn’t have an answer for that. He rolled his eyes and shrugged.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same?” Floyd said with a frown. “There is no more world to save anymore,” Axel told him, sensing anticipation in Floyd’s body language and his sharp-featured face. “Just tired people.” He rubbed his beard absently with one hand. “As for those dreams, I don’t need a psych evaluation.” Floyd drank his beer in silence for a moment, and focused on Axel’s blue eyes and fair-skinned face. He intuited something else just below the surface. This man was haunted, and it could drive him to violence. It was written in his thin lips and taut lines. Axel looked down. “How is Zan these days?” “A few more hours, and you can ask him yourself,” Floyd said. “As long as you’re civil.”

Hunter Residence La Habra Heights

Three Days Earlier

“Please.” “No.” “Come on, Cherry!” Lucy whined. “No.” “Why not?” At this point, Lucy had been trying to wear Cherry Hunter down to go to this concert for three months now, and tonight was finally the night. To say she was tired of the fight was a gross understatement. Cherry Hunter caught the gaze of her friend. She was sixteen years old, and just like Lucy she was in her first half of eleventh grade. African-American, fiercely beautiful, her hair was dyed red and set into bangs. “Lucy, there are so many reasons for me not to go, I don’t know why you’re even asking at this point.” Her friend, Lucy, was a pretty Hispanic girl with a red-tinted Black Widow spider tattooed at the base of her neck above her right collarbone. She was visiting for the night, like she did most nights. She huffed. “Cherry, you hardly get out of this house… it’s one night with the girls at a DJ K-Washi concert! You know everyone going, you love the music, it’s going to be amazing! Just come.” Cherry rolled her eyes. This was her dad’s house, inherited through his mom Dolores. She lived here with Curtis, her nine-year-old half- brother, and his mom, her dad’s long-time partner, Jodie Kelly. Dad was Special Forces. Then there was Max Stone, seventeen years-old, son of dad’s old police friends, who had lived with them here since his parents’

divorce nine years earlier. Max had been like an older brother to her since she moved in, but was seldom seen around the house these days. He had his own issues. “I may like DJ K-Washi, but that doesn’t mean I want to go to one of his crazy concerts with hundreds of sweaty people all bumping and grinding. That just doesn’t sound appealing to me. I prefer smaller, backyard stuff. Besides, you know I prefer to work on my own material.” Her guitar was in her lap. It was a Bilt Revelator ZX, mahogany-red on the face. She began to strum, the electric sound instantly filling the room from speakers just out of sight, at the foot of her bed. It was an appealing bass, hitting deep and interesting notes. She wore ripped jeans and a yellow shirt, rocking slightly side to side and smiling, humming a melody. She strummed a few more chords, then finished, looking up at Lucy expectedly. “You’re awesome,” Lucy said, and meant it. “Come on. You love DJ K-Washi. It’s not just a random night out.” Cherry suppressed a smile. It was true. She was a huge DJ K-Washi fan… who wasn’t in the year 2039? The fact that his true identity was unknown was part of the appeal to his fans – self-labelled ‘K-Heads’ – over the years, and there were so many dumb theories as to who he really was. His face was never seen under his helmet, his image strictly controlled by the record label. She had all three of his albums to date, “World Behind the World”, “Kaeyus Infernus” and “Death’s Door”, and she was more than a little excited for his upcoming new album. “Fine. I’ll go to the stupid concert. The K-Heads better not cause any trouble though.” K-Washi’s body of work had faced criticism in the past because of controversy over subliminal messaging in some of his tracks. There were reports of his fans doing strange things with no memory of why they were doing it. Messing with people’s heads, like the music was making them think things that weren’t real. “Don’t be paranoid,” Lucy told her. “If anything, those stories are a publicity stunt. The music is just too good to ignore.” Lucy had brown

hair in a bob with blunt bangs and a French-braid styled headband that matched her hair color. She was of average build, and slightly taller than her more lean, muscular friend. She leant to one side and called out. “Alexa, play ‘DJ K-Washi, Behind the World.” The computerized AI acknowledged her request in its monotonous tone, and the music started. The track ‘Behind the World’ was the title track from the first album, which gained popularity on K- Washi’s SoundCloud back in the day. The beat hooked you in from the start with its darkly simplistic bass, evocative percussion, and contextually-relevant vocal chops. The raucous production value still showcased K-Washi’s supremacy within his musical field even today, nine years since its creation. The two girls danced in the room, looking goofy. At the end, Lucy jumped up in the air and squealed a bit. “Yay, now I get to make and dress you up and take you out! K-Head!” Cherry grumbled underneath her breath, but didn’t resist her best friend’s playful attitude. It juxtaposed her own personality in a way she needed, with some of the harsh reality she’d had to live with in her home life. After a while, Lucy had decided there were limited options for what Cherry could wear, but she worked with what they had: a backless, strapless, dark red top with matching armbands, and a high- waisted black skirt that held tight to Cherry’s curves, and then flared out at the high thigh with ruffles that tickled Cherry’s legs. “I feel self-conscious,” Cherry complained. “No, you look sexy!” Since Lucy was an advocate for Cherry’s natural look, she put very little to no makeup on her and chose black platform boots. “We’ll knock ‘em dead,” Lucy said, doing duck face selfies in the mirror on her phone and posting them on her social media with all the hashtags that felt right in that moment. “You’ll see.” “I will if they try anything,” Cherry laughed. She felt uncomfortable leaving the house in the ensemble that Lucy had chosen

for her, but her friend swore up and down that she looked great, and was able to finally convince her to relax and have a good time. Lucy already had her driver’s license and a second-hand car, which had been a sweet-sixteenth birthday present from her parents. Less than two hours later they met the rest of the girls in front of the ticket booths at the Pine Pot Arena in Anaheim. A thick African-American girl named Honey crushed Cherry in a hug when she saw her. “Only for you, Chez.” Eventually they all got situated and found their seats inside. Honey was explaining that she had gotten the last-minute tickets for free because her boyfriend was a sound engineer on staff. Throughout the whole thirty-minute wait for the concert to start, and even during the first band’s small performance, the girls chortled and screamed. When DJ K-Washi walked on stage, there was a cacophony of rapturous applause and whistles from the five-hundred strong crowd. The venue was packed. K-Washi himself appeared as a tall man wearing a futuristic suit with built-in lights, which left his bare chest exposed and a shiny, robotic-looking helmet obscuring his face. He floated around the stage, pyrotechnic effects triggering and flaring as he moved around the corners of the arena, his movements calculated, the music thumping, driving the crowd wild. He spoke: “DJ K-Washi is going to blow your mind… Blow your mind, mo-th-er-fuck-eeeer. Prepare for Extinction-Level Event…” His electronically-enhanced voice was impossibly deep, slightly raspy, and completely seductive as the next big bass drop hit. For the next couple of hours, Cherry let the music take over her, having a great time. She couldn’t remember the last time she smiled so much, and she felt gratitude that she had friends like Lucy in her life, that always pushed her to come out to things like this, even when she didn’t think she wanted to at first.

When she went to the restroom to freshen up, she checked her phone for new notifications. To her complete surprise, there was a text from dad:

Cherry suddenly felt a knot in her stomach. In that moment she seemed to forget all about DJ K-Washi and the concert going on around her. A text from her dad was rare. Unusual. His job with the Special Forces meant he wasn’t home that much, always off on some assignment… but he always seemed on top of things and would usually make it back whenever he could. His family was important to him. He was the best of the best. So if he was asking for her help, then it must be serious. The sound of the concert music was muffled inside the five-stall ladies’ restroom, but it was still loud enough to vibrate the walls. A citrusy smell of marijuana smoke emanated strongly from one of the other stalls as Cherry sat on the toilet staring at her phone, blinking, trying to think. Some girls were standing at the wash basins a few feet away talking about a pervy guy in the row of seats behind them, and how he’d be going home alone tonight. Cherry read through the text again, trying to get bearing on her feelings. Dad was talking about Blaze Fielding. She was Max’s mom, and one of dad’s oldest friends. Cherry loved Blaze. She admired her strength, audacity and determination. She looked up to her, had done for years. Would do anything for her. She would always seek her out

whenever Blaze came over to the house, spending time talking about whatever came to mind. Blaze’s experiences as a younger woman fascinated Cherry. It was what made Blaze such an amazing and strong woman today. She was a badass. If she needed help, Cherry felt no hesitation. Cherry knew that Max Stone, Blaze’s son, didn’t want to have much to do with training how to fight… absent father issues and whatnot… but her strong relationship with her own dad meant she knew a few things about self-defense. She knew how to handle herself. She sent back,

Then,

Wood Oak City was a six-hour drive from here. She would have to make another call.

Wood Oak City Police Precinct Two weeks earlier

The office in the basement of the building was a working monument to the struggle of order over chaos. Long, fairly narrow, and divided in half by the remains of a floor-to-ceiling glass partition from

which the door had long since been removed. Posters and notices were tacked and taped to the walls, and virtually every flat surface was covered by books, folders, or low stacks of paper. There were no windows. The lighting was dim and the air conditioning didn’t work. In the back room, two men and a woman stared at a series of red- tabbed folders lying on a shelf. Each was open to the stark black-and- white photograph of a naked corpse laid strewn, each one disposed of in a different part of the city. “I’m telling you, it’s driving us nuts,” the first man complained mildly. He was tall, solid, and a close-cropped redhead. His brown suit fit too snugly for real comfort. His tie had been pulled away from his collar and the collar button undone, the only concessions he made to the barely moving air. “I mean, I know it’s a signature, but I’ll be damned if I can read it.” “Oh, put your glasses on, Stan,” the woman muttered. She was a tall and beautiful woman with upper-back length ashen brown hair that was asymmetrically parted on the left right side and brown eyes. She wore a black business suit with a black turtleneck. “It’s the letter ‘Y’. I think what we’re seeing here is the work of a serial killer who’s trying to send us a message.” Stan Nguyen closed his eyes briefly, as if in prayer. He said nothing. The second man stood between them, hands easy on his hips. His jacket was draped over a chair in the other room with his tie, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled back twice. He was in his late forties. He took a step away from them, closer to his desk. He’d been reading the case files all day, at the Commissioner’s request. All five victims had been attacked in the streets, their bodies left behind dumpsters, thrown in dumpsters. Found in hotel water towers. All signs indicated little or no struggle after the initial assault, indicating knowledge of the attacker, or near-total surprise. They had been chloroformed just enough for immobility, then dragged elsewhere. There were two women and three men, all had multiple snake bites.

Strangled with either an unfinished belt or rawhide strap, their bodies stripped naked, and a razor taken to their chests. The same slicing pattern on each. None had been raped. Blaze Fielding groaned and plucked at her turtleneck. “God, doesn’t the air conditioning work in here? How can you work like this? It’s like a sauna.” Robert Murphy shrugged unconcern, then pushed a hand back through his hair. He checked through some files at his desk, nodding to himself. “Well?” Blaze asked, looking at him. “You’re the one with the ear to the ground, Murphy. You got a rabbit we can chase, or what?” Murphy held out a hand to hush her, then fingered through more files from another folder. He stood for a moment, switching pieces of paper in his hands. “Murphy,” Blaze said, “we haven’t got all day. Either you’ve got something or you don’t. Don’t play games, okay?” Murphy straightened, and almost smiled. “I do have a lead, Blaze. You could be right. An art collector named Diva, known to carry around a large snake in public. Big money in the underworld, links to multiple crime bosses. Reports of her torturing people. And get this - known to sign her name as ‘Diva Y’. But Blaze – I know what you’re thinking. You’re going to have to run this by the Commissioner first.” He straightened, exhaling loudly. “Got to do it by the book these days. We can’t just throw ourselves out onto the streets with a hunch. Not the way we used to.” “First thing in the morning,” she said, as if reading his mind, her gaze set on the photographs. “I’ll speak to him then.”

Commissioner Joseph Bernstein sat behind his desk, hands folded loosely in his lap, and stared absently at the ceiling for several seconds before lowering his gaze. He was not smiling. On the desk, in the center of the blotter, was an open folder. He looked at it disdainfully, shook

his head once, and took off his wire-rimmed glasses. Thumb and forefinger massaged the bridge of his nose. “Fielding…” He thumped a heavy hand on the folder. The lighting in the small office reflected off his glasses, banishing his eyes unnervingly until his head shifted. “Fielding, how in the name of heaven do you expect me to believe that this murderer is sending us a message by carving a ‘Y’ on his victims’ chests?” It was his tone more than the words that told her the Commissioner was actually concerned about something else. “I thought it was obvious, sir, once the patterns had been established,” she told him. Bernstein stared at her for several seconds before he said, flatly, “Right.” “Stan says it’s driving him nuts. But I know I can prove this is a message from the killer. I think this could lead us to the Y Syndicate.” Bernstein was in his sixties, heavyset. He’d had a long career with the Wood Oak PD, and had been Blaze Fielding’s supervisor for the past several months after her transfer. To say that it had been an interesting experience would be a huge understatement. He slapped the folder closed, his temper flaring. “No. That’s not a ‘Y’ on those bodies. It’s just slashes, for crying out loud. You’re the one who’s driving us nuts, Fielding. This is an obsession. The Y Syndicate? Do me a favor. I can see how your previous… experience… might make you want to believe those rumors, but look at things from my perspective, please. You’re a liability. I can’t have you leading an investigation right now until you see a counselor. You are off this case, as of right now.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Bullshit! My mental health is not the issue here. You can’t just ignore this, sir. We have an ethical responsibility. There’s more than just coincidence at work here. Listen, I’ve been gathering information for months - ”

“No!” he cut her off, raising his voice. “This is not Firestorm. The Y Syndicate is not a real-life threat. You can’t prosecute a ghost, for Christ’s sake. You know what, Fielding? I want you to take some time off. Spend some time at home with your daughter. And I want you to get a psych review and some anger management classes before you set foot back in this precinct.” Blaze Fielding straightened lightning-fast, took a step toward the desk, and punched the Commissioner hard in the face. The surprise doubled the effectiveness of the blow. He toppled, and one of the wooden legs on his chair snapped on the way down. “Fucking wild Mowgli!” he spat, getting to his feet. He was tall at six-foot-nine, with large and strong musculature beneath his suit. He was no weakling. “You call that professional behavior? You’re discharged, Fielding. Get out of here before you regret it.” His eyes told her he was deadly serious. He picked up the broken chair and tossed it aside. She grimaced, feeling all kinds of tension. Then she allowed her shoulders to relax, letting the anger go. She turned and walked away without saying another word.

Blaze pulled up the driveway of her house and parked the truck. Her fist still hurt from the karate chop earlier as she moved to the front door. She was eating French fries out of a fast-food sack. She unlocked the door, stepped in, then froze mid-fry in mock terror, as a loaded water gun was put to her head. “Hi, mom,” Jennifer said. She was ten years old. She smiled, giggled, and lowered the water gun. “Welcome home.” “Did you eat?” Blaze asked her, smiling. She went to the side in the hallway, kicked off her shoes and started taking off her earrings. “I had some of the leftover Chinese from last night. It’s still good.” Jennifer Stone was every part her mother’s daughter, and not just down to her beautiful looks. She had definitely inherited some of her

womanly characteristics too, and instincts. She was only ten and Blaze was already calling her “my mini-me”. She watched her mother for a moment as she took off the clamshell-like accessories from her business attire, looking weary. Something was bothering her more than usual. “You okay, mom?” Jennifer asked, moving closer. The dog came in, wagging its tail. Blaze sighed, and told her daughter about her day, about what happened. Blaze was a detective and a Public Prosecutor at Wood Oak City PD Special Investigations Department working under Commissioner Bernstein, and she’d transferred there not long after her return to police work. She was always working now, due to the constant pressure she put herself under after her divorce from Axel, Jennifer’s dad. His moving to Alaska and forcing her to raise Jennifer alone was a sore spot for her. She had told Jennifer it was her calling, returning to police work, that even after everything she did in her years with Firestorm, she still felt it was her personal responsibility to continue bringing justice to the world and root out evil in all its hidden forms. It was a way of life to Blaze now, for she of all people knew the real horrors and evil capable in the hearts of all human beings. And that human nature would never change. Jennifer would never forget some of the things her mother had told her: would never forget the valuable life lessons her mother had so lovingly imparted over the years. She blinked, her expression changing as she listened to her mother speak. “He called you what?” Blaze shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She fed the dog some French fries. “You’re gonna need some help, mom,” Jennifer said. “You’re gonna have to talk to dad.”

Blaze caught her daughter’s gaze. Anxiety washed over her, but she knew that Jennifer was right. Despite the distance and the feeling between them, Axel Stone’s help could be vital in the weeks ahead, if she could convince him of any of this. But they hadn’t spoken in years. “You don’t know unless you try, mom.” Blaze nodded, pursing her lips. “I know.”

Night (Present Day)

“Blaaaaaaze!” Axel Stone screamed long and loud. “Mommy…” came Max’s rasping voice. He repeated her name lovingly, unable to believe what he was seeing, emphasizing each syllable. “M…om…my… Nooooooo!” Axel blinked back tears, his distress turning quickly into rage. He gritted his teeth and charged at Enigma, his anger toward the doppelganger boiling over, and he delivered a powerful flaming uppercut across the man’s chest, ripping clothes and the skin beneath. “Graaaand Upper!” Enigma was knocked back, taken by surprise, wincing in pain at the sheer ferocity of the attack. Axel felt a short rush of satisfaction, seeing Enigma with his clothes ripped, smoking, and pissed off. If you made him mad, that meant you were getting to him. But it wasn’t nearly enough – Enigma had Zan’s death to answer for, Adam, Amber… and now Blaze! How many others? “You killed Blaze!” Axel roared. “You fucking piece of shit!” Axel hit the snarling, evil man again and again, and with each blow he shouted: “She – !” Wham! “ – was!” Wham! “ – my!” Wham!

“ – wife!” Axel’s right arm was sagging with fatigue, so he changed to his left fist and went on punching, slamming his fist into Enigma’s head, over and over, his rage knowing no bounds. He saw flesh and bone breaking apart, blood spraying, and he could feel Enigma’s life diminishing, his energy spiraling away, becoming less potent, as Axel slammed him to the brink of death. “You bastard!” At last he had to stop, winded, gasping for air, sweat dripping.

When Axel woke up, the small digital clock on the nightstand by the bunk told him it was seven-oh-five AM. He’d been asleep for a little over six hours. He immediately noticed that Floyd had left him a handwritten note:

MEET US IN THE LAB WHEN YOU WAKE UP

He took a deep breath and sat up. This was a storage room at ZanTech Labs, Dr. Zan’s shop in Wood Oak City, one of three such rooms they’d had converted into guest quarters a couple of years back. The building complex itself was located in an industrial district on the East Side of town, so naturally was outfitted with automated defenses around the perimeter to keep out the gangs. Zan was very careful with his security nowadays after an armed group of raiders stormed the place and stole some of his tech a few months earlier. Now, a fly couldn’t even get in without Zan’s approval. Zan mostly did cybernetic research here, doing his own advanced development on Project Y tech and its application in various scientific fields, for the benefit of humanity. Floyd Iraia was his apprentice, eagerly learning from Zan’s knowledge and experience, with the aim of eventually taking over the operation full-time. Formerly a construction worker who lost his arms in an accident, Floyd was given his cybernetic

arms as a gift when Dr. Zan took him under his wing. Floyd was young and brash at times, but he was incredibly intelligent and had been a loyal friend to the old man for the past several years. Axel got up and used the bathroom, staring at his tired reflection in the mirror. The dream had been particularly vivid this time around. The same dream, the recurring dream. The death of all his friends and family at the hands of Enigma. He rubbed a hand over his face and beard and sighed in frustration, wondering what it all meant, then made his way to the lab.

Cherry Hunter and Floyd Iraia were in the lab, waiting for the others to be ready. It was a large room, filled with expensive machinery, prototypes, and banks of displays. Digital devices, stacks of paperwork. A low mechanical hum filled the air. This was the first time they’d met. Cherry was sitting on a wooden bench, absently twirling her hair around a finger . “So, how’d you lose your arms?” “Construction accident,” Floyd told her, chewing a donut. “Eight years ago, I was working on a site over there on Washington and 21st. Didn’t have much going for me at the time. We were using heavy duty machines to assist in our operations every day. Building a hotel.” The door opened and a motorized robot rolled in on wheels. It went about a preprogrammed routine, punching buttons on various control panels. He watched it move, then looked at her. “I was operating an industrial auger when both my arms became trapped in the machine. They were severed up to my shoulders. Law enforcement agents were able to apply tourniquets until the ambulance showed up. Got rushed to hospital, but my arms were gone.” Cherry winced. “Ouch.” He nodded wearily. Took another bite. “Yeah. Zan had been following the story on local news channels. Thank God, he took me in and gave me a job, somewhere to live – and these cybernetic arms!” He raised them triumphantly and beat the air, like he was a son of Zeus.

The half-eaten donut was his sword. As his arms lowered, the nanofibers whirred and clicked. His pride was clearly evident on his expression. “I’ll always be grateful,” he said. “Without these babies I’d be a cripple, with nothing to my name. But now – I’m stronger than I ever was before. Way I see it, I’ve been given an upgrade – and a second chance!” “I’d say so,” she said, smiling. “You’re very lucky.” “Since then, I’ve devoted my time to helping Zan in the lab developing new tech.” Cherry got her feet, noting how methodically he paced the lab, constantly looking over the readouts on various monitors. She wondered if he even realized he was doing it, or if it was something he’d just learned to do habitually over time. She picked up a disconnected robotic hand from a nearby workbench and examined it, turning it with more than a little fascination. The chrome-plated metal gleamed under the overhead strip-lighting. “I’ve seen ZanTech used by the military on TV,” she said. He nodded. “One of our biggest contractors. Since the end of the Syndicate Wars there’s been a lot of advancements made in the field of cybernetic drone technology and satellite technology, with ZanTech on the frontier for military defense contracts.” He clicked on a nearby holo projector. A grainy, blue-lined holographic image of the globe spattered to life in mid-air between them, surrounded by various tags and lines, labels scrolling and listing data. Cherry saw the ZanTech logo, interchanging with mugshots of various scientists and military generals. “Isn’t your dad Special Forces?” Floyd said. He finished his donut. “Yeah. He’s on deployment in China right now.” “Then I’m sure he’s well familiar with our tech line.” He turned off the holo and came closer to her. She smiled. “Kinda goes without saying, given his personal history with Zan and the Syndicate.”

“I’d love to have been around during those old days. Busted a few heads. There’s always so much shit going on in the world. Must have felt good.” Cherry kept her voice gentle. “Well, since Blaze Fielding is calling us all together, I think you might just get your chance.” His eyes travelled quickly over her form, noting the hardened tone to her muscles, scars on her face despite her young age. A fading bruise spread across her right cheek and temple. She didn’t seem like a typical teenager to him. “You look like you’ve seen a few scrapes yourself. No offense.” “None taken.” She leaned toward him. “I haven’t exactly had an easy ride of things. My dad’s been training me to fight for years. It’s how we bond. It’s proved… useful… a number of times.” Then she looked away, averting his gaze. “He couldn’t be here today so he asked me to come in his place.” Floyd regarded her. “He must have some real confidence in you.” Then her gaze met his. Her eyes were hard. “It’s not misplaced,” she assured him. A nearby door whistled open on mechanical rollers, and Axel Stone came in, gripping the threshold with his right hand to steady himself like a drunken sailor. He looked like shit, his eyes bloodshot. “Axel,” Floyd said, turning. He frowned. “Are you okay?” Axel walked into the room. Despite his haggard appearance, he was still fit and capable, a six-foot mountain of muscle. Maybe a little psychotic after everything he’d been through. “Just a dream,” he said. His voice was a deep, masculine purr. Floyd tilted his head to one side as he watched the older man approach. “The same recurring dream?” Axel grimaced. “Yes. The same recurring dream.” “Axel,” Cherry said, giving him a friendly hug. His strength appealed to her in a way that Floyd couldn’t even imagine at his younger age. “Good to see you. What recurring dream is that?” She touched her throat, a little unconscious movement of her hand.

He seemed to tense up, then relax. “A long time ago, Firestorm went up against someone called ‘Enigma’. Long story, but he was defeated twelve years ago now.” Cherry nodded, maintaining eye contact. “Dad’s told me all about it. Still can’t believe you guys made it into space.” Axel stared off into the distance, clearly haunted by something. “Yeah. Well, in this dream he comes back. He is my other self, like a shadow. An eidolon. A hidden part of my persona, like Jekyll and Hyde. He uses a thing called a ‘Kaeyus Infernus’ to raise Hell. Ends up killing everyone I care about.” He let his breath out in a controlled exhalation. “I’m left alone.” Floyd looked at him thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything. Cherry sighed a half-laugh. “You sound like a K-Head.” “Excuse me?” Axel’s face was neutral, no sign of anger or sadness or shock. He simply looked concerned as the steely gaze of his blue eyes bored into hers. “A DJ K-Washi fan,” Cherry said, clarifying, as if this was something a child should have realized. “‘Kaeyus Infernus’ is the name of his second album.” Her words hit Axel Stone like a ton of bricks. Now that she mentioned it, he realized she was right. The album names. World Behind the World... Kaeyus Infernus... He didn’t even think of it before now. “I do listen to DJ K-Washi when I’m working out,” he admitted. He had all three of the albums. “A friend of mine likes to remix his tracks.” “There are rumors,” she told him, “about the music affecting people’s cognition. Making them think things that aren’t real. Made a couple of people commit suicide a couple years back, if you believe the stories.” “Do you believe the stories?” “I don’t know.” Flashes of the dream went through Axel’s mind. Well-defined crow’s feet lines creased at the edges of his face as he recalled the intense images. He remembered seeing Amber – his sister, Tina Stone

– commit suicide by jumping off a building. In the dream it had been Enigma goading her to do it, getting in her head. But Axel had to admit – in the real world, this idea about the DJ K-Washi music having some kind of an effect on things seemed to hold some weight. “Maybe there’s something to it,” he said. “Could just be a coincidence,” Floyd said. “Dreams are all about symbolism in your mind. I’m no Jungian psychologist, but it could just mean something on a subconscious level your brain is trying to figure out. Not so unusual if you think about it that way.” Axel didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need you guys trying to profile me, okay?” He folded his arms defiantly. “I’m here because Blaze asked me to be here.” His thoughts were whirling, and he felt a compulsion to lash out, but he resisted. Floyd frowned. “Alright man. Just lending a friendly ear, is all.” Axel chose not to say anything in response. The only answer was a noncommittal grunt. He blinked a few times, then turned to Cherry. “How’s the family, Cherry?” “We’re good,” she told him, noticing his discomfort. “Living with Jodie Kelly can be a challenge, but I’m grateful for my home and the people in it.” She stared hard at Axel, deciding to press at him from somewhere deep within her soul, something that had been festering for some time. Before she could reconsider, she blurted: “Max misses you, you know. Your son. Do you ever think about reaching out to him?” Axel gave a wounded expression, sighing resignedly. “Many, many times I’ve tried. He doesn’t want to talk to me.” “Dad does his best to keep him out of trouble these days, but he’s distant.” Axel nodded. “I should’ve been there for him. I know. I’ve always been able to count on Adam. I don’t know what Max would have done without his charity.” “Adam loves you, Axel. You’re a brother to him, no matter what.”

He smiled at her. “You’re a good kid, Cherry. I’m glad Adam has someone like you in his life.”

Axel went through a side door to have a cigarette. Blaze was out there, leaning against the railing, looking out at the courtyard. She was wearing golden hoop earrings, a red sports bra beneath a black leather jacket, black fingerless gloves, a red skirt with a black belt, and red boots. At forty-six years old, she looked fantastic. Every part a more mature version of the woman he fell in love with years ago. Her hair was caught by a light breeze, blowing over her face in strands. She sensed his presence and turned. “Hey. Long time no see.” He took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, then came to stand beside her. “How are you, Blaze? How’s Jessica?” “Our daughter?” she said, looking over at him. There was so much she wanted to say to him. “Would it hurt you to pick up the phone and call her every now and then?” “Blaze…” “No, don’t.” She looked away, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have come out like that. I just… she’s fine. My friend is watching her.” There was an awkward silence between them, brought on by years of distance, silence, and emotional pain. He took a drag of the cigarette, blowing out the smoke thoughtfully. He’d often wondered to himself what this moment might be like. Meeting Blaze again for the first time after so many years. Honestly, the idea had replayed itself again and again in his mind, and he’d gone through all the different things he might say. But now that the moment was here, all that stuff seemed to melt away. There was no rehearse to his words, only instinct. “Blaze, I came to help. Figured it might be a step in the right direction. For all of us. I know I should’ve done better. By you and by them. I can’t change the past, only keep moving forward, and if you think this is important, then it’s important to me. I’m here.”

She looked at him, her expression wistful. “After all this time, I find that encouraging, Axel. It’s nice to hear those words from you, and I do appreciate your being here.” She blinked, her expression becoming more focused, objective. “Thankyou for coming.” The years-long tension between them seemed to melt somewhat, if only on a superficial level. “Trouble with the Commissioner?” Axel asked then, taking another puff. He tapped off the ash. “Bernstein, right?” “Yes. I’m beginning to think that the Y Syndicate has already infected the Wood Oak PD. Strange things are going on, and Bernstein repeatedly ignores it. He discharged me this time.” He raised an eyebrow. “Really? What’d you do?” Blaze shrugged. “I punched him in the face.” They laughed hard together, catching each other’s eyes with familiar smiles. For the briefest moment, it was an easy feeling, a homely feeling. Then years of reality came pouring back in. Blaze’s smile fell and she looked away, averting his gaze. He did the same. “Come on,” she said, refusing to admit defeat. “Zan should be ready by now. We should go.” He finished his cigarette and they went back into the lab.

Floyd and Cherry were standing in the middle of the lab by a bank of consoles, waiting casually as an industrial rolling door began to automatically crank open, as Axel and Blaze returned. They exchanged nods, a pat on the shoulder from Axel to Floyd, then they stood and watched the door open as a group. Dr. Zan emerged from a shadow and rolled down a ramp, into the room. He was technically an android being, housed in a military robot chassis imbued with intelligence and sentience and the memories of the late Gilbert Zan, former Syndicate scientist and later freedom fighter. Officially, after some court battles, he was considered to be alive in the philosophical sense, as he had emotions and was self-aware. So he’d gained legal recognition again in global academic forums,

although had been described by some traditionalists in the field as an ‘abomination of science’. Zan moved around on tank tracks and steered using a ball-wheel fitted behind the tracks. His torso was an array of machine parts joined by wires and servos, his head a synthetic skin mask to convey facial features with nanomuscular perfection. His visage was that of a young Asian man in his twenties. Despite his chosen facial likeness, Zan was eighty years old. He had been remade several times over the years, since that fateful day the Syndicate had turned his human body into a cyborg. But he still insisted he was the same man, just… refined. The fact was, he was slowly dying. Despite his best scientific endeavors, which were considerable, he still considered himself mortal, and besides which, he refused to follow the same course of extending his own life that Mr. X had grown so obsessed with years earlier. In Zan’s case, he now had advanced signal degradation in his neural net, meaning the days he had left were numbered. It was an irreversible process. And he had come to terms with it, choosing to spend the time he had left doing what he could for humanity. Floyd was meant to be his eventual successor at ZanTech, when the time came. “Shall we begin?” he said, his voice an eerily flanged, mechanical piping sound with a deep undertone. “Yes,” Blaze said, raising her voice to be heard over the ambient sounds of the lab. “Thankyou all for responding to me in such short notice. Putting together a team like this is not as easy as it used to be.” “I have been feeling nostalgic as of late,” Zan said, coming closer. He smiled, nanomuscular fibers forming the expression on his face with natural-looking, human-like ease. “Good to see you, Axel.” Axel nodded. This was beginning to feel like a reunion of sorts. “Likewise, Zan. So what exactly is this Y Syndicate I’ve been hearing so much about?” “It is my belief that the Wood Oak City PD has already fallen under their influence, along with various corporations,” Blaze said, addressing

the group. “Local street gangs have grouped together under the banner of this Y Syndicate over the past several months, and according to my contacts as a public prosecutor there are two leaders. One male, one female, calling themselves the ‘Y Twins’. Mr. Y and Ms. Y respectively. They claim to be the children of Mr. X.” Axel shook his head, half-laughing. “Some whack jobs. We’ve seen it before. Some idiot seeking attention or power, making claims like that to dupe their followers. George Xetheus did not have any children. I’m pretty sure we all know that. He was too obsessed with saving and preserving his own life. We defeated the Syndicate a long time ago, and everything that came with it.” Zan looked at him, “There is no evidence that he fathered any children on record. Though it does remain a curious possibility – that there was a Shadow Hand Project we never found out about. The Syndicate Wars exposed a lot of truths and lies… did a lot of good in overturning the Syndicate’s power around the world… but there are still some questions remaining to this day, over the true extent of Mr. X’s carefully laid plans. Perhaps these so-called Y Twins were genetically engineered in one of his experiments?” “You’re overthinking,” Axel said. “More likely it’s some whack job making a power grab.” “That’s what I thought,” Floyd told him with a sideways glance. “Either way,” Blaze said. “My instincts tell me there’s a lot more going on here than we know. Too many coincidences.” “Oh?” She looked at Axel intently with her brown eyes. “Here’s the really interesting part. Guess who just escaped from custody during a high- profile prisoner transfer operation in China? Our old friend, Leon Shiva.” For a moment Axel didn’t say anything. He inhaled sharply, then seemed to hold his breath. His eyes closed briefly, and memories flashed across his mind. Shiva…

Once again, Axel found himself biting back his anger. Shiva had been in a Chinese jail since the destruction of the World Devastator and the defeat of Enigma in 2027. He’d… escaped? “That was dad’s gig,” Cherry said in a serious tone. She suddenly looked pissed. “It’s why he had to send me in his place today, though he wanted to be here.” “Someone with a lot of resources and the element of surprise helped Shiva to escape, according to Adam,” Blaze continued. “He and his partner, Estel, are trying to track him down as we speak.” Axel nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think Shiva’s connected to the Y Syndicate somehow?” “It’s hard to say,” Blaze said. “I can tell you this much though. If anyone can tell us if the Y Twins’ claim is accurate, about being the children of Mr. X, it’s him. He would know, for sure.” “We’ll have to wait and see what Adam comes back with,” Axel said. “Tracking down Shiva is not gonna be an easy feat.” “In the meantime, we already have a lead to go on, thanks to Murphy, but I’d be going behind the Commissioner’s back on this one.” Blaze looked uneasy. “He thinks I’m crazy. But I know what my instinct is telling me.” “I think you’re crazy,” Axel said, then cracked a mischievous smile as he caught her gaze. “But your instinct is usually right.”

Streets of Wood Oak City

“Sumfucka,” Axel said absently. “Excuse me?” Floyd said. They were walking down Main St., Shoreline Crips territory. Blaze and Cherry were with them, keeping a steady pace. The businesses around here were mainly tattoo parlors, bars, a sex shop. There was graffiti on the walls, gang tags. Posters. Graffiti on the posters. There was a poultry livestock supplier, closed up, out of business. Somebody had smashed all the windows. A strip mall of privately-owned pawn and insurance brokers was to their right, lit by a single street lamp. Four or five Signal punks stood in a group around an old oil barrel by a liquor store dumpster, smoking cigarettes. Every now and then, one of them kept glancing their way. Walking around here after dark was asking for trouble. “Oh,” Axel looked at him. “Just thinking out loud. One of those punks reminded me of a dream I had once.” “Stay focused,” Blaze told him. “I can tell you from personal experience, dreams can seriously affect your waking life, if you allow them to. When I was at Edgemont, they taught me about cognitive compartmentalization. It’s something you can exercise to keep dream images at a safe distance, if you need to. Maybe I’ll teach it to you sometime. But right now, I need you at your best, Axel.” Her words cut into him. These were things she had told him about years ago, after her own struggles with dreams and recurring dreams about the death of her parents. She’d struggled with mental illness her whole life. Back then he had tried to console her, cheer her up, without truly being able to understand it, only thinking of his own deep frustrations at the way she didn’t seem capable of thinking properly, the way he did, and then being able to have sex with her, because that’s

what he ultimately wanted…. But now, so many years later, he felt like he was only just starting to understand the human being who she really was, after having these recurring dreams of his own. And for him, who had married her, and had children with her… that was a real stab in the gut. Of course they were divorced now, and he was older. He felt better positioned to understand the woman she really was now, but it was too late for all that. Too much had happened. “I won’t let you down, Blaze,” he said. “Not again.” He looked at her with a pained expression. She glanced quickly at him, feeling it. She wished that he was being honest, and that it wasn’t just another one of his empty promises. Then she looked away, toward the street. “Good.” It was encouraging to her that Axel had seemingly come to terms with things. But he would have a lot to prove to her before she felt she could trust him again, after the shit he’d pulled. His being here was a huge first step in that process, as long as he could keep a grip on reality as they moved forward. Whatever happened after that, only time would tell. “This is the place,” Floyd said. They’d arrived at a dropped curb that led down some stairs into a nondescript-looking alley. A neon sign flared overhead in pink, “Haze Diablo”, and a steel door was propped open beside a garbage dumpster. A group of Signal punks was loitering, blocking the entrance. “I’m not afraid of these guys.” Cherry went first, figuring her relatively small size would allow her to push through the crowd easily without squashing herself against the slimy brick wall, and get through the door beyond. She aimed for a gap on the Signal leaders’ left as he was cracking some joke to the others, but the man suddenly changed tune and mirrored her move as she approached. Cherry bumped into him clumsily as a result. “Ay,” the man said. “What do you say when you knock into someone?”

Two of the other Signals laughed. Confident, smug, self-assured. Clearing her mind, Cherry remembered the words of her dad: “Don’t just attack for no reason. Don’t seek out violence. But if the fight comes to you, you’re a Hunter. So fight like one, and don’t hold back.” That suited her fine. She wanted to give these idiots a chance, at least. “I’m sorry for bumping into you,” she said to the Signal. “Now, if you don’t mind, my friends and I would like to go to the bar.” The Signal leader hooted with laughter and mimicked Cherry’s voice, mocking her. “‘Now, if you don’t mind, my friends and I would like to go to the bar’. I don’t think so, shorty. I want to hear a proper apology. Like maybe on your knees.” He looked across at her companions as the other Signals fanned out, a challenging expression on his face. No. That wasn’t going to happen. The neon light above them flickered, then started buzzing at an irate volume. “Okay, you’ve made your point,” Cherry breathed, “and I’ve said sorry. We just want to go inside.” “And I just want you to say it properly, don’t I?” The others loved that one and cackled. Somebody said something about sucking dick. Axel noticed they’d all adopted a balanced stance, weight on the balls of their feet, fists curling and uncurling, muscles bunching and tightening under their jackets. He decided to interject: “Please, let’s not do anything we might regret, okay? We can all just walk away from this, guys. We don’t want any trouble.” “You pissing coward!” the Signal roared. “Nobody’s walking away from this. I tell you what. Why don’t you give that old wino all your money, then we’ll give the woman and the little girl here something to remember us by?” The old wino turned his booze-reddened face toward Axel and Cherry. Maybe hoping he was about to get a windfall, and some quick pussy.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Floyd said in a cautionary tone. They reminded him of some of the brats at one of his schools in New Zealand. The ones who’d taunted him about his mother, who was half- black, before punching him to the ground and stealing his lunch money. Cherry turned to look at Floyd, Axel and Blaze. “I’ve got this, guys,” she said. Then she turned back to the Signal leader and took off her jacket. “Okay, if you insist. But let me put this jacket down to kneel on.” She folded the jacket with the lining outermost, knowing that everyone was watching, before laying it in a pad to kneel on. Her yellow shirt was already stuck to her hard-muscled frame with sweat as she knelt down. The gang almost looked disappointed that the verbals were over. The leader smirked and clenched his fists, but what happened next took him by surprise. From her crouching position, Cherry leapt up fast and kicked the bigger man hard in the throat suddenly. There was a wet slapping sound and he went down. “Shit!” one of the Signals shouted, before throwing a wild, drunken punch at Axel’s head. By the time the fist arrived, Axel had moved to one side. The heel of his hand connected with the underside of his opponent’s chin, clattering his teeth together with such force that two upper incisors shattered on impact. “Grand UPPER!” As the man staggered back, clutching his bloody mouth, the other Signals went to attack. Blaze sent a trio of judo chops into the chest and gut of one, before grappling him and throwing him to the concrete. Floyd was on the move, his cybernetic arms delivering one, two, three heavy jabs to another. The Signals collapsed onto the concrete. The last blow came from Cherry, landing directly below the leader’s basal ganglion, a knot of nerve fibers that functioned like an on-off switch for consciousness.

As the last thug passed out, the final thing he saw was Cherry Hunter leaning over him. “Have a good night, grandpa,” she said with a smile, then retrieved her jacket. They went into the bar.

Strobe lights flashed like lightning on an occasional pulsing rhythm, momentarily illuminating the large building interior. Most of the people were gathered on a dance floor which was separated from the bar by a walkway area which led to the restrooms. Green laser lights stabbed through the smoky air where they danced, having a great time. It was a dark, tribal-sounding dubstep-trance music. Dozens of paintings, murals and posters had been exquisitely hung all around the bar and hallway, which had a metallic-black décor and a provocative set of long, green-neon strip bulbs lighting the floor under hard walk-on plexiglass. Axel looked at one of the bartenders as they approached the side of the bar. She was a young Caucasian, black lipstick, piercings. Goth, in her mid-twenties, with tattoos and hair that had been dyed a strong turquoise color streaked with yellow. “Looking for Diva,” he said, raising his voice over the noise. “Heard she owns this place.” “We’re art collectors,” Blaze added, glancing at Axel. The bartender eyed her, raising her eyebrows. Somebody came out of the restrooms, coughing hard, then letting out a hoot of laughter. He grinned and headed back into the jostling crowd. The bartender was called Soozie. She ignored the commotion casually, looking over the four of them, noticing how Cherry seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere, bopping slightly side-to-side to the beat of the music. She took a couple of steps back and leaned into a guy who was standing behind her, his back turned, looking through papers. “They wanna see the boss.” He turned toward her, frowning. He was taller than her, with straight hair that was dyed orange. “She’s not taking any visitors,” he said flatly. “They’ll have to come back later.”

Shit wasn’t going to fly… Blaze held out an arm, her expression unchanged. Her hand erupted violently in a blue energy glow, white at its core, burning like fire. The bright light dazzled, turned the heads of everyone around her. Within two seconds, the energy had formed the shape of a spinning, floating orb, warping the space of the air around it, with electricity-like forks of energy spidering back toward Blaze’s outstretched palm. There were gasps of fright. A couple of punks bolted for the exit. “Somebody call the cops!” someone yelled. “We’re not coming back later,” Blaze said assertedly. Floyd straightened defiantly, folding his cybernetic arms. The others looked on. Soozie recoiled from Blaze in shock fright, an unconscious movement. “What the hell are you?” “Long story,” Blaze said, doing her best Kubrick stare as she caught the younger woman’s gaze. Her eyes looked inhuman, lit by the blue glow. “I’d much rather speak to your boss, or are you two hoodrats going to get in the way?” “Let them out back, Garcia, for Christ’s sake,” Soozie howled, intimidated out of her mind. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He stumbled. “Uh… right. Right this way.” He gestured to a back door behind the bar and opened it. Blaze’s arm went back to normal and she lowered it. The energy dissipated, and her eyes faded into their natural brown color. “Smart choice,” she said. People went back to their drinks. The dancing continued unabated. Soozie opened a hatch to let them behind the bar without speaking another word. They went through. Garcia led them out back to a large outdoor courtyard surrounded by walls, filled out with large glass tanks converted into snake habitats, connected by tubing and rain covers. Lush foliage behind the glass was covered in colorful asps and cobras of various size and species. A woman stood by one of the tanks, handling a five-feet long bullsnake,

whispering lovingly to it. She was African-American, lean and muscular, wearing a long white coat over a low-cut black tank top and designer leggings with red heels. Her head was shaved at the sides, her orange hair fanned up like a peacock feather on top. She had yellow gold hoop earrings on each ear. Diva was a ruthless, callous, and greedy crime lord as well as a shrewd scam artist, known to brutally murder her enemies personally… obsessed with accumulating wealth and money and utilizing scams and debts to reap the benefit from hapless prey. Publicly an art collector and business owner, her exotic tastes in various controversial artforms had given her quite the reputation among exclusive underground collector’s markets that operated shady deals in cryptocurrency only. Her secrecy and untouchability by law made her incredibly difficult to investigate, which piqued the fear and interest of many others and made her seem like a mysterious and dreaded leader of an untouchable organization. Born poor, Diva had picked up a philosophy where selflessness was a weakness, and had used it to manipulate and kill her way to the top. The situation had gotten so severe, to the point where she was violently murdering whoever she pleased and the police wouldn’t ever do anything against her. Or so the rumors went. “Ma’am,” Garcia blurted. The door clicked shut. The sound of the music inside the bar became muffled, vibrating the walls around them, but still quite audible. “I told you no visitors,” Diva said, her voice a deep and intimidating tone with a formal accent. She turned to look at them, her expression changing as they walked into her field of view. The bullsnake slid up one arm, across her chest, onto her left shoulder. “I’m sorry ma’am, they…” “Blaze Fielding,” Diva said loudly, raising her hand to cut him off. “Your reputation precedes you.” She dismissed Garcia with a quick gesture of her raised hand, and he nervously nodded and went back through the door to the bar without question. They waited until he was gone.

Blaze tilted her head to one side. “I could say the same thing about you. Diva.” Diva took a step toward them, still carrying the snake. “And you brought some friends along? How precious. Now, what can I do for such an esteemed group of guests? I hope you’re not planning on taking me in. I’m a simple businesswoman.” “We know you have connections to the Y Syndicate,” Blaze told her. Diva smiled. “What makes you think that?” “I know you’ve been leaving the letter ‘Y’ as a signature on all the people you kill. I think you’ve been leaving me a message. A message that only somebody like me could pick up.” “You flatter yourself,” Diva sneered. “You know nothing about me, or my motivations!” She pulled a knife from her coat and lunged toward Blaze, slashing. Blaze dodged, went into a counter-attack, but Diva had already ducked out of range, toward Cherry. She swung the knife wide, brushing her arm, cutting flesh. Cherry yelped and staggered back, and then Axel was on Diva, grappling her with his larger frame, throwing her to the ground with an incredible fury. She dropped the knife. He roared aloud with primal rage, throwing punches. Somehow she managed to roll away, flipping up – - but Floyd was already there, bringing down one cybernetic fist in a hammering motion – - and Diva’s body twirled, her legs flying into his abdomen. One of her high heels cracked. At the same time, his hit connected. He stumbled back, and she slumped to the ground. The snake slid quickly from her shoulders, then reared back and lunged at him. He tried to grab with his arms, but the snake only coiled around them, throwing him further off. “Get this fucking thing off me!” he roared.

Blaze went to finish Diva, but she was fast, already rolling away and ducking behind one of the snake tanks. Axel helped Floyd grab the snake, and unwind it from his arms. The creature was thick and strong with muscle. They wrestled with it, distracted, getting it into the closest open-top tank and jumping back out of range before it lashed out again. Meanwhile, Cherry had recovered, and was running along the row of tanks, trying to get to Diva. “That way!” Blaze called, pointing. Diva rolled into view at the end of the room. Cherry was already running toward her. She went into a flying kick, but Diva was ready and sidestepped the attack. They exchanged punches and blocks, each of them grunting with the exertion of the fight. Cherry was able to connect a punch to the woman’s face, disorienting her. Diva tried to punch again, but missed. Cherry’s hits began to connect again, and again, and Diva collapsed to the ground, the stars knocked out of her. The others came and stood around her. Blaze put a hand on Cherry’s shoulder, gave it an affirming squeeze. Cherry gritted her teeth, face flushed, and nodded. She’d be okay. “Now, Diva,” Blaze said. “I know you were trying to send a message. Tell us what’s going on with this city.” Diva groaned with pain. Laughed. “This new organization… I thought I could wrap them around my finger, like all the others. But they’re too powerful. They control everything and everyone, including the police. It’s too late to stop them. You can’t.” “I’ll be the judge of that,” Blaze said. “How do we find them?” “Find them?” Diva laughed again. “My dear, you don’t find them. They find you. But if you insist on sticking your neck out, you’ll want to speak to the Grandmaster of Chinatown. He’s a… friend of a friend. Shall we say.”

* * *

As Blaze set off from her house to meet the others the following morning, she glanced in her rearview mirror and spotted a Jeep pulling away from the curb. She was driving a stick-shift 2035 Dodge Charger, metallic red in color, her baby. Five minutes later as she left the residential neighborhood behind, the big black SUV was still keeping pace, a couple of hundred yards behind. A 60 speed limit sign was approaching, and she pulled the right-hand gear shift paddle towards her. The damped click under her fingertips was echoed by a harsher, more mechanical sound as the clutch meshed the fast-spinning gears into each other. She floored the throttle. The Dodge Charger leapt forward, the acceleration forcing her back into the sculpted seat as the car rocketed away from the Jeep. Blaze snatched a couple more gears and took the car on to 80. Too fast for surface streets, but she wasn’t willing to take any chances. She risked a quick glance in her mirror, expecting the bulbous SUV and its driver to be long gone. But not only was the Jeep not gone, it was hard on her tail, headlights flashing. Blaze thought about taking her speed up to 90, but she didn’t dare do it. This wasn’t even a freeway. All it needed was a pedestrian to amble out over a crossing, and their helpless body would be spread over half the road. “Jesus!” she breathed, as the driver, far from tailgating her, pulled out to pass her. Whatever’s under that hood isn’t the standard lump, she thought. With a roar, the six-foot-wide beast overtook her, then braked hard. Blaze swore and switched her right foot from throttle to brake pedal, the anti-lock brakes juddering as the car squirmed to a stop. The Jeep continued slowing, hogging the middle of the road to prevent Blaze swerving around it. Within a few more seconds, both vehicles were stationary, just twenty feet apart. Blaze jumped out of the car, heart thumping. People who drove all-black Jeeps like this one had been driven were worth meeting out in the open. She stood and waited, a yard in front of the Charger’s hood. The Jeep’s door swung open and bounced back off the hinge before being stopped by a black leather shoe.

Blaze slowed and steadied her breathing. She leaned from left to right and from forward to back, never letting her center of gravity tip her off balance, but finding her body’s neutral position. The rubber- pebbled sole of the black shoe crunched down onto the road surface, followed by the rest of the driver. It was Robert Murphy, badge and uniformed, wearing a face shield. What the hell? “Blaze Fielding,” he said. “You are coming with me.” “Murphy! Jesus Christ! I should have realized it was you. Nobody else I know is that crazy behind the wheel.” He seemed to ignore her, making no expression. It was then that Blaze noticed the color of his eyes behind the face shield’s plastic visor – not their usual deep blue coloration – not the eyes she had known for years as his colleague and friend. Instead, his eyes glowed a strong fiery amber color, glimmering with a yellow liquidity. At one glance, he appeared monstrous. “Blaze Fielding,” he said again. “You are under arrest for crimes against Wood Oak City. I know you are collaborating with former members of Firestorm.” Behind them a car hooted. Blaze glanced back. There was a line of cars building up. She acknowledged their frustration with a wave of the hand, and turned to Murphy. “What the hell are you talking about?” He pulled a long metal device from the back of the Jeep, and pressed a button. Something clicked, and the device unfolded into a six-foot-long metallic gridwork, covered in micro-emitters, before an electrically-charged energy shield thrummed to bluish life across the surface, forming a sturdy physical barrier. A ZanTech Riot Shield, as it were. He thrust the shield out in front of him like he was a knight and charged toward her, drawing his sidearm with the other hand. Blaze had already seen him coming. Within a moment she was drawing upon the energy of her aura, lighting the air blue in a crackling, buzzing frenzy. She threw a fireball hard, directly into Murphy’s shield, the resulting blast knocking him back several feet, the soles of his shoes scraping hard on the tarmac. His body smashed against the side of the

Jeep. The shield spat and crackled energy, changing color from blue to red. “Murphy! What the hell are you doing?” Blaze roared. The driver in the car behind her panicked, turned about, doing an illegal U-turn to get away. Somebody else honked hard. Other cars started doing the same, eager to escape the scene and get back to their morning commute before they were late for work. “You are a criminal,” Murphy spat. His eyes were still amber. “You are working against our leaders.” Blaze frowned. “What are you talking about? Don’t play games with me, Murphy. Come on. Don’t make me do this. We’re friends!” “You have…” He blinked. “Committed…” He blinked again, twice. The amber glow in his eyes seemed to fade slightly. “What?” “We’re friends.” “Friends?” He staggered, looking like he was going to pass out. His grip on the shield loosened. She raised her palms in front of her. “Yes. Remember? We have a lot of fun memories together. On the Force. Taking out the Syndicate. You remember that?” The amber color in his eyes was gone. His eyes looked normal now, his expression thoughtful. A wave of regret poured over him. He dropped the shield and it clattered to the ground, powering off. “I remember. Blaze. I…” He looked at her. “What am I doing?” She went to help steady him. The physical sensation of her hands touching him seemed to shock him back to his senses. He got to his feet, taking deep breaths. “Murphy,” she said. “Are you okay? What’s going on here?” “I don’t know. Last thing I remember I was eating my breakfast this morning! I swear to God! But…” he frowned wearily, shaking his head, trying to make sense of something. “Something else, in flashes…” Blaze leaned in, listening curiously.

“Just this desire to have you arrested and brought back to the precinct. A memory of the Commissioner giving an order to bring you in but… it feels more like a dream. I don’t think it even really happened. I…I don’t even know why I was acting on it.” She exhaled, a grim expression coming over her features, looking every part her forty-six years. “Brainwashing. It’s how the Y Syndicate is infiltrating the police department, and City Hall. I can’t believe this is all actually happening. I mean, I knew it was happening, but this… this is getting too close for comfort.” “I’m sorry Blaze. I couldn’t help myself.” “It’s not your fault, Murphy. Just forget about it. I’m going to get to the bottom of this shit. Stop the people responsible.” Murphy closed his eyes. Focused on a mental image of Commissioner Bernstein. His firm and professional yet changeable manner. His references to ‘traditional’ policing practices. Could it be true? Could he just be a puppet of unseen forces? Then another image collided with the first. Himself suiting up in his riot gear, going to intercept Blaze, since he knew she’d be meeting with Axel Stone and the others. He didn’t like the image. It wasn’t his own. It wasn’t something that had come from within him. He liked Blaze very much, and Axel. Had been their loyal friend for years. He’d seen the Project Y Incident with them, and everything ever since. He’d never betray them. He loved them. He opened his eyes, and held her gaze for a second. “Yes,” he said. “I know you will.” She nodded, giving him a firm squeeze on the shoulder. “Okay Murphy. Time to go to work.” Murphy took off the face shield and ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know how it happened, Blaze. I don’t know how they managed to get to me. The Y Syndicate is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.” “Don’t sweat it. We’ll figure it out.” He nodded and went to get back in his Jeep. The sound of the dispatch radio came from within. Somebody was calling him back to the precinct.

“Good luck, Blaze,” he told her. “I’ll let you know if anything else happens on my end.”

After passing through Wood Oak’s northeasterly districts without further incident, Blaze took the Dodge Charger on to Neo Italy, a small affluent suburb near the city’s downtown area. It was a newer part of the city, redeveloped only a few years ago, also home to various businesses associated with ZanTech, such as Horatio Electronics and Fiquet Holdings. Air traffic hovered in the morning sky over the gleaming highway as Blaze took the next exit, nearing her destination. Dr. Zan maintained a penthouse apartment in Neo Italy, though in recent years it had very much gone unused – so it made for a perfect safehouse for Blaze to meet with Axel, Floyd and Cherry as they planned their next move. By the time she arrived there, the others had already gathered. “Were you followed?” she asked. “I don’t think so,” Floyd told her. “We took my ride straight from ZanTech Labs.” “Good. It’s good that we chose to meet here,” she told him, and looked at the others. The four of them stood in the penthouse’s guest reception area, around an expensive-looking wooden coffee table carved into the form of a dolphin splashing through a wave. Stars adorned the dolphin’s head, like a constellation, making it resemble some mythic sea deity. A pitcher of water was set on the table, and some empty glasses. There were luxurious patterned leather seats all around the softly carpeted floor. Axel peered through the blinds, looking down onto the street. He could get a pretty good view of what was happening down below. “It’s a more anonymous location here,” he said. “Works to our advantage, I’d say.” Blaze nodded. “Absolutely. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Y Syndicate is using some kind of brainwashing to control the Wood Oak City PD. Murphy tried to arrest me this morning, could

have killed me… but I was able to talk him around. He said he had no memory of why he was doing it, just thoughts and desires in his head planted there, like some kind of dream. It’s like somebody had deliberately manipulated his cognition, and he was carrying out their will.” “That’s… disturbing,” said Cherry. “Very disturbing,” Blaze agreed. “I think this is what Diva was talking about when she said it’s too late to stop them.” Axel thought it sounded like the recurring dreams he’d been having. Thoughts and desires placed in his mind? Surely dreams were about symbolism, unconscious manifestations of our desires. The idea occurred to him that his mind could have been manipulated by the music he listened to. The similarities to the DJ K-Washi albums was there, but as for it being planted in his cognition intentionally to fit some kind of ill purpose? Seemed a stretch too far. But it really wasn’t too difficult for him to imagine how someone could mess with someone else’s mind on a cognitive level. “Some kind of technology, maybe?” he suggested. It was a long shot. “How?” Cherry said. “How is that even possible?” “I wouldn’t put anything past the Syndicate,” Blaze said, folding her arms across her chest. Axel looked at her with a perturbed expression. “Mr. X’s Syndicate maybe, but we did so much work during the Syndicate Wars taking out everything that gave them their network of power… dissolving organizations, passing new regulatory laws all over the world… I mean we were very thorough about it.” Blaze nodded, catching his gaze. “We made sure it couldn’t happen again.” “My question is how could the Y Syndicate have amassed the resources to pull off something like this so quickly? There was nothing left. It took George Xetheus decades to amass the power he had.”

“Well however they did it, however this has happened, it’s a real threat, something we cannot simply ignore,” Blaze said. “It’s manipulation on a level I’ve never seen before.” Cherry poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the dolphin table, then chugged a few mouthfuls thoughtfully, wondering what all this stuff was going to mean. Mind Control? When she put the glass back down, she gasped: “If this is real, how do we know who we can trust? Who’s been gotten to already?” Blaze took a step closer, leaning in, straining her words. “That’s the thing. Murphy’s eyes. They looked orange. Yellow, tainted by something.” She shook her head and sighed. “But it was hard to tell for sure. Everything happened so fast. His eyes – that was a telltale sign he wasn’t himself.” “We’ll need to be extra careful from this point on,” said Floyd. Axel looked at Floyd and back at Blaze. He thought of Murphy, the man’s selfless actions during the Syndicate Wars. The idea that someone had gotten to him made his stomach churn. “You said you managed to talk Murphy around,” he said to her. “I’m guessing you let him go?” She nodded. “He seemed okay after I’d spoken to him. Back to normal. He said he’d let me know if anything else happens at the precinct.” Axel checked his watch: 9.00 am. “There’s no guarantee he won’t turn again. Not until we’ve figured this out.” “I know.” The woman’s face changed in an instant. Her mouth turned down and she looked away, out of the side window. Cherry flopped into a leather armchair while Floyd selected a jazz piano album from a shelf of CDs that filled an entire wall. As the slinky opening notes of Around Midnight filled the room, he checked out the bookcase, his head tilting to one side as he read the titles off the spines. He saw a copy of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams… Then he looked at Axel, huffed, before turning his head again to look at Blaze, standing to his other side.

“So what’s our next move?” Blaze poured herself a half glass of water and drained it in one swallow. He watched her throat move as the cool liquid disappeared. Then she fixed him with a stare. “Diva spoke about the Grandmaster of Chinatown.” “I thought he was just a myth,” Floyd said. “Somebody the punks used to talk about to scare people. Like Keyser Söze.” Cherry looked up from the chair. “Who is Keyser Söze?” Floyd smirked. “Exactly. But I haven’t heard anyone talk about this Grandmaster of Chinatown for some time. I figured he was busted during the Syndicate Wars.” “We have no reason not to take Diva seriously at this point,” Blaze said. “If this Grandmaster of Chinatown has a connection to the Y Syndicate, we’ll have to figure out who he is, and how to find him. And I think I know where to start.” A memory swam to the surface of her mind and she looked at Axel. “The Bar of the Rising Sun.”

East Badlands Old North of the City

The next day started before dawn for Axel, Blaze, Floyd and Cherry. Sparsely populated by numerous gangs, the Badlands were the vast irradiated desert plains outside of Wood Oak City proper, part of the Old City that was destroyed in nuclear fire during the Project Y Incident. Unchecked gang activity, illegal resource extraction, rampant pollution; this area made Wood Oak City itself feel like a rich oasis. But it held golden opportunities for those in the know – and people who lived outside of the law. Blazing heat waves shimmered in the distance as the ZanTech Protection Ocelot roared across the desert sand. Axel was driving, Blaze sat beside him. Cherry sat in the back, where Floyd stood at the back of a mounted plasma cannon. It was a muscular and advanced vehicle: Dr. Zan’s own version of a military jeep. Axel screeched to a stop. Blaze and Cherry lurched in their seats. A cloud of dust momentarily obscured them. “Which way?” he said sharply. “The Bar of the Rising Sun is two kilometers to the west,” Blaze said, pointing. “That direction.” He pressed the gas pedal, and the Ocelot roared off in a cloud of dust. Axel was clearly enjoying driving the vehicle, having a hell of a good time, even if the others didn’t exactly appreciate his free-spirited driving panache. Floyd clinged on to the mounted plasma cannon for dear life. Cherry steadied herself by grasping one of the rollbars. They came over a rise, then blam! A boulder near them exploded. Axel and Blaze turned their heads to see a group of thugs, punks, and

freaks running toward them, firing guns. Desert terrain vehicles roared into view. “Welcoming committee?” Floyd said from the back. “I guess so,” Blaze said, gripping her seat as Axel floored it across the desert landscape. The desert vehicles began to pursue them. Floyd fired the plasma cannon, blasting away at the punks – not killing them, just stopping them. The red-hued energy bolts hummed as they leapt through the air. A couple of dramatic crashes followed, as the desert vehicles overturned, one of them rolling over twice in a heap of broken glass and black smoke. They continued speeding over the landscape, bouncing and flying over natural rises in the terrain, evading their pursuers. “Alright, we’re coming up on the location,” Blaze said after a while. The Bar of the Rising Sun came into view. It was a large building with a shanty, corrugated roof. A metal fence lined a nearby scrapyard and workshop. There were dozens of motorcycles all around, filling the scant parking lot, parked on embankments, parked in the scrapyard. Blaze could see fifty, maybe sixty Harley Davidsons. A large cloth banner hung above the front entrance to the bar, emblazoned with the logo of The Red Demons Motorcycle Company. “Stop here,” Blaze said. Axel slammed on the brakes and the Ocelot screeched to a halt. As they climbed out, Floyd nonchalantly rubbed the dust from his vest. Cherry put one hand on her hips and used the other to shield her eyes from the sun, looking out. The Red Demons Motorcycle Company, or the Red Demons, had been a notorious gang in Wood Oak City since the 2020s, and this place – the Bar of the Rising Sun – was commonly known to be their headquarters. If you lived in Wood Oak City and you were smart, it was a place you avoided at all costs. The people that frequented here lived a nomadic lifestyle, scavenging for parts and scrap metal in the desert ruins of the Old City, and their methods were lethal. Irradiated materials still lingered here in the Old North from the Project Y Incident, and their

trade on the black market – using cryptocurrency, of course – was a booming business for gangs vying for power. The Red Demons had taken advantage of this, fighting off competition from rival gangs Los Muertos, Signal Brigade, and others in a violent gang war. They had risen over the past several years to become one of the most feared gangs in the city. If you tangled with the Red Demons, everyone knew your days were numbered, one way or another. At least, that’s what people said. They were stopped about one hundred yards from the main compound. From where they stood, they could see women – biker punks dressed in black and yellow leather with fleece-like collars and armed with AK47s – patrolling a haphazard perimeter around the bar. “Alright, people. Just like old times,” Axel said. “Follow my lead.” They spread out across a twenty-yard line, keeping low to the ground, using boulders and wrecked cars as cover as they crept closer to the bar. Each of them carried a green and black M16 Colt assault rifle on their back, but they’d agreed beforehand that the use of lethal force should be a last, desperate measure. They were here for information, that was all. They waited behind a wrecked Sedan close to the main entrance. These old vehicles, like most of the other junk in this wasteland, had burned away in nuclear fire a long time ago, now rusted, a relic of a bygone era. To their left, fifteen or twenty Harley Davidsons leaned over at lazy angles on their kickstands. Some were wildly customized with high handlebars and flame-colored tanks. Others were stock. Still others had a distressed look, like they’d never been cleaned since they were bought, matt with grease and road-dirt. The air smelled of petrol fumes, beer and cannabis smoke, a thick, oily vapor that got into Axel’s nose and his mouth and the back of his tongue. Every now and then a Harley would fire up from the workshop next to the bar, its flatulent, coughing sound instantly recognizable. The rough mechanical noise overlaid the southern boogie guitar music floating from the main door – a band singing about a sharply-dressed man. Gang members milled

around, holding bottles of beer, smoking, standing by their bikes, chatting. After ten minutes or so, the female biker punks seemed to have lost interest in their sentry duties, and were standing in a circle to one side, talking amongst themselves. Nobody else was looking; the crowd of beer-drinkers seemed distracted by something going on in the workshop nearby – somebody boasting about their truck and how many miles-per-gallon it gave them. Axel seized the opportunity and uttered a quick “tss-tss-tss” and made eye contact with Floyd. He pointed at the sentries and then swept the four fingers of his right hand across his throat. Floyd nodded his understanding. He moved out quickly, powering up his cybernetic arms with a conscious-control impulse, raising his shoulders as he ran. The women turned at the bolt of color heading toward them, but it was too late. With the benefit of an artificial cyberaugmentation, Floyd’s arms stretched out, allowing him to grab two of them from a distance and smash them against each other. They fell into the other two women, and Floyd sent an electrical discharge through his arms, directly toward them. A loud zap filled the air, and the biker punks dropped to the ground, unconscious. The acrid smell of smoke filled the air. Step one accomplished. The four of them ran in a half-crouch toward the entrance of the bar, quick as a shadow, and came to a halt, on silent feet, with their shoulders to the wall. None of the people crowding around the workshop seemed to notice, too busy with having a good time. Axel took a breath of the morning air and looked at the others. They held each other’s gaze for a split second, then nodded their readiness. Axel held up three fingers of his left hand and counted down. As his index finger curled into his palm they made their move. They burst through the entrance. Inside, the bar was swarming with bikers, punks, and criminals. Long hair – heavy metal types. Most of these guys wore it short or even shaved, though there were a couple

of guys with pony tails or just rats’ nests of dank, greasy-looking colored hair. Quite a lot of silver, too. Some of them looked to be in their fifties, at least. They brandished Kalashnikovs, machetes, Russian-made Makarov pistols; one crazy-eyed guy toted a baseball bat. There were comfortable-looking leather armchairs, not in the first flush of youth but still in good condition, their buttoned, wine-red coverings nailed to the dark wood frames with brass studs. Two men were playing pool. There were a couple of women there too, sitting in the chairs. Teased- up hair and more tattoos, tiny bikini tops, and denim cutoffs so short the front pockets poked out below the fringed edges. They all looked over at the new arrivals as they entered the bar, and a moment later bullets were whining through the air. Axel launched into an uppercut, knocking the closest punk, a twenty-something biker, into a table. Blaze returned fire with her police-issue pistol, more disciplined in her technique than these criminals. Together they held a tight square as they moved through the bar, fighting, punches and kicks flying in all directions. Cherry was fast, able to take on three guys at a time. A man launched himself at them, machete held high over his head, screaming in a mixture of Portuguese and Makonde. Blaze fired a burst of shots and hit the man high in the shoulder. He tumbled over, blood spraying in a jetting arc. His machete wheeled through the air. Floyd ducked. “Come on!” Axel yelled. “With me!” They were running toward the bar and the staff room beyond when Floyd cried out and stumbled on for a few paces, swinging his arm out and around to punch a bearded guy pulling a knife at the same moment. “They hit Floyd!” Cherry yelled. Floyd had taken a 9mm pistol round in the thigh. Axel stopped and turned, but Floyd had already regained his balance, adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream and numbing the pain. “I’m good,” Floyd shouted between gritted teeth. “Let’s go.” An R.Signal punk roared and leapt toward them, clearly drunk as a skunk. Cherry grimaced, lazily catching him with a high kick. He cursed

and fell back, then tried to recover quickly to slide-tackle her. She sidestepped the move easily, finishing him with a few fist jabs to the face and a forward kick. He wailed, falling away, the front of his face a bloody mess. In a little over three minutes, they had cleared the bar. Blaze paused to reload her pistol, her eyes darting over the scene. Unconscious punks were strewn over the floor. There was a fair amount of blood splattered around. Pool tables had been trashed, cues snapped and splintered. Wall decorations had toppled and smashed. Somebody’s chicken dinner had spilled. Over at the main entrance, some guys were fleeing, running for their lives. She watched them go. Step two done. Ignoring the screaming punks, Axel opened the staff room door. Inside the room, Barbon was buttoning his trousers, a broad grin revealing gold teeth. The girl in the bed could only have been sixteen years old – around Cherry’s age. Her eyes widened, and her hand flew to her throat as the four of them burst in through the door. “Don Barbon,” Axel said. “Long time no see.” Barbon wore a leather biker jacket. The Red Demons MC logo was emblazoned on the back in intricate, hand-woven detail. He was of Mexican heritage, good looking, strong, in his fifties. Trim, white- flecked moustache and goatee framing a wide slash of mouth, pulled down at the corners like he was disappointed. His father had been an illegal immigrant from Mexico in the 1970s who had come here seeking a better life for himself. His mother was Caucasian, an American girl who’d fallen in love with him, one way or another, and young Don’s entire life had been a product of their story. He eventually wound up working as a bartender at the 69 Bar in East LA during the 2010s, a prominent establishment owned by Mr. X’s Syndicate. He served a woman known as Eva Elle, aka Electra, one of George Xetheus’ own so- called ‘Inner Sanctum’ of criminal bosses and scum. Axel and Blaze had ‘met’ Barbon while trying to find information on the whereabouts of General Petrov, who had been kidnapped, famously, during the Project

Y Incident of 2015. Since then, he’d risen to power as the leader of the Red Demons. But that was another story. “You.” Barbon lowered his gaze. The young girl rolled from the bed, naked, making a thump on the wooden-beamed floor as she landed. She scrambled, picking up a brightly-colored polka dot yellow bra, matching panties, and a blue cotton dress which had been liberally tossed to the floor. She locked eyes with Cherry for a moment, abashed, then looked away sharply, a painful hidden thought occurring to her, then made for the exit in a resigned fashion without looking back. She moved slowly, like this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. “We came here for information,” Axel said, watching her go. Barbon spat. “Isn’t that what you wanted from me before, capullo? I have a good memory.” “The Grandmaster of Chinatown,” Blaze said confidently, taking a step toward him. Barbon looked at her with an expression that was both amused and disgusted. He flexed his bicep muscles, then laughed heartily. “The Grandmaster of Chinatown? Please. That’s what you came here for after all these years?” He rocked back on his heels, laughing, and looked at Axel with a dazed stare, shaking his head like a dog with a flea biting its ear. “So, you come in here, fuck with my people, with my operation… then just expect me to talk because you think I might know something about the Grandmaster of Chinatown? For what? Because you people put me down at the 69 Bar back in ‘15? You thought I’d be scared of you? Maybe hook you up with some info? No, no, no. That’s not what’s happening here, gringo.” He raised a pointed finger. “I expect you to have learned your lesson,” Axel said, gritting his teeth. He clenched his fists. “Fucking cabrón!” Barbon roared, his nostrils flaring. “This is my place. My gang. You will respect my power. And I will put you down like the dogs you are!”

Axel moved in then, acting immediately on impulse, striking fast and hard without hesitation. Smashed a fist into Barbon’s nose, which spurted blood down over his mouth. Barbon made a squealing sound, jumped back, then roared in anger. “Motherfucker!” He dashed forward, bulldozing into Axel, sending him into a nearby bookcase filled with file folders and a couple of houseplants. Barbon used his sheer size – all six feet seven of him – to crush Axel against it, sending papers and dirt flying. Wood snapped. Axel choked under the force of the man’s tricep as it pressed against his throat, then grimaced and crammed his knee into the bigger man’s groin, going right for the balls. Barbon’s arm slipped just enough for Axel to wriggle free, and then he used his fists to pound the shit out of his opponent, returning to a steady center of gravity. Barbon cursed, effecting a reversal, nailing Axel back. He pulled his gun, an old revolver sidearm, scrambling quickly. But Axel knocked it away, and then they were out the door and going back toward the bar. From there, it was all fists and feet – all over the place, over the counters and furniture. Blaze and the others followed, watching Axel and the kung-fu killer punching and kicking each other in a sustained frenzy, their gazes focused in concentration. Axel heaved a side table at the thug. Barbon ducked, and the table slammed against a wall, where a white neon-lit religious cross had been decorated with candles. It cracked in half on impact, the words ‘MAN’ and ‘HEAVEN’ sparking out and falling to the floor. Axel tackled Barbon, driving them both out of the main entrance and onto the pavement outside. Now, they were fighting toward the scrapyard. Bikes roared out toward the main roadway, drivers and gang members spooked by what was happening. The noise was deafening. People were running around all over the place, getting in cars, shouting. An ugly horn blasted from somewhere, urgent calls to hurry.

The two men landed on an outside table, next to some scrap Harleys. Barbon went to choke Axel using his hands, gritting his teeth, grunting. Axel ducked away, instinctively going into the signature uppercut which his father, Locke Stone, had taught him to master as a child. He jolted forward twice, bringing his right fist up from the ground, focusing on the intense heat energy in his arm as it thundered upward. “Grand Upper!” The force of the blow smashed the shit out of Barbon, and blew the outside table away. Axel grabbed him by the collar, his expression fierce. He threw him against a chain link fence and brought his face intimately close, teeth bared. “Talk!” Barbon coughed. His face was covered in blood. “Midnight tonight,” he said, eyelids lowered. “At the Chinatown Metro platform. That’s where you’ll find the man you’re looking for.” Blaze stepped into the conversation from where the others were lurking nearby. “The Grandmaster of Chinatown…” Barbon’s head was shaking. His painful grimace came off as a smile. “If that’s what you want to call him.” Axel yanked his collar, shaking him hard once. “What else are we supposed to call him?” The man looked like he was going to cry. His tone was filled with hatred. “Call him whatever the fuck you want… Now get the fuck away from me. Get out of my life.” Axel shoved him back against the fence with more force than was necessary, letting him fall into a heap. Barbon hit his head on the way down, passed out before he even reached the ground. Axel exhaled and stood up straight, a sudden gust of wind catching the length of his hair and beard. He didn’t say anything for a long moment: he just stood, looking into the fence, recovering. It had been a long time since he had felt some of the emotions that he’d felt today, and Barbon’s words had triggered something deep inside of him. “Get out of my life.”

The heat of the fight, the channeling of his darker rage, going against his own good nature… Feeling these emotions again now had brought memories flooding back, memories of his recurring dreams… Enigma… and being in the presence of Blaze again, he felt connected to the past in a way he’d been trying to escape for a long time. It was a strange feeling to him, almost like the most recent years of his life hadn’t even meant anything. His mind wandered momentarily, as it often did, and he felt lost in time: he remembered all the reasons for his fight with Blaze, the mean-spirited words that had been exchanged between them so many years ago. “I don’t need you in my life…” “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.” “We will never be friends.” “Get out of my life.” He closed his eyes, letting the thoughts subside in the way he had trained himself to do so many times. He also remembered why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place: how he couldn’t help it, how she meant everything to him and nothing at the same time. How she made him happy with just her presence in his life – her maternal influence… and he wasn’t sure about how it made him feel now, doing this. This isn’t quite what he’d imagined it would be. A lot of time had passed since the days of Firestorm, that was certain, he told himself. But things were different now. Since the divorce. The world was different. Maybe his feelings for her were as stale as his beard. “Are you alright?” Blaze asked, breaking the reverie. He inhaled sharply and dodged her gaze. “Fine. We got what we needed here, didn’t we? Let’s go.” She knew better than to pursue it. She took out a radio and called Murphy. He answered, the voice static. “Blaze. Talk to me.” “We just cleaned house at the Bar of the Rising Sun, Murph,” she said. “We need some support to get this taken care of. Barbon is down, and the rest of the gang who are not unconscious are now dispersing.”

“Okay, Blaze,” the radio spat back. “I’m gonna send help. Sit tight.” So they did.

As they waited, Floyd sat across from Cherry beside one of the outdoor tables in the shade of an RV, where she was opening a first aid kit. She took out the contents and started preparing a tourniquet dressing for the 9mm wound on his thigh. “How you holding up?” she asked. “I’m good,” he told her. “It hurts, but with this I’ll be good until we get back to the lab at least, and get it fixed up proper.” She smiled, carefully wrapping the bandage. “I feel bad we didn’t prevent this. Sorry I’m not much of a field nurse, either.” “There were bullets flying everywhere,” he said. “I’d say we were actually all very lucky. Got to look on the bright side of things, you know.” A warm desert wind swept over them. “I guess Blaze Fielding kinda kept us all together in there with her years of pistol training,” Cherry said with a jovial laugh. She took a deep breath. “She’s had an interesting life. I admire the strength she has.” Floyd winced at the sharp sensations coming from the bullet wound as she dressed it. “Yeah. Incredible woman. What do you make of Axel?” Cherry shrugged, continuing to wrap. “He has issues, but he’s a good guy. Good heart inside, covered by a lot of defense mechanisms. He’s made mistakes, done reckless things, but he’s strong. His deep feelings and experience give him focus. We need that.” Floyd nodded thoughtfully as she finished up. “You’re very perceptive,” he said with a smile. Then, “They’re good people, Cherry. People say a lot of things about Firestorm nowadays, not all of it good. But, well. I’ve spent a lot of time with Zan over the years. I know what they were trying to achieve.”

“They’re like my family,” she said, leaning back in the chair, looking him in the eyes. “They’ve always been in my life one way or the other.”

* * *

At around 08.00 am, the thumping sound of a Wood Oak City PD helicopter chopped the air overhead, and it hovered into view from the direction of the main roadway. A voice sounded on the megaphone as it approached, calling for Blaze Fielding to give herself up. The voice was male, threatening, repeating the command. “Wait, what?” That was Cherry, who couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “Make it easy on yourself and give yourself up. Now! Blaze Fielding.” Blaze frowned, quickly becoming aware that her worst fears had been realized. Brainwashing? But Murphy, her friend… “No…” “What the hell is this?” Floyd said, lifting a cybernetic arm against the sun’s rays. He and Cherry were standing with Axel and Blaze in a small clearing some thirty yards outside the Bar of the Rising Sun’s main compound, moving equipment. A second voice, a woman’s, came across the megaphone then: “If you do not give yourself up, we are authorized to use deadly force!” “This is not good,” said Cherry, a wave of anxiety hitting her like a ton of bricks. “What are we going to do?” “We can take the Ocelot,” Axel told them calmly. “I studied the layout of the land before we left this morning. There’s a sewer outlet on the old road back into the city, not far from here. We can make it to the vehicle if we run.” The Ocelot was parked nearby, about forty yards from where they stood. “These guys are cops,” Floyd said. “They’re supposed to be helping us. This has to be a mistake.”

Blaze turned to him, her eyes wide. “After what I saw with Murphy this morning, I should’ve seen this coming. This is my fault. I still felt like I could trust him. He’s been our friend for years…” “Let’s not worry about that now. And we’re not going to solve anything by surrendering to them,” Axel said. He was calm, ready. “I say we break for the sewer using the Ocelot. It could lead us back to ZanTech Labs once we lose their tail. After the bombing of the Old City, most of the surface was leveled, but the underground networks still remain intact. The sewers. The subway. But we have to move now if we’re going to take that chance.” There were nods all around. Blaze swallowed dryly. “Sounds good to me.” “Let’s do this,” Cherry said. They bolted away, and the helicopter swooped upward. Two more choppers appeared on the horizon, approaching from the northeast, closing fast. The forty yards or so back to the Ocelot closed in a heart-wrenching moment as they ran, aware that they could be cut down by gunfire at any moment. Sirens began to wail. “This is your final warning,” the woman’s voice said. “Surrender or die!” They reached the Ocelot and got in, just as a number of cop cars raced up on the dirt track from the main roadway. All three helicopters had started to circle them, entering a formation. Axel gunned the engine and the Ocelot roared to life. The others hung on, terrified, as he pulled toward the cop cars then mashed the gas pedal against the floor. They shot forward and Axel gripped the steering wheel, jerking it. Two cops had gotten out of the cars. They gawked, bracing themselves, as the Ocelot smashed into the nearest car, its huge front tires smashing the hood. The police siren made a blooop noise which tapered off as the ZanTech-produced vehicle bounced right over the cop car in a messy display of brute force, its passengers holding onto the rollbars inside for dear life. The cop car was trashed in the process. Once back on the ground, the Ocelot tore to the left as Axel jerked the

wheel again, passing directly between another two cop cars and accelerating in the direction of the main roadway. One of the cops grabbed his radio. “They’re in a ZPO! Citybound.” Another man’s voice crackled back. “Copy that. Engaging pursuit.” Axel drove fast, headed for the main roadway back to Wood Oak. He knew the cops would follow, and that the helicopters would make it impossible to avoid them for long. A few moments later he was weaving between traffic at 80mph, getting faster, dodging freeway supports. Blaze braced against the dash, breathing fast, staring at the road ahead. The experience of travelling in a ZanTech Protection Ocelot at this speed was a visceral sensation. Colors streaked by, ruined buildings, the hot wind hard in their faces, making it difficult to breathe; concrete columns flashed past at unthinkable velocity. “Axel…” she started. “Stay calm,” Axel said. He looked at an intricate GPS display on his HUD, then at the road ahead. “I’ve got this.” He raced along, jumping a red light, nimbly dodging through cross- traffic. Two more cop cars joined the pursuit from the side streets, red- and-blue lights blazing, sirens blaring. Floyd was in the back, getting the plasma cannon ready. He turned it and fired, hitting one of the cop cars. The tires exploded. Smoke poured out. He fired again at the other car, another red plasma bolt. Sparks leapt from the ground as the now-tireless wheels grinded along the road, skidding sideways, one car hitting the other. They crashed into a reservation. “I got bombs on these arms, bitch!” Floyd roared. The Ocelot moved out from under the elevated freeway structure, and there was one of the choppers, right above them. Axel turned off, taking a side road into the outskirts of a low-wealth Wood Oak City neighborhood. Three cop cars pulled across the first intersection in a roadblock.

Axel saw this, and touched a button on the GPS. The map on his screen turned three-dimensional, showing the heights of buildings, levels of streets. He skidded into an illegal turn, drifting into the entrance of a multi-level parking garage, taking out the ticket machine and barrier as he did so. Cherry closed her eyes against the violent shaking of the vehicle, the pounding of the impacts, the crunch of metal; trying to breathe slowly. The Ocelot raced upward through the parking structure, barely managing to stay on four wheels. “What are you doing?” she cried. A police car smashed into a pillar somewhere behind them, driver error. “Short cut,” Axel told her. They roared out onto the top level, and once again, there was a chopper. They sped forward. Four seconds later, cop cars spewed out behind them onto the roof, blocking the only way down. Axel hit the brake, and the Ocelot screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust. Various mechanisms wheezed as the power levels in the hydrogen capacitors went down. He glanced at the GPS, checking something. A male cop’s voice came over a loudspeaker: “Turn off your engine!” Cherry recoiled in horror. “Axel. This is no time for games.” He turned his head to look at her. “Cherry. Trust me.” Blaze looked at him like he had lost his mind. He hit a button. A hidden cannon emerged from the nose of the Ocelot and blasted the far wall. It was swallowed by flame. He hit the accelerator hard and the vehicle rocketed toward the edge of the roof, chopper in pursuit. “Shit!” Cherry yelped as the ground suddenly disappeared beneath them. Blaze gasped. There was a moment of weightlessness as the Ocelot went over the edge. Warm air on the face. What goes up…

In the chopper, over the radio, someone barked: “We’re on them, we’re on them…” Axel felt himself thrown forward violently in his seat as the vehicle smash-landed on an elevated section of freeway on the other side of the building. His seatbelt jerked him back, and his shoulder hurt like hell, but he managed to keep the Ocelot on four wheels. There were roars and curses from the others around him as the suspension absorbed the impact from the fall with a screaming mechanical hiss. Traffic swerved to avoid them, honking their horns. The helicopter swooped over, leaning left and right like a cyclist. The Ocelot swerved into action, picking up speed. Axel checked the mirrors, wiping sweat from his brow. The traffic was getting heavier now as they moved further into the city. More cop cars were closing in from behind. Floyd fired the plasma cannon from the back, hitting a windshield, shattering it, pulverizing metal. Inside the car, the driver threw his hands in front of his face – – and the cop car span out of its lane, slamming into a guard rail. Another cop car piled into it, glass and metal shattering. The thing flipped over twice and ending up sliding on its roof for another fifty yards at 30mph. The Ocelot raced ahead, continuing to weave through traffic. “Nice shot,” said Blaze. “Thanks,” Floyd called back. Axel took a tightly-curved exit ramp back to surface streets, and then they were driving through trees, out of an old industrial district. Abandoned roads meant less traffic, but the helicopters were still on them. “Where are we going?” Blaze asked. “We can’t keep this up forever.” “Sewer outlet,” he said, and then jerked the steering wheel. The Ocelot roared off road, heading straight through a cluster of trees, ripping up dirt. When they emerged into a clearing some moments

later, they came to their destination at last. Axel slammed his foot on the brake, yanking the vehicle to a halt like a jet landing on an aircraft carrier. The canopy of the Ocelot hissed open and the four of them got out, stepping quickly down onto concrete. Nobody was around. The entrance to the sewer beckoned.

This wasn’t the first time that Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding had escaped through a sewer together. “Kinda brings back memories of when we first met,” Axel said, as they hurried past the access point, ignoring posted signs telling them to Keep Out. She looked at him, unimpressed. “Don’t remind me about that, mister.” He smirked, a gentle smile, then pulled a small LED flashlight from his belt and clicked it on, a soft beam of blue light, enough to see their feet and where they were walking. From the outlet where they had entered, they left the Surface Access chamber down a rusted ladder and headed northeast, walking quickly and quietly into a network of drainage tunnels. If they could get through here without being followed or alerted by the police, so much the better. The rank stench of sewage made the air toxic, difficult to breathe. It was easier to take longer breaths nearer to surface vents, where blasts of cool air made their way in with the steady thrum-thrum-thrum of hidden fan blades, but the path to evade capture took them into deeper levels of the sewer, making their way around maintenance corridors, going up and down corrugated stairways, dangerous to walk on. Lower down, the air was hot, bitter, disgusting. Axel used his smartphone as a compass, insisting that if they kept heading east, the cops’ tail would drop off. For a while, Blaze walked with Axel a few steps ahead of the others. “Axel, I need you to give me a straight answer about something, now we’re working together again, and we’re actually talking.” She spoke in a low tone. He looked at her dubiously. “Shoot.”

“Why did you stop talking to me for so long? I know I said I didn’t need you in my life… but to blank me out completely and then the kids and Zan as well, for years like we never existed at all? Why did that happen?” All of the years showed on her face as she spoke. The pain. The not knowing. He gave her a wounded glance. He knew this was a conversation he couldn’t avoid. He owed her that much. She went on, struggling to keep her voice low so that Floyd and Cherry wouldn’t overhear. “What about our history together? Our time at Firestorm, as a team, as a family? You had a responsibility to those kids of yours.” The intimacy of the questioning drove hard at him. He avoided her gaze, staring at the ground in the glow of his flashlight. “Honestly? You told me you didn’t need me in your life, Blaze. You pushed me away until I was nothing to you. And it made me feel like nothing.” Feelings bubbled to the surface, and he didn’t hold back. “You know, I tried to reach out to you in those lowest moments, the real you, the one deep inside you that you told me was there, because I needed you, and you turned your back on me, Blaze. You chose not to help me. And I felt like you were gone to me, and you were happy with that. You were happy with the way things were after that too, without me. You never needed me at all. So I hid myself away.” He did a weary sigh. “I know I should have reacted to everything better. I’ve been a bad father. I was a bad husband. A bad person all around.” She took a deep, wounded breath. Her walking pace increased slightly. Memories and long-held thoughts flashed through her mind. “You hid away… by going back to your old self. Bad habits, mister. You tell yourself a lot of stories, Axel, to justify your behavior. And it’s all in your head. These stories… you tell them to me, too.” Her eyes seemed to glaze over as her thoughts reasserted themselves in the way she felt was right, in the way she had trained herself to adopt over the years. “But you know our terms. We can’t be friends if you can’t control your emotions. These ‘feelings’ of yours… are suffocating and dangerous.

You know we’ve been through this multiple times, Ax. This is why we are two separate people now.” Memories of their divorce flowered in Axel’s mind. Being served his papers. The finality of its emotional tangibility. His utter helplessness. “I never wanted to lose you as a friend at all,” he said, shaking his head. The pain was all too real, and it cut into him like a dagger. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Blaze. Let’s just focus on the mission, shall we?” She grimaced. “Let’s do that.” After a couple of hours of walking, they moved into a large open room, occupied by a huge, monolithic device easily twenty feet tall and just as high. The surface was covered in a metallic vent, like a strong protective netting. It appeared to serve no function at first glance, but looked like recently installed, clean tech. Somebody had been here in the sewer recently, though for what reason was anyone’s guess, and completely curious. “What the hell is that?” Blaze said, echoing their collective sentiment. Cherry went up to it and rubbed a hand across the metal surface. “Looks like a giant speaker. A subwoofer, but on a- total-‘nother level. Gigantic. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Looks like it could generate one hell of a sound.” A stylized skull logo bore the name Koobo Industries, Inc. “Local corp,” Floyd said, brushing an artificial hand against the polished plastic. Tactile sensors relayed nervous-system feedback to his cerebral cortex. He could feel what he touched. “I wonder what their deal is, sticking this thing in a sewer.” Axel looked it over and shrugged. A thousand other cares flew over him. “No visible connections, no interface whatsoever. No real way to tell. We’ll have to worry about it later. We have more pressing issues at hand.” Blaze nodded her agreement, but didn’t look at him. “That we do.”

They walked for another hour, before moving into yet another rounded tunnel, then climbed another access ladder… until finally they saw an opening to the surface, one that sloped gently upward toward street level and appeared unguarded. When they got closer, they could see the shapes of trees ahead, dappled in long shadows cast from the afternoon sun. The sound of busy Wood Oak City traffic echoed toward them from the direction of the street. No sign of any trouble. Finally they were outside. When they got out of the trees, they were on 45th Street and Warner. Traffic was dying off fast. Everything was eerily quiet for a moment as they headed further east, toward ZanTech Labs. But before they knew it, the helicopters were on them again. “Shit!” Axel roared, the frustration quite evident on his protracted facial expression, his long hair chopped by the wind. “How could they have tracked us this far in those old things?” All three police helicopters were circling them again now, spotlights on them, the noise deafening. Wailing sirens from multiple cop cars came from somewhere in the distance, getting closer. “Give yourself up!” The woman’s voice roared over the megaphone again. “There’s nowhere left to run!” “I’m sorry guys,” Axel said, his eyes darting around, but seeing no way out. “I tried.” “We’re doing great, Axel,” Floyd said confidently, and put a brotherly hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t over yet.” As he spoke, one of the helicopters banked to a stop, hovering above them. The side door rolled open, and Estel Aguirre emerged, dressed in Black Ops protective gear. She clipped a hook to a safety bar on the helicopter’s fuselage, then expertly rappelled down to ground level on a black, military-grade rope. She landed on her feet, her braided hair swinging across her back as she regarded them. Her eyes were yellow, fierce, a glow of amber. “Estel?” Cherry said, recognizing her face immediately. Estel was, of course, dad’s Special Forces partner – had been for the past couple

of years now. Cherry had met her a few times at dad’s medal ceremonies and associated social functions, and she had seemed like a nice, friendly lady back then. In fact, she was supposed to be working with dad in China right now. “What the hell is going on?” “You’re all under arrest for violating the Leader’s Code,” Estel said bluntly between pursed lips. Her voice was forced and harsh, sounding more like mental programming than her natural self. “By jurisdiction of Commissioner Bernstein, Wood Oak City PD.” The words piled on Blaze Fielding’s mind, threatening to overwhelm her. “Leader’s Code?” she asked. “Just what the hell does that even mean?” Cherry Hunter snorted. “Listen, lady. Can’t you see the Syndicate is behind all this? Why are you acting this way?” “Shut it,” Estel sneered. “You broke the law, and it’s my duty to put you in jail.” She grabbed for the radio on the breast of her flak jacket and pressed the ‘T for Transmit’ button, bringing her jaw down toward it. “Central, requesting backup. Send everything you got.” Cop cars screeched to a halt around them, five or six at least, as a dispatch clerk barked affirmative over the radio – more helicopters and armed SWAT units were on the way. Cops got out of their vehicles, readying, aiming their guns. “We’re surrounded,” Blaze said. She felt like a failure, a pit of despair opening in her gut. Another helicopter joined the fray then, a UH-60 Black Hawk, which swooped in ahead of the others. Another voice, a man’s, came over a megaphone: “Stand down!” The side door rolled back, and Adam Hunter leapt from twenty feet in the air, slamming to the concrete below, blowing a couple of unsuspecting cops off their feet, their guns clattering away. He landed in a superhero-like stance amid kicked-up dust, then rose to his feet like an epic demigod rising from the shadow to save the world from a great evil. His eyes moved over to Axel, Blaze, and the others from beneath

his black-rimmed shades. “Hey guys,” he said coolly. “Long time no see.” “Dad!” Cherry yelled, her eyes filled with tears of joy. Adam wore a yellow muscle shirt with an ample V-shaped neck which had been left unbuttoned, exposing his ripped pectorals. His boots had an armor-like appearance with yellow guards, beneath black pants held up by suspenders. Estel did not look impressed by their new arrival. “And who might you be?” she raged. Adam looked at her. “It’s me, Estel. It’s Adam, your partner. Remember? Wake up. The Y Syndicate has you under its mind control. Remember who you are. Remember why you’re here…” She frowned, hesitating. Her yellow eyes glared at him. “Remember…?” Adam casually pulled a small handheld device from his pocket and held it up. “Yep. This here is a bio-remote neuro-transmitter. Built from reverse-engineered ZanTech. A prototype. Our friends at the CIA call it a ‘cogniclock’. Doesn’t officially exist. A gift from some friends from out of town, you could say. The tech here isolates and measures the electronic impulses in a human brain. More specifically, the ones for short-term memory.” He pressed a button, and the device made a hissing sound, then a loud snap as its invisible signal was released. Estel blinked, almost dropping to her knees under the force of a sudden intense head pain. The yellow color started fading from her eyes instantly, slipping away like a bad dream. She gasped. “The Syndicate has been corrupting the city and the police,” Blaze said to Adam, watching as Estel’s eyes turned back to their natural brown color over the course of around five seconds. “They want to take control of the population.” Estel staggered, but managed to stay on her feet. “What… What was I thinking?” She brought a hand to her face, half-massaged her brow, then went for her radio again, her mind clearing. She called off the reinforcements without another thought. “I’m sorry. I honestly

thought I was doing the right thing. I… I have these images in my mind. These flashes…” “Cognitive control,” Adam told her, placing the device back in his pocket. “Don’t sweat it, Estel. We know they’re doing it, we just don’t know how yet.” The threat was over. Axel stepped toward Adam, and both men simultaneously swung from the hip as if to land a punch, but their hands slapped together in a gesture of friendship, their forearms bulging, testing each other’s strength. “How you been, Adam?” Axel said warmly. For a moment they continued the contest. Axel had the edge, forcing Adam’s arm slowly downward. “You’ve been pushing too many pencils, Adam. Had enough?” Adam grinned. “No way, old buddy.” They looked into each other’s faces, each remembering something from the past. A moment’s hesitation and they quit the contest. They laughed, Adam slapping Axel on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Ax. You too, Blaze.” She nodded, all smiles. “Thankyou, Adam.” “Dad!” Cherry yelped again. She seized the moment of calm and ran to him. They embraced, a warm exchange of familial love as she nuzzled her face into his towering masculine form. “How you doing, baby girl? Thanks for taking care of Blaze for me.” “I’m good,” she told him. “I was worried about you, dad. But I thought you were in China – with Estel.” “I’m okay,” he told her, giving her a reassuring kiss on the forehead. “It’s okay.” Estel blinked away the last remnants of the Syndicate’s mind control fog, coming around fully. She remembered everything now. “Yes. We were overseeing a prisoner transfer there in the Republic of China, but there was an… unseen complication.” “Shiva’s escape,” Blaze said.

Adam looked up, still holding Cherry in their embrace, addressing them all. “We tracked Shiva’s movements as best we could. Our search brought us to Wood Oak City. Estel and I were both following up leads individually once we arrived. As soon as I heard that shit was going down on Estel’s end, I had to intervene.” “Impeccable timing as always, brother,” Axel grinned. Adam was finally relinquished from his daughter’s grip. “Thankyou, dad. I don’t know what we’d have done without you. This is Floyd, my new friend.” Floyd offered his cybernetic right arm to shake Adam’s hand. Adam Hunter took it, and their arms firmly locked against each other as a mark of hushed respect. “An honor to finally meet you, Adam,” Floyd said. “I’ve heard so many great things about you.” “Likewise,” Adam grinned. “With all the ZanTech we’ve been using at US Special Forces, you have a patriot’s reputation, Floyd Iraia. The honor here is mine.” “Dr. Zan deserves all the credit,” Floyd said modestly. “He made me the man I am today.” “Floyd’s cool,” Cherry said to her dad. She could tell instantly about people, whether they were their genuine self, whether they lived their truth or not. Floyd had earned her trust. Adam nodded. “I’m glad you’re getting along. You know, you guys make quite a team.” Blaze welcomed the atmosphere of positive emotion, a sharp contrast to the despairing anxiety she had felt not two moments ago. Her attention turned to Estel. “So, what happened with you?” “I was looking into reports of a sighting of Leon Shiva in the downtown area yesterday,” Estel told them. “I went into the police precinct building to speak with the Commissioner. That’s the last thing that I remember cohesively, of my own memories, until just now. Whatever happened to me – however I was exposed to the Syndicate’s mind control – it happened at the police precinct.”

“We know the Syndicate is using mind control technology,” Adam explained, giving them the bigger picture with a gesture of both hands. “So, we have to be extra careful out in the field. That’s why I carry the cogniclock on my person, just in case. It can reset a compromised cognition instantly. State of the art…” “That’s a whacky name for it,” Cherry said, cringing. “The guys at military R&D cooked it up some time ago. Blame them for the tacky naming convention.” “Well, I have a feeling this cogniclock tech is going to come in very handy in the days ahead,” Blaze said, looking out at the retreating helicopters as they dipped back over the horizon. “This mind control bullshit has gone on for long enough, guys.” Nobody felt like arguing with that. “So, what’s our next move?” asked Floyd. The expression on Blaze’s face conveyed a deep passion and determination. Her motivations sprang from decades of dealing with the horrors of Mr. X’s Syndicate. “Right now I have to see the Commissioner. I have a bone to pick with him. I want that guy to eat his words. We should head for the police precinct building, once we regroup and we’re ready…” “ZanTech Labs is still the safest place for now,” said Floyd. “I designed some of the automated defenses myself.” “Floyd needs to get his bullet wound seen to,” Cherry reminded them. The guy was brave and strong, but she’d noticed over the past few hours of walking how his stamina had visibly depleted, even if he’d deny it was true. He looked at her and caught her gaze once she’d said the words and gave her a silent, relieved acknowledgement with his eyes only. She smiled and lowered her gaze in response. “I agree,” Axel said. “So we’ll head there first to get off the streets. Figure out what we’re going to do.” Blaze smiled, nodding along with the others. It was good to be back in action.

* * *

There were sixteen detectives assigned to the Wood Oak City Precinct, and Robert Murphy was one of them. The precinct, in all truth, could have used 116 detectives and even then been understaffed. The precinct area spread out in all directions from the River Highway and the tall buildings of Wood Oak’s downtown area, with its corporate headquarters, delicatessens and movie houses, on south to Culver Avenue and the Irish District, still south to the Los Muertos territory, and then west into Carlodon Park, where wisecracking muggers and rapists ran rife. Running east and west, the precinct covered a long total of some fifty-five city streets. And packed into this rectangle – north and south from the river to the park, east and west for thirty-five blocks – was a population of 300,000 people. Robert Murphy was one of those people. He had been born in the Los Angeles County area in the mid 1990s, and he had grown up there, and when he’d turned twenty-one, being of sound mind and body, being four inches over the minimum requirement of five feet eight inches, having 20/20 vision without glasses, and not having any criminal record, he had taken the competitive Civil Service examination and had been appointed a patrolman. He worked his way through a few detective positions at a number of jurisdictions, before eventually becoming SWAT enforcement with the LAPD Central Division – an expert with heavy weapons, vehicles… often providing backup to other officers on the field. Years later, he worked in the FBI, helping Axel, Blaze and the others at Firestorm HQ during the Syndicate Wars. He had a lot of good memories of those times, tracking down Mr. X across the world in order to stop Operation Shadow Hand and the deployment of the Syndicate’s Y Robot Battlegroup. Dark times, which led to changes in the world. Some of them good. Some, not so good. The people involved in Firestorm disbanded

and, after a brief incident involving a doppelganger of Axel and the World Devastator superweapon created by Leon Shiva and his alleged sister Rudra at the end of the 2020s, they went their separate ways, moving on with their lives. Today, in 2039, Robert Murphy lived and worked in Wood Oak City, had done for several years now. It was his personal recommendation to Commissioner Bernstein a while back that got Blaze Fielding hired into this new ‘reformed’ precinct, as a kind of personal favor due to their history together. She’d lost a lot of the celebrity-like goodwill that people had had toward her earlier in her life, with many law enforcement agencies having a problem hiring her in recent years because of her personal history – time spent in psychiatric institutions, the Syndicate’s illegal experimentation, and many other stigmas attached to her notorious experiences. At 0100 AM on the morning of March 24, Robert Murphy was earning his salary by interrogating a man he and Stan had picked up in a bar after a knifing incident. The interrogation was being conducted on the seventeenth floor of the precinct building. To the right of the desk on the sixteenth floor, there was an inconspicuous and dirty white sign with black letters which announced DETECTIVE DIVISION, and a pointing hand advised any visitor that the bulls hung out upstairs. The stairs were metal, and narrow, but scrupulously clean. They went up for a total of sixteen risers, then turned back on themselves and continued on up for another sixteen risers, and there you were – in a narrow, dimly lit corridor. There were two doors on the right of the open stairway, and a sign labelled them LOCKERS. If you turned left and walked down the corridor, you passed a wooden slatted bench on your left, a bench without a back on your right (set into a narrow alcove before the sealed doors of what had once been an elevator shaft), a door on your right marked MEN’S RESTROOM, and a door on your left over which a small sign hung, and the sign simply read, CLERICAL. At the end of the corridor was the detective squadroom. You saw first a slatted-rail divider. Beyond that, you saw desks and telephones, and a

bulletin board with various photographs and notices on it, and a hanging light globe and beyond that more desks and the grilled windows that opened onto the front of the building, and the river with its elevated highway below. You couldn’t see very much that went on beyond the railing on your right because two huge metal filing cabinets blocked the desks on that side of the room. The Commissioner’s office was on the very far side. It was on that side of the room that Murphy was interrogating the man he’d picked up in the bar earlier that night. “What’s your name?” he asked the man. “No hablo inglés,” the man said. “Oh hell,” Murphy said. He wore a white shirt, open at the throat. His sleeves were rolled up over muscular forearms. “Cuál es su nombre?” he asked in hesitant Spanish. “Walter Donovan.” “A name like Walter and you don’t speak any English? That’s interesting. Your address?” He paused, thinking. “Dirección?” “Tres-tres-cuatro Mei-son.” “Age? Edad?” Donovan shrugged. “All right,” Murphy said, “where’s the knife? Oh, crap, we’ll never get anywhere tonight. Look, dónde está el cuchillo? Puedo usted decirme?” “Creo que no.” “Why not? For Christ’s sake, you had a knife, didn’t you?” “No sé.” Murphy felt a wave of frustration. He was about to reply, to try to dig deeper here, but then a blasting, loud mechanical shrilling sound echoed around the room, forcing him to throw his hands up over his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut, the decibel level way too high, a hidden loudspeaker built in the corner of the ceiling zapping to life. In a moment the sound was gone, then the familiar bassline of a DJ K-Washi track began to play – on the radio, maybe? Murphy’s arms came down. He frowned.

Donovan snorted, and started to bark frantic comments in Spanish. Murphy tried to focus on what he was saying, but in his mind, the music was taking center stage. Everything else started to drown out, until he could see Donovan yelling, standing up and waving his arms, but he couldn’t hear a word he was saying, and didn’t even care. He got to his feet, feeling nauseous. The beat of the DJ K-Washi track thump-thump-thumped over the speaker, bringing him into a hypnotic trance. A deep breath filled his lungs, and the color of his eyes changed from their usual blue to a glowing amber, flashing yellow. Murphy. Look alive. The voice was there. He could hear it. Blaze Fielding and her coconspirators have entered the Precinct Building. They are in breach of the Leaders’ Code and working against True Justice. They must be stopped at all costs. He nodded. Yes. This was what he had to do. These pests had been a thorn in the side of the Leaders for long enough. If they were here, he’d need to defend himself against them. Ignoring Donovan’s rant completely, he turned and walked out past the metal filing cabinets into the squadroom. As he passed Jake Sumner’s desk, he grabbed a bulletproof vest and threw it on, then took a ZanTech Riot Shield which somebody had left on the ground, leaning against a desk divider. He fingered the control quickly, activating its energy matrix. The charged blue shielding thrummed to vibrant life, and he moved across the room toward the door to the corridor.

“Murphy!” Blaze yelled. His eyes were yellow. “Time to put you down.” She hesitated. “Don’t make me do this, Murph. We already had to beat the shit out of a bunch of cops to get up here. It’s not making me feel good right now.” She turned to Adam, who stood with the others beside her, and he was looking down at the cogniclock device. “How long ‘til we can use it again?” He looked up. “Recharge won’t be for another few minutes.”

Murphy held the shield out in front of him. The blue energy glow illuminated the shadows of the corridor. “You’ll be dead by then.” Blaze drew upon the power of her aura as he charged forward. The movement was instinctive; no longer was she the young, confused Blaze of the past who had only just begun to discover her power. Now, her aura and nature as a homo superior being was fully integrated into her fighting form, her meditations… and something she’d fully come to terms with and mastered over the decades. It was her reality. The fireball blasted forward, hitting the riot shield. The blow slowed Murphy, but he kept coming. Floyd launched in on the right, raising his cybernetic arms. Murphy raised the shield to counter, and Floyd brought his arms smashing down on its surface, shorting it into it’s low-power red mode. Murphy roared, knocking him away. He grabbed for his sidearm. Axel quickly subdued Murphy, smashing the shield with a Dragon Wing attack, punching him in the arm twice and then the face, then lifting a leg to kick him away forcefully, knocking him out. “I’m sorry, old friend,” he said. They stood outside the door to the squadroom. “We made it,” Blaze said. “Commissioner’s office is just through here.”

Commissioner Joseph Bernstein was the man in charge of the 87th Detective Squad. Tall at six feet nine inches, he had a hard, compact, muscular body and a head like a rivet covered in grey hair. His eyes were blue and tiny, but those eyes had seen a hell of a lot, and they didn’t miss very much that went on around him. The Commissioner knew that his precinct here at Wood Oak City was a trouble spot, and that was the way he liked it. It was the bad neighborhoods that needed policemen, he was fond of saying, and he was proud to be a part of this squad that really earned its keep. There had once been sixteen people in his squad, until very recently, but now there were only fifteen. The sixteenth – Blaze Fielding – who had been a constant headache for him ever since she first transferred here, whom he had discharged for her ridiculous immaturity – stood gathered along with her various unauthorized cohorts around him in the squadroom, demanding answers he didn’t have. They’d beaten the crap out of every cop in the building, convinced that this so-called ‘Y Syndicate’ had messed with their heads. He’d watched the entire thing on the CCTV feed from the comfort of his office, feet up on a leather-bound chair, before deciding he had no choice but to confront them. “No more bullshit,” Blaze was saying. “I know this precinct is being hotwired by Syndicate brainwashing. You might as well just come clean, Bernstein. Make it easier on yourself.” He made a dismissive gesture with one of his large, wide hands. “If you read the gossip columns in the tabloids, Fielding, then you start to believe them. You listen to rumors, you’ll start to believe in the Y Syndicate. That’s the law of the jungle, Fielding. There’s not a scrap of evidence to support what you’re saying. You’re a prosecutor, for

Christ’s sake. How do you think this is all going to sound to a Wood Oak City judge?” Blaze watched him, gripped by her own frustrations. She’d worked with the Commissioner for several months. She had admired and respected him, even though Murphy and many of her other colleagues called him ‘an old turd’. Blaze knew cops who worked in precincts where the boss wielded a whip instead of a cerebellum. It wasn’t good to work for a tyrant. Bernstein was all right, and Bernstein was also a good cop and a smart cop, and so Blaze wanted to give him her full attention, to understand why this was happening. “Then why are your people constantly trying to arrest us, and bring us in?” “You gripe my ass,” he told her. “You’re a vigilante, Fielding.” Estel stepped forward. “No. There’s more to it than that. You want proof? There’s me. When I was here earlier, something happened to me. Something triggered a change in my cognition. There were orders from you… and I was acting on them, against my will. Defending the ‘Leaders’ Code’. There’s foul play here, Commissioner, and you can’t deny it, no matter what you say.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bernstein said. “I’m not sending out orders to random people. I’m not brainwashing anyone. In fact I…” His cellphone started to ring from his right trouser pocket, cutting him off. The ring tone was In Sleep by Lissie. He hesitated for a few moments as the ballad of the love forsaken narrator filled the air. Axel Stone frowned. “Are you gonna get that?” Bernstein answered his phone, cutting off the ringtone, slightly frustrated. Why did somebody have to be trying to contact him right at this moment…? “Bernstein,” he said in a gruff tone, his usual phone greeting. He stood there, ear to the phone, listening for a moment. Axel and the others watched him, unimpressed, wondering what was really going on with him. After another moment, the color of his eyes changed.

Yellow. A flare of amber. Commissioner Bernstein dropped the phone, his breaths becoming ragged. It bounced away on the carpeted floor. “Uh, guys…” Cherry said, knowing exactly what this meant. She unconsciously took a couple of steps back, watching the Commissioner’s transmogrification with more than a little trepidation. Bernstein’s face was red with anger now, steam practically coming out of his nostrils every time he took a breath. “Commissioner…” Blaze started. Her tone was sad; she already knew it was too late. “They’ve gotten to you too,” she said. “Of course they have.” Part of her had thought that Bernstein might have been in on the brainwashing, that he’d had a hand in its conception with the Y Syndicate… but he was clearly just a pawn of something far larger. She shook her head. There were ten stages of anger, from lowest to highest: bothered, mild irritation, annoyed, indignation, frustrated, infuriated, hostile, wrath, fury, and lastly, rage. In Blaze’s case, right now, her level was that of indignation. But Bernstein, his aggression was up to infuriated… …Thanks to that one punch from Fielding… … that fucking cunt… … his anger was pushed beyond the boundaries of ten. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to anger level eleven, and enraged doesn’t even begin to cover it. In a state of livid fury, the Commissioner gave a yell that spoke of unadulterated hatred before charging toward Blaze. Blaze was prepared for a fight, but she didn’t expect the fury the sixty-two year-old man could unleash. She got tackled to the floor and Bernstein started delivering several punches to her face, his anger fueling the force each hit carried. Refusing to let him overwhelm her, she managed to get to her feet between his volley of attacks, then planted her knee into his midsection before grabbing his wrists and throwing him heftily into the back of a recreational couch.

Cherry was stood nearby. Bernstein pounced on her. He wrapped his hands around her neck and started bashing her head against the back of the furniture piece, putting the tomboy in a daze. Getting short of breath, Cherry threw her arms out in desperation and put her thumbs into Bernstein’s eyes, pressing hard into them. The man screamed in pain and his grip on her loosened, giving the sixteen-year-old girl time to reach over and bash him with one of the electric guitars laying by the sofa. It smashed on impact and he went down. The guitar was similar to the one she used at home. Only now it was broken at the fretboard, wires snapped. She tossed it aside without a second glance. Bernstein was dazed. Axel moved in swiftly. “Grand Upper!” Bernstein screamed as the uppercut connected, his calm machine-like expression shredding once again with pure rage. He rushed back at Axel. His attacks were ferocious but Axel blocked each blow easily. Floyd came in with his cybernetic arms during the exchange, trying to grab the Commissioner from the side, but Bernstein was fast, dodging him, then with one slick motion he grabbed and threw the younger man across the room. Floyd smashed into a desk. Axel took advantage of the distraction. With one quick strike to the chest, he sent the Commissioner flying backwards. Adam finished him with a powerful punch-kick combo where he landed, sending him down reeling – and unconscious. “Good night, sir,” Blaze said, and wiped her hands absently at the back of her skirt. She looked across at the others. Bernstein was laying in a heap, not moving. “Guess he had that one coming.” Bernstein’s phone was still on the ground. Floyd crossed the room toward it and picked it up, then placed it in his own pocket. The squadroom was now deserted, except for Donovan, who cowered in the corner behind the big filing cabinets. He screamed something in Spanish, then ran for the door, making for the corridor beyond like a bat out of hell.

They watched him go. As he did so, the door swung closed, and a helicopter searchlight swept the room from somewhere outside. The walls vibrated in a staccato beat as an AH-64E Apache Guardian went past in a blur of black and grey, flying all too close to the building. The sonic vibration from the rotor blades shook the glass panes in the windows, feeling like a moderate earthquake. “Heads up!” Floyd shouted.

The helicopter set down on the roof above them. Mr. Y got out of the helicopter, flanked by columns of suited gunmen. They opened the roof access door and entered the top floor maintenance level of the precinct building with swift efficiency, carrying various field equipment, then made their way down to the squadroom, breaking open a fire exit door from the wrong side. Blaze and the others waited cautiously, unsure of what to expect. “Well, well, well,” said Mr. Y. “Finally I get to meet the city’s finest heroes.” He was young, maybe twenty years old. Skinny, albino, with bishōnen-like, androgynous good-looks and deep blue eyes. His hair had been cropped and styled with care and patience with heavy-hold spray, into spikes that radiated out in all directions from his scalp. The hair on the sides of his head had a longer length, giving him a distinct appearance. He wore close-cut black pants and a button-down grey shirt with a thin black tie, and a large, loose fitting grey coat. There were heavy gold rings on the first three fingers of his left hand. He held an Uzi 9mm in the other. “Who the hell are you?” Axel asked, lowering his gaze. The man’s eyes glimmered with pride as the suited men around him aimed their guns – Beretta 92F semiautomatics - at the group of vigilantes. Eight, maybe nine guns. “Call me Mr. Y,” the man said. His voice was highly pitched. “My dear sister and I are the new owners of the Syndicate. While you… well, you’ve been making quite a mess, to be honest. But we’re willing to make a very generous offer to put a stop to all this nonsense.” He gestured. One of his men brought forward a

briefcase and opened it. Inside were stacks of hundred-dollar bills divided into machine-counted bundles of 25,000… gold and diamond necklaces, precious jewels…easily several million dollars worth. “Please, don’t be rash,” Mr. Y insisted. “Consider it carefully.” Axel couldn’t contain himself. Whoever this effeminate-looking guy was, he didn’t look anything like a son of the late George Xetheus – who’d been a dark-skinned, barrel-chested and brown-eyed man with family origins in Belize, South America. A sudden anger overcame Axel then, fueled by his emotions, his impulsiveness. This guy was just another wannabe idiot vying for power after the collapse of the old Syndicate, and this ‘offer’ made Axel’s anger boil into rage. Instinctively, he threw his signature uppercut forward, putting everything he had into it. The briefcase and its contents went flying, a shower of jewels, crisp bank notes fluttering and twisting along the air. “Grand UPPER!” Mr. Y frowned, disappointed. Such a pity that it had to be this way. “Well, in that case…” He turned his head, and nodded to his men. They opened fire with their semiautomatics without another word, bullets shredding the walls, shredding desks and paperwork. Axel, Blaze and the others leapt for cover. There was gunfire all around them. The shooting stopped for a moment. Axel, Blaze and Adam popped up with police pistols, firing. Slugs crashed through one of the glass windows, shattering it. One of the suited men went down, and the others fell back slightly, but were undeterred. “We’re in trouble,” Blaze huffed between shots. “It’s your fault, Blaze,” Axel told her playfully, a crazed smile on his face. “My fault?” she roared in response. “How’s it my fault?” Two of the suited gunmen walked toward them, their weapons spraying. A pile of books caught fire. The flames quickly spread, engulfing a desk. Estel rolled her eyes. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

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Adam’s nostrils were flared, concentration marked intensely on his expression as he fired off several rounds. Another gunman went down. “Okay. I’ll draw their fire,” he said. “You guys run for the window!” Axel gritted his teeth. “No, no, no. I’ll draw the fire, and you run for the window.” Mr. Y had retreated across the room and was bent over a box of equipment his men had brought down from the helicopter, dazedly oblivious to the gunfire. He grappled with something mechanical, then when he turned to face them, he was laughing, holding an MRO-A – a Russian-made, disposable single shot 72.5 mm rocket launcher. “Axel!” Blaze yelled, desperation in her voice. “Get ready to run guys,” Adam said. The clip on his pistol emptied, and he threw it aside. Cherry peeked out from behind a desk, then ducked back as bullets raked across it. “Come on, come on!” She got set to move, adrenaline thundering through her every nerve, muscle and sinew. “On three!” Axel shouted. Mr. Y was fingering the controls on the rocket launcher, extending an alternative firing mode, bringing the weapon to bear on his shoulder. “One, two. Go!” They ran. One by one they leapt through the open-air window, toward the afternoon sun, then dropped blindly through the air outside, arms and legs flailing in helpless surrender. They plummeted, falling several stories into the Wood Oak River far below. Cherry didn’t have time to think. She managed to gasp a deep breath of air just as a maelstrom of water engulfed her senses and she was being thrown around by murky current like a spinning plastic toy. Up above, Mr. Y aimed the rocket launcher down toward them, locked on, then squeezed the trigger. “Die.” There was a hiss of smoke as the thermobaric warhead whooshed from its cradle, trailing down in the wake of their heat signature, right

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past the front of the elevated freeway below, toward the disturbance in the river where they had splashed down. The explosion hit right above the surface and knocked them hard through the water, excruciatingly loud and bright in the overwhelming tumult. It completely disorientated them all at once, the entire world suddenly becoming murky water and fiery shadows swirling through an impossible current. Blaze kicked her legs frantically, and survival was all she could think about, desperately trying to figure out which way to swim, to avoid drowning… The concussive force of the explosion died off, and the light seemed to dim completely. She felt like she was now flailing about in virtual blackness, but her senses were overwhelmed, guided only by a faint ball of light which she figured was the sun, far above, spinning, distorted by the lit ripples of the water’s surface. Orienting and swimming was a monumental effort; her body felt heavy and clumsy, and pain was spreading from her lungs to her head. She couldn’t see anyone else. She hoped they were okay, somewhere… She tried to ignore the pain as best she could, concentrating on swimming through the current, on reaching the surface, on getting out of this. As she moved, she could hear what she thought was the others blundering about in the water around her, but she had no way of knowing if they were even still alive at this point. She continued thrusting her body up toward the ripple of light overhead, struggling, and after what seemed like an age, her head broke the surface. Blaze dragged in deep breaths, utterly exhausted. Nothing in this life had ever felt so good as inhaling that warm, smoggy air. The darkness cleared from her mind, and as her eyes opened and she took in her surroundings, blinking out water, she could make out Axel and Estel swimming toward a shoreline in the distance. It looked to be half a mile away, but perhaps in reality it was only a few hundred yards. Way behind her, above the elevated freeway, Mr. Y turned to leave.

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Chinatown Metro Station Midnight

Brightly colored Japanese maple trees lined the train station platform, beautiful and striking to behold. Their leaves ranged in color from salmon pink to pinky-orange, and carmine red. They were dense, bushy, ideal for the idyllic atmosphere created here in Chinatown, one of Wood Oak City’s busiest and most affluent districts. After dark, the trees were lit by a row of overhanging lamp standards, which brought light to the elevated concrete train platform. For anyone who stood and waited for the metro train here, there was a breathtaking view of Wood Oak City spreading out below, spoiled only by a tall, imposing water tower a couple of hundred yards to the north. The ticketing booth at the edge of the platform looked like a pagoda, beside a hemispherical, domed office building. Large cloth banners were strung, covered in Chinese writing. Some kind of community festival was coming up that month, to commemorate saints and kings. A low, matching fence ran along the rail tracks, marking a safety barrier to protect passengers. A train thundered past as Axel Stone moved out of the stairwell and came onto the platform. For a moment, his face appeared frozen in the strobing lights of the train. In the darkness of the far corner, a stray cat knocked over a piece of trash in the flashing train-light. The cat bolted, and then the train was gone, its light barreling away. Axel wore a red hoodie pulled up over his head, hands in pockets, trying to keep a low profile. A voice spoke from the shadows: “We’ve both suffered so much loss over the years. Loss of family. Loss of friends. Is the world even worth saving anymore?” Axel knew the voice. There was a hypnotic quality to it, and he felt the words, like a drug, seeping into him. Where was it coming from?

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“It’s been a long time, Axel.” Before he knew it, Leon Shiva jumped down from the shadows and drop-kicked him in the face. The platform began to rumble as another train neared. Axel started to fight, no time to think about anything else. The veins bulged in his head as he fended off Shiva’s sudden, furious attacks – this pit viper, the best of the best. Intense flurries of punches, kicks – Axel was barely able to keep up. His hood fell down during the kinetic struggle. Impossibly, he managed to grab Shiva by the torso, smashing him against the concrete floor, roaring. Shiva backflipped up just as the sound and fury of the next train exploded into the station. The train barreled past on the tortured rails, a half-dozen carriages, its strobing light catching the look of glee on Shiva’s face as he caught Axel’s gaze. Axel backed away, gripped by confusion. As the train thundered off, Shiva seemed to relax, and an uncanny silence fell between them. They stood only a dozen feet apart, facing each other. “You’re the Grandmaster of Chinatown?” Axel said, breaking the silence, an exasperated tone to his voice. Shiva shrugged. “It’s one of many aliases I’ve used over the years. Yes. When I heard what happened with the Red Demons in the Badlands, I figured one of you might come in Barbon’s place tonight. We had a business deal, he and I, but thanks to you, I’ve had to write it off.” “You should be in jail,” Axel said firmly. “Scratch that, I ought to kill you right now.” “But that’s not who you are anymore, is it, Axel?” Shiva’s eyes narrowed as he stared at him. “I may have been in a Chinese prison for most of the past twelve years, but I still have my network of eyes and ears around the world. Fingers in many pies, as it were. You’ve never been able to take that from me completely, despite your best efforts. You know, I forgive you for the death of Kagami, Axel. Twelve years. I still dream about her. That night on the World Devastator.”

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Axel rolled his eyes. His tone was sarcastic. “We all go through stuff, Leon. What makes you think anyone cares?” “I know you too well by now, Axel Stone. Our experiences don’t make us so different now, you and I. Admittedly, our methods and ideologies have differed over the years, but in our hearts we are the same thing. Renegades in a dying world.” “We are nothing alike,” Axel told him forcefully, as a matter of fact. Shiva shook his head dismissively, smiling, and paced over to the fence along the rail tracks. He reached out a hand to hold the railing, and stood in unguarded thought for a moment. “You always were such a worthy opponent, Detective Sergeant.” Axel grimaced. Shiva had turned his back, and wasn’t even looking. He was defenseless. Here was his opportunity to strike – to hit him hard. If Adam Hunter were here, he’d be telling him to move, move, move… But something inside Axel prevented it. Something rotten inside him, deep in the core of his being. Something which had taken several years to grow. He felt frozen to the spot. A feeling, an instinct, telling him not to act. Shiva’s words. Renegades in a dying world. After all these years…could Shiva be right? He looked away in resignation, cringing at his own hesitation, crow’s feet lines spreading from his weary eyes. He felt old. Then the reverie passed, and a need for answers pressed at him. “Still living the life of crime then, eh, Shiva? You working with the Y Syndicate now?” Shiva turned to face him, snorting. “Those spoiled brats? No, I don’t like their methods.” Axel’s gaze intensified. It was time to find out what this man knew that he didn’t. “What is going on? What do you know about them?” Shiva took a step toward him, his face falling into the glow of an overhead lamp. His skin was raw and scarred. Patches of hair were missing from the side of his head. His lips were thick and blistered. The

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constant violence of his life was more than evident on his weathered visage. “Well, since they lost their father, Mr. X, the twins have grown obsessed with controlling others,” he said. “They’ve developed a machine to control people’s minds through sound waves. They’ve planted devices all over the city, and they’re planning to broadcast their mind-controlling music to the masses.” Rumble. A train thundered through the station. Axel had already figured as much. “When?” “Ask them yourself. They’re hiding in plain sight. Y Tower, downtown.” Axel huffed a forced laugh. Could it really be that simple? “Y Tower? Are you serious?” The tallest skyscrapers in downtown Wood Oak City had been known as the X, Y, and Z Towers for several years, a layman nickname coined by the city’s mayor at the time of their construction. But they were corporate headquarters, nothing more. Publicly so, at least. Y Tower…? Shiva’s expression remained constant, one of total calm. He didn’t move. Axel swallowed dryly. Everything he’d heard about the Y Syndicate flashed before his mind, and the gravity of what Leon Shiva was saying suddenly occurred to him all at once. “Are they really the children of George Xetheus?” he asked. Shiva inhaled deeply, and looked away. Thoughts crossed his mind, memories of a time long past. Senator George Xetheus had once hand picked him to become his right-hand man and Overseer of the Syndicate’s Shadow Hand Projects. Every secret, every detail was known to him. In the time between Xetheus’ ‘deaths’, Shiva would go on to unite the Zeed under the banner of the New Syndicate, expanding X’s vision of a so-called ‘revolution’ even further… before his defeat at Firestorm’s hands and a power vacuum that was the onset of the Syndicate Wars. Shiva had turned on X in the end, teaming up with Blaze Fielding and the others to defeat him… for not even he

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could truly align with the madman’s ultimate evil. He looked Axel in the eye, and lowered his voice. “That’s one way of putting it.” “Oh?” “The Y Twins were the result of a three-year genetics project to create a child with genes relating to intelligence and cognitive ability,” Shiva told him, starting to pace. “The project was led by Onihime and Yasha, and aimed to create a surrogate child who would continue the legacy of the Syndicate after Mr. X’s eventual death, as part of a wider plan to ensure the influence of the Xetheus name within circles of power, and deny total control of the Syndicate to Mr. X’s then-rival, The Hand.” Axel nodded, listening. He knew The Hand as the leader of the Zeed group, from the days of the New Syndicate. That brought back memories of Joe Musashi, and their adventure together as the Oboro Clan Shinobi sought to topple the group known as ‘Neo Zeed’ back in 2018. The Hand had been killed in a struggle over the Essence of Jutsu artifact. Shiva continued. “Though a clone of George Xetheus’ mother, María Camila, an anomaly during the procedure led to the cloned female zygote splitting, with one of the zygotes developing into a boy, who was named Mr. Y. The second twin, Ms. Y, was unaffected. This project was kept an absolute secret between Mr. X himself, and those of us in the Syndicate’s Inner Circle.” “What happened to these babies after they were born?” Axel asked. “They were taken to a secure facility in 2019,” Shiva said. “An island in the Pacific, raised there. Sadly, I didn’t hear anything else about it for many years. That was Onihime and Yasha’s problem. The Y Twins were born around the same time they brought the homo universalis cloning Project to fruition.” So many years had passed since then. Axel knew that the Leon Shiva who stood before him was a homo universalis clone, the one and

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only living remnant of that abominable science. This new information about the Y Twins… that they were intended as a clone of Mr. X’s mother… was interesting indeed. “Their new plan is to use a special music broadcast that can enslave the minds of those who hear it,” Shiva said. “They’ve spent many years planning for this, creating their device, building the Y Syndicate, intent on controlling Wood Oak City. They’re employing their mind-control technology to create music that has cognitive effects on the population over time, in order to plant suggestions in their minds.” Everything made sense now. The things Cherry had told him about K-Heads, the rumors. “DJ K-Washi,” Axel said, a sense of foreboding. Shiva nodded. “Most likely you’ve heard the music by now. He is quite the celebrity, after all. Though nobody has ever seen his face…” Axel stiffened and stared at Shiva with a look of horrified fascination. The recurring dreams. Kaeyus Infernus, going to Hell, the World Behind the World. The deaths of everyone he loved at the hands of Enigma. All controlled… by DJ K-Washi’s music? To plant the idea in his head that he was alone in the world? That he should kill everyone he felt close to? Shiva turned to leave, stepping toward the stairwell that led down to street level. He twisted his neck to take one final look at Axel. “Good luck to you,” he said, and meant it. “But this is where we part ways.” Axel took a deep breath, and nodded. It was time to let go of the past. “Thankyou, Shiva,” he said. Leon Shiva smiled. “Until we meet again, brother.”

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“The cage is ready,” the emcee’s voice boomed in the arena. The spotlights shifted to a large steel cage. That was where the battle would take place. The structure sported a blue chain-link fence with a single door. The closed fence would prevent any of the fighters from climbing out of the cage. The cage was designed to keep combatants confined with no chance of assistance from the outside, but steel ladders connected to the outside allowed anyone to climb over the top of the cage and enter the fight. “Let’s begin the fight to the death,” the emcee roared. The audience’s cheers resounded through the hall. That was why they were there. The two fighters stepped forward from the two camps, warming up their bodies. “Weighing in at four hundred and thirty-five pounds and the undisputed champion of the cage matches, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Max Thunder!” the emcee announced. Max Thunder had a build like the Incredible Hulk. He was naked above the waist. Tattoos illustrated his face and torso, his rippling muscles. He’d been fantastically successful as a wrestling champion, ever since he first defeated Abadede in 2008… and he was always hungry for more violence. Max was roused by the reception. He waved his arms above his head to stir the audience while giving the emcee a fierce stare. He bounced from one leg to the other, warming up. He was ready for another win. “Ladies and gentlemen, give a huge round of applause to welcome our next fighter! Weighing in at one hundred and ninety-five

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pounds, the best fighter the Stone Dojo has ever produced. Son of Mara and Locke – Axel Stone!” Axel moved into the spotlight and gave a slight bow with his hands and arms at his sides. His beard was long. He entered the cage and walked towards one corner. Max – whose real name was Max Hatchett and a childhood friend of Axel’s – was already inside, marking his territory at the opposite corner. “Fighters ready?” the emcee’s voice boomed in the arena. Axel and Max nodded. A man named Dick stepped forward with a boxing ring bell. “Fight rules. Nothing is off limits and the fight will only end when one fighter is dead. Questions?” The question was rhetorical. There was nothing to ask. There wasn’t anyone refereeing the fight. It was a street fight in a cage, and Axel and Max were already in position. “Gentlemen, let the fight begin!” Dick rang the bell twice. The audience’s excitement was at its peak. Max Thunder moved first. From the corner of his eye, Axel Stone saw him getting into an attacking stance, and he charged forward. Axel changed his posture and let his opponent walk into a blazing roundhouse kick that just missed his skull. Max ducked in time but couldn’t save himself from the kick crashing into his rib cage. Even before he could understand what had just happened, his body hit the mat. The crowd was stunned into silence. It had happened so fast. Max screamed in agony, but he couldn’t lose the fight so soon. He had to use all of his energy to lift himself up quickly, wrapping one arm around Axel’s head with brute strength, then lifting him up and thrusting a knee hard into his ribs. The sound was unmistakable. Multiple ribs had snapped. Max grunted, dropping Axel to the floor in a German Suplex, the full force of his four-hundred-thirty-five-pound frame crashing into the smaller man. There was an audible crack. Axel screamed, the sound trailing into a liquid gurgle. They were not even fifteen seconds into the fight and Axel was almost dead…

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Axel rolled away, pain exploding in his chest. His breathing was ragged and labored, and his legs felt like Jell-O. Barely holding on to consciousness, he got to his feet. Blood flushed his face, and he roared with rage. Why…? Why was this happening? He threw a series of desperate, ruthless jabs like he was working out on a punching bag rather than a person. Cross. Roundhouse kick. Hook. Hook. Jab. As he moved, it was then that he noticed the color of Max’s eyes. Yellow eyes. He shot a kick into Max’s midsection. The pain was insufferable, but the kick managed to drive Max through the ropes, and he hit the cage fence. His body – dazed – flopped in a wet, fleshy thud to the ground. Axel felt a rush of panic. This wasn’t right. The real Max Hatchett was dead. He’d died in 2021, in the twilight years of the Syndicate Wars… killed by Jet when Firestorm had tracked down Union Lizard and its leader Sauros. Years later, Axel and Blaze had named their first child, their son Max, in honor of their fallen friend. Max Stone was now a teenager. “Max…” he said softly, to himself. Max Thunder had recovered. He bolted toward the sound of Axel’s voice, but his impatience was a mistake. Axel lunged forward, ready to counter. Max saw him coming from the corner of his eye. He turned his head while swinging his right arm, bent at an angle of ninety degrees, in a horizontal arc aimed at his opponent. Axel crossed both hands to block the incoming punch but instead of deflecting it, he gripped Max’s arm. He then pushed Max’s arm away from his body and immediately brought it right back with extreme force, trapping Max’s

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head between his own hands and his right arm. Before Max could understand what had just happened, his skull hit the wire mesh of the cage fence twice in quick succession. Dazed, Max threw a weak left punch which missed Axel by miles. Axel let go of his head but not his right hand. He turned it by thirty degrees in the opposite direction and a snapping sound told him that the bones had given way. He loosened his grip and let the hand fall. Max stumbled away from Axel, clutching his injured arm with his left hand. His yellow eyes faded away then, normal coloration returning. “Max,” Axel said again. “Are you okay...? What is going on here?” Max Hatchett gritted his teeth through pain, but his expression was part remorseful, part terrified. “That music. I couldn’t control myself. I swear I didn’t want to hurt you, Axel…” “That music?” Axel blinked, remembering what Shiva had told him about DJ K-Washi. Then he frowned. “How can you be here, Max? You’ve been dead for years.” When their gazes locked, Axel screamed. Max’s face had changed, faded away. It wasn’t the face of Max Thunder anymore. It was the face of Enigma, Axel’s doppelganger, staring back at him. Across the space between them, Axel Stone gasped at the sight, wide-eyed in terror. “I’ll always be with you, Axel,” Enigma said around an evil grin, his voice booming and dark, echoing in the silent arena.

Axel started from sleep, his chest slicked with sweat. “Fuck!” he said, reaching for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. He levered himself out of bed and walked to the window, snapping his vintage gold Dunhill lighter repeatedly until the flame jumped from the wick and he could draw in a lungful of smoke. These dreams. The smoke curled and snaked away from the glowing tip of the cigarette as Axel took another lungful, blowing it out thoughtfully.

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Leon Shiva’s revelations earlier that same night about DJ K- Washi’s music were confirmation to him now that his recurring dreams about Enigma were directly a result of the Y Syndicate’s brainwashing scheme. How could he had ever known? DJ K-Washi was a global celebrity, credited as a pioneer of the chrome-electronica music genre, which achieved mainstream popularity over the course of the 2030s. K- Washi had sold millions of albums. There was even talk of a ‘Behind the World’ movie in production, inspired by the cultural intrigue provoked by his mysterious identity. Axel’s thoughts turned to Enigma, the doppelganger that had been born from his darker side. His other self, the lizard brain, controlled by his baser emotions: rage, lust for power and control. It was the same for every human, for every human had this darker side. Though in Axel’s case, in his younger years, it had taken over completely and caused… a few deaths. Then Enigma had manifested physically as a distinct person after being ‘born’ aboard the World Devastator. Axel and the others had been forced to destroy him, in 2027. The question had always remained whether Enigma was really gone, whether Axel had retained any part of him after it was over. The dreams had been a part of Axel’s life now for the better part of ten years. It was a fact of his life, a fact that just seemed inescapable. His experiences with counselors and shrinks had never been good: they’d all suggested that some part of Enigma still remained in him, and like any human struggling with a mental condition, he had to learn to put these thoughts in their place, thank them for the lessons they taught, and get on with his life. The idea that the Y Syndicate had been messing with his mental health, with his cognition, for almost a decade now, was unthinkable. He remembered all the times he had listened to DJ K-Washi – working out, driving in the car, while he was fishing, hiking, escaping his feelings – the music was great, really catchy stuff. The idea that somehow, it was infecting him, altering the flow of his thoughts, causing these dreams, guiding the thought-flow along which he had based all of his

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decisions in his waking life in the intervening years, was truly horrifying to consider. Something that might take him years to recover from, if the true extent of the damage could ever truly be known at this point. He took another drag of the cigarette. He was staying at ZanTech Labs while they saw this thing through. He didn’t feel that it was appropriate to go to Blaze’s house – for as much as he wanted to see his daughter Jennifer, to spend time with her, he also felt it would be destructive to come back into her life right now, at such a pivotal time. If something happened, Jennifer might be better equipped to deal with his death emotionally if he hadn’t come back already wanting to start over, building new connections. He absolutely believed he needed to see this mission through first, then he might be in a place where he could reconnect with his kids. Obviously, the same went for his son, Max. Max… Axel felt bad about his relationship with his son. It was frequently a source of pain and depression for him. If he’d behaved more responsibly in the past, things would’ve been different at this point. If he hadn’t been so selfish. Maybe they’d be taking in baseball games together at the Wood Oak Wolverines Stadium, or getting annual passes to Disneyland. Maybe they’d have re-opened the Stone Dojo together. He could’ve been such a better father figure for the boy, and made Locke proud. Honestly, Axel desperately wanted to reconnect with Max, but feared that too much time had already passed. But again, he felt that the threat of the Y Syndicate needed to be dealt with first, before any of these issues could be truly approached in the manner that he knew they deserved. And Blaze herself. They were divorced now, but they would always be in each other’s lives, one way or the other. Whether that person was physically present, or someone simply in the other’s thoughts, in the way they made decisions moving forward. They’d been married for ten years, they’d evolved together, loved together, ever since he rescued her from Edgemont Psychiatric Hospital in 2015.

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They’d been through so much. The love they had shared over the years was special, he truly believed that… and he was thankful that he’d gotten to have those memories with her at all. Gratitude. Blaze had gifted him a polished beach pebble once, inscribed with the word GRATITUDE in gold lettering. It was one of his most treasured possessions, always reminding him of what once was. And in that way, Axel had come to understand exactly why they would never be together again. At least, not in that way. They were separate people, on different pages. And that was okay. Developing this mature perspective was the only way out of the heartbreak he’d endured since the breakup. And it had hardened him. To his friends, family, everyone. Made him the man he was today. The cigarette drooped with ash. He tapped it over the side of the window and then took another couple of puffs, inhaling deeply. Another one of the bad habits he needed to quit, he knew, but with a life as tumultuous as his, with these dreams, with these revelations… staying off the nicotine wasn’t high on his list of priorities right now. He put out the cigarette, grimacing. Time to go see if the others were awake.

* * *

Estel Aguirre was sitting at a bulkhead computer when Axel came into the lab. Her eyes went to a digital time display on one of the screens, saw that it was 0508 AM. “Couldn’t sleep?” she said. Estel had volunteered to take the night shift while the others got some much-needed rest from the dramatic events of the previous day. She turned her head to look at him.

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He scratched his beard. “Not really. My encounter with Shiva has me all screwed up.” Estel raised her eyebrows, turning back to the bluish glow of the bulkhead displays. “You have a history. That’s not unexpected.” Axel came closer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hit the shower yet. I probably stink.” She shrugged. “I’ve worked closely with Adam Hunter for a couple of years now. Go figure. I’m a big girl, I can handle it.” “Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Axel grinned. Estel was physically fit, her Amazonian frame packed with solid muscle, a firm pelvis. She was a woman who took no shit, and wasn’t afraid to deal it out, either. “Are you guys close?” he asked. She looked at him with one eyebrow arched. “Our professional relationship is a very tight one, yes. But personally, I have no interest in getting between him and Jodie, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Axel nodded, smiling. “Of course.” He watched as her hands waved over the computer, issuing commands through a wireless interface. “So did you figure anything out yet?” Estel turned so that he could see an image on one of her displays. It was a promotional flyer, the word LOVE written in pink cursive neon lettering on a lipstick red background. “There’s an art exhibition going on at Y Tower over the months of March and April right now. The building is open to the public during business hours. I say we go in as tourists, infiltrate the building from there.” “Sounds perfect,” Axel said. “We’ll give the others one more hour to rest, then we can make our move.” She nodded her agreement and looked at him. She felt that her recent experiences with the Syndicate’s brainwashing gave her something vaguely in common with Axel, given what he’d told her about the dreams he’d been having. In a way, they’d both been a victim of cognitive control. She hadn’t been fighting this war for as long as he had, admittedly, but after everything Adam had said about how important Shiva was as a prisoner of war, Axel’s encounter with him

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had certainly ended in an unexpected way. “Are you sure it was a good idea to let Shiva go, Axel?” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s not the real enemy here, Estel,” he told her. “Shiva has a lot to answer for, that’s true… but that’s a fight for another day. Our focus has to be on the Y Twins right now. They have to be stopped, no matter what.” She nodded. Axel was right, she supposed. She stood and walked to a nearby cooler, pulling it open. Inside were sandwiches, pastries, fruit. “Want something?” she asked. He yawned, and realized he hadn’t eaten in days. “I’ll take that meat sandwich.” She grinned as she pulled it out and handed it to him. He opened the brown store-labeled wrapper and took a large bite out of the white, doorstep-style bread. The back end of the sandwich skewered open, exposing sliced cooked sausage baked in barbecue sauce, which threatened to drop away. “You need a napkin?” she asked with a gentle laugh. He shook his head between mouthfuls, but she handed him one anyway. Boys were all the same, she thought. Her brother had been a messy eater too… Then she took a plastic bottle of water and cracked the seal, choosing not to say anything out loud about her family life. She liked to keep that private. She took several hard gulps of water instead. “What about you?” Axel said then, looking at her, chewing a mouthful of sausage. “You ever sleep?” “Occasionally,” she said, averting her eyes. “When I’m not worrying about keeping people safe. There’s a lot of people out there – psychopaths – who want us all dead, you know.” “Trust me,” Axel said. Chew. Swallow. “I’ve been around. I know the life.” “It never ends,” she said.

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By 0700 AM, the others were ready and gathered in the lab. Floyd was pacing around the room, constantly moving between computer consoles, in what looked like a practiced habit of checks and rechecks. Axel watched him absently from where he sat with Cherry. On the other side of the room by the industrial rolling door, Blaze and Adam were talking to Zan, engaged in a conversation about the military applications of ZanTech and a prototype Mecha design he’d been developing. It was good to see that the gunshot wound on Floyd’s thigh had fully healed, Axel thought, watching the light spring in the younger man’s step. Thanks to a quick whirl in the facility’s Aias Chamber, Floyd was now good to go. “So you’re telling me,” Cherry was saying, “that those speakers we saw in the sewers were part of some mind control device?” “Maybe. Probably, if you like,” Axel said. “But like I said, until we investigate further, it’s still just a theory.” “Sure. The pieces do seem to add up, though.” “As weird as it sounds to say this, I trust Shiva. I know he wouldn’t lie to me. So we’ll see.” A few moments later, Blaze crossed the room toward them. Behind her, Dr. Zan drove back up the ramp toward the rolling door on his tank tracks, with Adam in tow. “Okay, we’re ready,” Blaze told them, looking anxious. “It’s time to make our move on Y Tower.”

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Y Tower, Ground Level Downtown

The LOVE exhibition was, at length, an eloquently-presented display of numerous abstract modern art pieces, paintings and sculptures by various touring artists. One such painting gathered a large crowd of tourists despite its somewhat simplistic style, a blend of green, yellow and red brush strokes. A wooden sign posted nearby read, “No Flash Photography, Thankyou”. Nearby, at twenty-feet tall, a fiberglass human head painted bronze drew the largest crowd, its open mouth doubling as a doorway to further exhibits beyond. A line of people shuffled inside, carrying bags and cameras. The opening was surrounded by red, bulbous cushions and bean bags, meant to convey a warm, comfortable atmosphere. Axel walked slightly ahead of the others. Pink paint covered the walls in stylized streaks. They passed the crowded bronze head, and a wooden reception desk was beyond, atop which was a landline telephone and a glass vase holding a single red rose, beneath a large painting of a golden knuckle-duster bordered by bold red brush strokes. A receptionist in her early twenties eyed them as they came closer. Her hair was blonde and shoulder-length with coffee-colored highlights, perfectly accenting her freckled nose and cheeks. Her name was Mandy. “Employees only past this point. Sorry.” She grinned, an expression of forced helpfulness on her cute, barbie-like features. Three men emerged and came to stand behind her, folding their arms. Their names were Donovan, Altet and B.T. “Here to see your bosses, the Y Twins. We know they’re here,” Axel said. Mandy’s smile continued to an irritating extent. It occurred

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to Axel that she probably had no idea what he was talking about, was just doing her job. “I’m sorry, sir. We ask that members of the public remain in the authorized gallery areas for the time being. You may enquire at the front desk if you require further assistance. Souvenir stalls can be found near the building’s main entrance.” Floyd took a step forward, flexing his cybernetic arms. “Do we look like we need permission to you? Lady, I’m about ready to bust open some heads.” His tone was aggressive, meant to intimidate her. The girl recoiled in fright. “Security!” she yelled, instinctively backing against the wall behind her, looking away. Whatever he was going to do, she had no defense against it. Altet moved, already on alarm, rushing in to grapple Floyd. He’d worked security at Y Tower for four years; every day there was some weirdo who had to be escorted off the premises. His absent overconfidence was a mistake. Floyd’s cybernetic arms easily lifted the weight of the man, a little over one-hundred-thirty pounds, and threw him forcefully over his left shoulder. Altet’s body smacked against the pink-painted wall and slumped. He screeched as he fell. B.T. jerked toward Cherry, figuring the teenager would make an easy target. He grabbed her by the shoulders. She grunted, sending one elbow back toward his groin, hard. It caught him straight in the balls. He doubled over, letting go. She turned on one leg with a knee raised, like a ballet dancer, then launched a high kick straight into his face. His nose cracked and he went down, blood spurting. Meanwhile, Axel had charged at Donovan, taking him out with a quick flurry of his fists and an uppercut. No more than ten seconds had elapsed, but at this point, Mandy was under the desk, cowering in the corner. “Don’t hurt me!” she yelled. “Please.” Axel looked at her with a pitied expression, but said nothing. Without further challenge, they proceeded through into the next

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corridor. It took them away from the bustling noise of the crowded public art gallery, into a richly-decorated hallway, the carpeted acoustics muffled enough to hear the hurried trot of their footsteps as they moved. At the end of the hall, they went through a blue curtain emblazoned with a gold-colored kanji, the Japanese word for ‘hot water’. After that, there was an area with shoe lockers, followed by two long series of traditionally decorated folding doors, one on each side. These led to changing rooms, according to posted signs. They followed directions for the elevator, listening to pleasant Oriental-style music piping over a nearby speaker as they walked, at haste. They passed into a long room with a high glass ceiling over twenty meters above them. The chamber, which had been expensively converted into a luxurious Japanese bath house, was full of steam as a group of middle-aged Asian men relaxed in a rectangular bath set into the floor, one of three such baths in the room divided by privacy barriers. The men balked and laughed together, enjoying the comfort of the artificially-humid environment. The walls were covered in hanging plants. Not ten feet away to the right, three scrappy-looking men sat on a bench. One of them, Raven, was wrapping sports bandages around his knees. They stood up swiftly, as another group of several men wearing white fighting robes spilled from a doorway and moved to surround the unauthorized visitors in their midst. The tallest man, named Goro, barked orders in Japanese from behind a decorative face mask. The nearest robed goon took an ill-advised swing at Axel, and didn’t even get close to landing it. Instead, Axel leaned a little to his left and, as the goon’s fist sailed past his cheek, twisted the wrist with his right hand while pressing down on a point just below the guy’s shoulder with his left. Years ago, at the Stone Dojo in Long Beach, his father had explained how the brachial plexus was a thick bundle of nerves running from the spinal cord, through the neck, out under the collar bone and

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down the arm that formed a kind of freeway interchange in the shoulder. “Motorcyclists often suffer injuries to the brachial plexus when they fall from their bike headfirst and land on their front, in a press-up position,” Locke Stone had intoned, as if reading from a prepared speech. “As the head and shoulder become stretched in opposite directions, the plexus can be compressed, ruptured, or separated altogether. The results vary but can include anesthesia or complete paralysis. Needless to say, the injury is incapacitating.” Axel was squeezing down hard. The arm was now useless and the man’s face was pale with agony, though he couldn’t make any further noise because, as he opened his mouth to scream, Axel chopped him across the neck with the side of his right hand. It was a banned move in karate, as too many practitioners had been incapacitated. But in his experience on the streets, Axel had found it came in very useful. The goon’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he tumbled away. Two others began to attack Blaze. She dropped them with ease, using judo chops, a forward kick, and an impressive backflip. Her long brown hair flowed, tumbling over her face. Her gaze was focused. Now the remaining seven goons were busily spreading out and pulling out guns, knives, bludgeons, and in one case, a baseball bat. Adam Hunter charged at the leader, Goro, elbowing him straight in the decorative mask, which crumpled on impact. Raven and a man who could pass for an identical twin, Pheasant, were the next priority. They were both tall and skinny, their frames packed with muscle, eyes like stone killers. Pheasant cocked the baseball bat then swung it at Adam’s head in a hard lunge. He was an easy target, and Adam slowed his approach a fraction before rearing back to let the aluminum bat whistle harmlessly past his face. His own attack was less showy, but brutally effective. No backswing or flashy roundhouse; he just punched upward in a vicious uppercut that broke the man’s jaw. As his adversary crumpled, Adam caught him across the side of the face with another heavy blow of his fist. Beside him, Estel stumbled. One of the goons had caught her a glancing blow with his bludgeon,

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something short, fat and made of black leather. Filled, no doubt with lead-shot, coins or ball-bearings. There were only five of these goons left, and those were odds that made Adam happy. He kicked the man with the bludgeon, hard, in the side of the knee. The snap as the bones broke brought a smile to his lips. “Yes!” he shouted. He took brass knuckles from one of the downed goons and put it on his right hand. “Come on, Estel. Let’s finish these dogs.” He elbowed Pheasant in the throat as he went down on his right knee, bringing forth a gargled choking sound. In went the knuckleduster, popping an eye from its socket. The choking became a coughing scream, and the bandaged goon fell back. A huge bang bounced off the walls. Adam and Estel whirled around. One of the others, a makeweight, had pulled an ancient revolver from the pocket of his robe. It smoked in his hand, and from the shake at the muzzle it was clear this man was out of his depth. The round had gone wide, and as he fumbled the hammer back, Adam rushed at him and smashed his brass-clad fist down on the man’s forearm. A double-snap this time: radius and ulna both fractured. The gun fell from his useless right hand, and before he had time to think about another weapon, Adam’s boot lifted him off the ground as it connected with his groin. A thin cry escaped his lips, and Adam left him writhing on the ground. Now there were only two goons left; game over for them, basically. These barely counted as odds at all. Hardly thirty seconds had passed since the start of the fight, and already the goons had seen eight of their number cut down. They turned to run. Estel gave chase. Adam considered calling her back, but then just shrugged. It was Estel. Better to try calling off a pack of wolves. She was fast. They slow. Big men who’d never thought much about the advantages of speed. The trailing man went down in a comical stagger. Estel simply tripped him with a tap to his trailing foot. His head made a dull smack on the tiled floor, and he lay still. Without breaking step, she raced off in pursuit of the remaining man. Her next move made Adam gasp in admiration.

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He’d seen it before, in Chechnya, in 2037, as she brought down a bulky Russian infantryman on the outskirts of a burning village. She dived forwards as if for a rugby tackle, and sliced her blade hard against the back of his right thigh, just above the knee. The triple pops as his hamstrings separated were audible all around the room. Down he went, just as the Russian had done two years ago. Estel was on top of him before he hit the ground. She rolled him onto his back and pushed her face close to his. “No,” she said. “You are retiring. The bitch says so.” Then threw his face into the floor. It gave a dull, wet thud, and she stepped back. The Asian men in the pool were watching from where they relaxed, somewhat alarmed. It didn’t matter. Bar owners and club managers didn’t really care who ran the district. They knew better than to complain or, worse still, involve the police. Just pay your rent and offer free drinks, baths, or lap dances, and everything would be okay. “Nearly finished,” Estel said, panting, as she rejoined the others. They passed another locker room before finally reaching the elevator. A bell pinged and the doors rolled open. Three large African- American guys wearing pressed black suits and wired earpieces emerged, raising their guns. Cherry ducked for cover. Blaze Fielding didn’t hesitate and launched a fireball forward, focusing on her aura. Her eyes had an inhuman, fiery blue glow to them as the quantum energy field blasted across the three suits, knocking them away like dominoes. The energy crackled and zapped as it blew a warped, bluish conduit through space, then was gone. “Kikou Shou!” The suits were left on the ground in a steaming heap of flesh and fabric. They’d be out for a while, but would probably recover later with one hell of a headache. “Shall we?” Axel asked, and stepped inside the elevator. He pressed the button marked “P” – for penthouse. The others filed in behind him and the doors rolled closed on their automatic mechanism.

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As the elevator rose, they had an unspoiled view of the giant ‘Y’ made from plexiglass, ferrofoam and steel that was displayed in front of the tower. Shiva hadn’t been kidding when he said that these people were hiding in plain sight. After a few tense moments, the elevator ground to a halt and the door opened.

* * *

The entire top floor of the building was Ms. Y’s office, or “the Lair” as most of the building’s staff called it, only half in jest. Ms. Y was sitting on a low leather sofa sipping whisky from a heavy, cut-glass tumbler. “Axel Stone! Come and take a seat. Drink?” She fixed the group with an appraising stare through two piercing green eyes, unblinking, despite the shaft of sunlight falling like a blade across her albino-skinned face. Her hair was snow white, cut into an angled bob, styled with care and time. She wore a single-piece, form- fitting blue dress over her small-breasted torso, with white armbands that tapered off at the elbows and a decorative neck piece, with white silk gloves on her hands. Her thick legs were long and muscular, not a single mole, blemish or imperfection of any kind visible on the albino- fair, perfect skin. Her feet were covered by boots surrounded with a faux-fur lining. One of her knees bounced with unrestrainable nervous energy as she sat, leaning forward, taking another little sip of her whisky. “I don’t think so,” Axel blurted. He could feel his pulse ticking up a notch. He was used to standing his ground with people a lot more dangerous looking than this twenty year-old woman. Something about the female clone’s demeanor, though, unsettled him. He wasn’t scared of her. Syndicate boss or not, she was just a woman barely out of her teens, and Axel had taken

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orders from tougher, scarier men, and had killed men bigger than him. But he could feel trouble coming. “Come now,” Ms. Y continued. “I like you. The tough guy who swapped the badge for the fishing pole. And you – Blaze Fielding,” she gave a welcoming gesture, opening her body language. “I feel like we are sisters, in a way. I’ve long waited to be able to meet you. It’s a great story. My father secretly admired you, you know. He spoke so much about you in his journals. But there’s a wee problem. I just got off the phone with security. They tell me you’ve caused quite the scene coming here to see me. It’s really quite an honor, though, honestly. Don’t get me wrong.” “We’re putting a stop to your brainwashing schemes,” Blaze Fielding said, hardened by her years of experience. There wasn’t any chance she was putting up with this woman’s shit. “No matter what you say.” Ms. Y giggled, taking another sip of whisky. Behind the sofa, a floor-to-ceiling window gave a breathtaking view of the city skyline outside, as the sun moved high over the East Side, the light gleaming over polished windows, baking the scorched concrete land and the irradiated deserts beyond. They were at the top of the tallest building in Wood Oak City. “Oh? And exactly how are you going to manage that?” “By arresting you, for a start,” Blaze said. The woman laughed, a sustained cackle. Then her gaze hardened, bizarre intent coming over her features. “Arrest me? And then what? I control the police, you know. I control City Hall. I control the judges. Just like my father before me. You, Blaze Fielding, cannot interfere with True Justice, because I have made it so.” True Justice. Estel recognized the term from one of the false, dreamlike memories she had, implanted there by Syndicate brainwashing. The ‘Leader’s Code’. “You can’t possibly think you can get away with this,” she said.

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“Manipulating everyone around you to do your bidding?” Cherry Hunter said. “How can you call that ‘True Justice’? Taking away people’s free will to serve your personal agenda?” “And what do you know of True Justice, my love?” Ms. Y intoned, gazing in her direction. “Or my ‘personal agenda’, for that matter?” Her voice lowered in tone. “Using the technologies of our… benefactors… my brother and I spent quite a few years at a Syndicate research facility developing cognitive psience, resulting in our… musical charms.” “DJ K-Washi,” Axel said. She nodded. “True Justice will be served when we spread our message all over the city, and then the world, to make it a better place, free of crimes altogether. Free of suffering. Free of wanton desire. Nobody will ever be hurt again, because we’ll be thinking for them, controlling them. They’ll have nothing to fear, nothing to need, nothing to want… and in that way, my father’s dream of a Revolution will finally be realized. God rest his soul. The world will be a better place, without pain. And I, as heir to my father’s empire, will be Queen to you scum.” Memories of his recurring dreams flared within Axel, and he gritted his teeth. Just how far had this woman already manipulated his thoughts? Bitter memories of his divorce from Blaze came next, and he grimaced. “You know, pain and suffering can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re things we carry with us – the things that make us who we are. If we lost them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away. I need my pain. The world you are describing sounds like nothing more than a prison for the human race. A Hell.” “You’d rather have chaos?” Ms. Y retorted. “People murdering each other for a pair of shoes or some food stamps? People crying to themselves night after night because of a decision they made? I expected more from you, Axel.” “People have to choose their own path through life,” Blaze said, taking a step forward. “And live with the consequences. They make their own mistakes, learn their own lessons. It’s just how people grow.

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You have no right to take that away from us, or anyone else, nor dictate how they should live their lives. The human heart is undeniable.” Ms. Y’s face showed resignation, but acceptance. “I thought you might see things that way. Such a pity, but I know how stubborn you are Blaze, particularly when it comes to my father’s work. Alas. Brother!” With her left hand she flipped up a hidden compartment on the arm of the sofa and pressed a button. A nearby door opened, revealing two large speakers hooked up to a computer console. Mr. Y stood behind them, holding some kind of control panel. He cackled and flipped a switch. A deafening screech filled the air, coming from the speakers. Axel Stone instinctively covered his ears with his hands, saw Blaze do the same. The sound was cacophonous; it felt like his lungs were vibrating against his rib cage, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight, doubling over. Floyd, Cherry, and Adam also doubled over in pain. “Perhaps because I do not understand the human heart,” Ms. Y said calmly, relishing their pain, unaffected by the noise herself, “I do not understand humanity? Is that what you’re suggesting?” She stood up and moved toward the doorway, watching them writhe in the pain wrought by the sound. “Perhaps I’m the only hero who could make the world a better place, to free wronged and traumatized persons from the world’s injustice. Perhaps my only crime is that I loved.” She turned as Mr. Y came to join her. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Our helicopter awaits us on the roof, sister,” he said calmly. She smiled intimately, and they turned away. Then, through sheer force of will, Estel managed to get to her feet through the pain and fly-kicked one of the speakers, smashing it. The drop in the sound level was instantaneous. Undeterred, she used the momentum to elbow-drop the other speaker, then started hammering it hard with her fists until it was a busted heap of snapped plastic, foam and wires. She screamed through pain, and the sound died completely. She stood there, rocking back and forth, her breathing ragged. The others came out of their stupor, none worse for wear.

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Ms. Y turned, frowning. “What? You can’t do this! You belong to me. You will do as I say!” “Not anymore, lady,” Estel said. “I’ve seen what you and your brother are capable of. In the name of Wood Oak City, you’re under arrest!” Mr. Y cleared his throat impatiently, checking his watch. “Ah, sister. We have to leave. Now. We still have a concert to attend.” Ms. Y sneered at Estel and the others. Her expression crumpled into a snarl as if someone had screwed up her face from the inside, pulling all the muscles into some point centered just above the bridge of her nose. Her lips were drawn back and she bared her teeth. “It doesn’t matter what you think anymore. Soon you’ll all be eating out of our hands, no matter what.” Mr. Y pulled up his Uzi 9mm, and sprayed off a magazine in their direction without warning. The shots shredded furniture and walls blindly as he moved his arm in a sweeping arc. “Run, sister!” he shouted. “I’ll cover us!” Axel and the others jumped for cover behind penthouse furniture while the Y Twins ran for the exit, toward the roof, making their escape. Once the shooting had stopped, Cherry peeked out from behind a large vase. “A concert. Of course! DJ-K-Washi is playing tonight! March 17th. It’s his big ‘Armageddon’ gig, my friends have been talking about it for months! Lucy was trying to get me to go. All the K-Heads are going to be there, the fanclubs, the podcasts, the livestreams. The show will be broadcast all over the city, and to the rest of the world on social media. They’re going to enslave everyone!” Axel looked at Blaze, at her eyes, her brown hair, the way her lips pressed together as she absorbed this new information. His stomach flipped like he was about to ask a girl for a date, or jump out of a plane for a parachute infiltration mission. It was a while since he’d felt it: the signal his body sent him when there was action in the wind. He paused for a long moment before he said anything. Time enough to notice the

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small muscle firing involuntarily under Blaze’s right eye as the ramifications of all this passed through her mind. “We have to stop it,” Axel said. Estel came and stood close beside them. Her brown eyes surveyed the room, taking in the damage, unblinking under a lined brow. “You guys go on. I’ll clean up here,” she said. “Thanks, Estel,” Blaze said. The words emerged from her lips in a trembled whisper.

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The Wood Oak Wolverines Stadium shook with the sounds of DJ K-Washi’s popular track, Pillar of Smoke. The crowd that filled the Star Plaza right through the doors was going absolutely crazy, bumping along with every harmonic syllable, their bodies moving with every riff and bass drop. It was 11.30 PM. People had come from all over the country to be at this gig tonight: the marketing and promotional buildup to the event had been immense over the past few months. Tickets for “DJ K-WASHI ARMAGEDDON: The Concert to Blow Your Mind” had sold out within minutes of first going on sale. There had been talk among the fanbase of new material being shown off tonight, something that K-Washi had been working on in secret…now, goths, metal-heads, punks, artisans, freaks and misfits all rocked out in the stadium’s aisles and in the twenty-thousand-square-foot arena, the party in full swing. People were enjoying themselves, spilling drinks, smoking weed, bumping and grinding. Their faces flashed in strobing lights. They saw K-Washi’s material as anti-establishment, as rebelling against the system. And maybe it was. But their cognitions were being unwittingly splintered by the music, giving them a certain haze of euphoria that made them feel like turning on humanity. Slight, but effective manipulation. You could feel the pent-up anger stirring in the air, Cherry Hunter mused as she walked through the crowd, her senses on high alert. The music was like a drug; a treatment for the human despair pressing down on everyone’s lives. She’d been a DJ K-Washi fan for years. His first album had released when she was just seven years old, so she’d grown up with the tunes. It was memories of her life. She even knew how to play some of the tracks on her guitar, having taught herself the chords. Her friends all loved it. So the idea that K-Washi’s music had secretly contained

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brainwashing undertones created by the Y Syndicate was a bitter pill to swallow. Had she been affected by cognitive control at some point in her sixteen years? It was difficult to say, but certainly something she was trying to be more aware of now, something she would be more careful about as she moved forward here. DJ K-Washi himself was onstage. The lights went down and the music dipped to near silence. Cheers rose from the crowd, excited chatter and whoops. Axel’s flashlight danced on the ground just in front of them as they walked, guiding their way in the dark to the front, to the stage steps. They passed booths filled with excited, chattering Twitch streamers and live podcasters. Plugging in, still in darkness, K-Washi hit a chord on his electric bass guitar – thwooooooooom. He stepped on an effects pedal. There was applause. Then, he stepped forward, preparing to address the crowd from the darkened stage. It was his favorite moment of the evening, the highlight. “And now, for something you’ve never heard before,” he said. His mic must have been built into his chromium face mask because as he spoke, a reverb filter gave his voice a sinister quality. “Please enjoy my new album – ‘Pseudea Dolos’!” Lights hit the stage, and the music blasted back at full volume, launching into the intense textures, and distortional tidal waves of the opening song, Mendacious. The sound built to a climax, then an intense drop launched into an infectious bass line underpinned with dark, dubstep notes. K-Washi played a few chords live in his guitar. The audience was going wild, the reaction strong. Blaze Fielding had to admit: this was undeniably the most exciting moment of any concert she’d been to over the years. She soaked it in, watching DJ K-Washi with fascination for a good thirty seconds as the lights lingered on his domed head. He wore his signature electric suit, which was now being lit by plasma at the hips, knees, arms and shoulders and dissipated through capillary tubes in the substructure. Markings on the suit were consistent with images Axel had described in his recurring dreams. It was open at the breast, exposing the man’s

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pale but not-unimpressive pectoral muscles. He launched into some vocal pyrotechnics, and began to float over the stage, an elegant show- move of the musician who was now in his element, before he came crashing back to the stage for his first live guitar solo of the night. Axel Stone stood by the narrow walkway to the stage steps, trying to decide when and how to act. They had to do something soon, that was certain. Everyone was having such a good time, it seemed strange to think that this new K-Washi material was a serious threat to humankind and shouldn’t be broadcast at all. It was so intoxicating, difficult to resist getting swept into. He waited nervously, watching people as they danced, wondering if they’d suddenly lose control. Sure enough, after four minutes or so, a scream cut through the booming music. Then the sound of glass smashing. Some Signal punks were engaged in a sloppy brawl with a bunch of local ravers. Who knew what had sparked it – a jogged elbow, a misjudged glance at a girl’s chest or pair of long, fake-tanned legs. Who cared? Some punk women had started fighting too, gouging long painted nails at equally colorful faces, and kicking with their towering platform shoes. Axel marched into the center of the melee, grabbed a large G.Signal by the scruff of his neck and threw him against the ground. One down. Then he whirled around, ducking to avoid a glass bottle thrown by the guy’s girlfriend, Victoria. She wore a large spiked leather jacket and sunglasses. He straight-armed a second G.Signal with the heel of his hand. The blow caught him on the nose, which spurted blood like a showerhead. Two down. Floyd Iraia was grappling Victoria nearby. All around him, the screaming and swearing continued, overlaid by the insistent pulse of the music. A third guy, jacket off, displaying muscular arms, pulled Axel round by his shoulder then stepped back a pace and brought his hands up, left in a fist, right in a stiff blade. “I’m going to fucking do you,” the man said. “I’m a G-level Signal, with Signal Brigade. I’m the man!” “No. What you are,” Axel said, “is a grade-A cunt.”

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Teeth bared, the man leaned back, lifting his right foot in a Thai kickboxing move. Axel closed in fast, kicked the guy’s left ankle, hard, and kneed him in the face as he fell sideways. His head bounced on the floor and he was still. Three down. A glaring face loomed into his own, and its owner’s hands closed on Axel’s shirt. A denim-clad man named Garam reared back for a headbutt. The move was too obvious and too well telegraphed to trouble Axel. As the guy exposed his throat, Axel simply stabbed his four straightened fingers into the soft flesh under the Adam’s apple. With a hollow choking sound, Garam doubled over, falling to his hands and knees. Axel delivered a kick to his stomach, hard enough to keep him down but not to cause any damage to the internal organs. It was at this point that Adam Hunter cut the power to the music. He’d beaten down some biker punks by the stage and hacked a control panel to a locked power relay room. Inside, he flipped a few switches, and the stadium went deathly quiet without the music, all online streaming connections were also cut. People in the crowd roared with derision. Stadium lights continued to flash in their exciting pattern, but the sound was now gone. DJ K-Washi threw his electric guitar to the stage in frustration, the flow of his set completely ruined. Technicians ran to their stations, rushing to troubleshoot the issue. Blaze, Floyd, and Cherry were all fighting punks in the crowd simultaneously, the angry chaos running rampant. Axel took advantage of the moment. He leapt up onto the stage and rushed toward K-Washi, delivering an uppercut to the confused musician’s helmet. It smashed upon the brutal impact, splitting into falling shards. “Grand UPPER!” There was screaming from the crowd. K-Washi was down. Axel knelt by his left side and ripped off the remaining pieces of his helmet to reveal a pale, translucent-skinned, sage-colored face with vaguely

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humanlike features but a disproportionately shaped skull, and white milky eyes surrounded in reptilian-like scaly lines, along with a grotesque-looking cheekless jawbone covered in mucousy sinew set around spiderlike mandibles. It wasn’t human, whatever it was. The sight sent a chill through everyone watching at that moment. Cameras flashed. “What the hell are you?” Axel said. He hadn’t seen anything like it before in his life. Oblivious to the searing pain in his neck and shoulder, K-Washi breathed in hot, powerful exchanges, his eyes wide and glowing yellow with vengeance. The creature’s body rippled out of control without the filtering effects of the mask, trying desperately to orientate itself to the environment. Frothy green blood was bubbling from thin, star-shaped lips as he fought to breathe. In a battle, enemy fighter or no, Axel would’ve called for the medics or radioed for a chopper. But who the hell could he call for that he could trust with this right now? Who would even have the slightest idea of what they were dealing with here? There were so many questions… He’d underestimated K-Washi’s strength though. In the time it took him to conclude he needed to kill this creature, K-Washi’s heavily muscled left arm swung upwards, gripping a switchblade tightly. Flinching, Axel parried the thrust with his right arm and crashed his left knee down into K-Washi’s chest, drawing a howl of pain. The creature seemed hurt badly, but its will to survive was immense. He pushed Axel away, screaming in pain. Then he rolled toward him and, snake-quick, drew his knife hand back and stabbed him in the right bicep. His strength was failing him though, and the blade only penetrated an inch or so into the flesh. Now the two ‘men’ were locked together in a trial of strength. Grunting with the pain of the knife wound, Axel leaned forward and knelt onto K-Washi’s chest. That drained the last of the creature’s strength and he fell back, gasping with agony as Axel’s weight crushed his broken ribs.

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Axel reared back to deliver another punch, gasping with agony, when Adam Hunter burst onto the stage. His face was flushed with exertion. Seeing DJ K-Washi on the ground, Adam howled and body- slammed him, then smashed the barrel of his Glock into the creature’s inhuman face, shattering its spider-like, chitinous mandibles. He stuck the muzzle of the gun into the ruined mouth. “You vile scum! This ends now!” Adam stood up, held the Glock in a two-handed grip and started firing. The bangs were deafening, and Axel’s ears rang as Adam fired round after round into the creature’s head. He went on pulling the trigger, brass cartridge cases tinkling around him, until, with eleven rounds fired, the Glock emitted a rapid series of steely clicks. Then he turned toward Axel, who had just staggered to his feet, his head pounding. Around them, the crowd had mostly dispersed for the exits, screaming for their lives. Blaze, Floyd and Cherry watched them go from where they stood, unconscious punks by their feet. They went to join Adam and Axel. “What the hell is that thing?” Cherry said in a voice roughened by pain. K-Washi’s body was sprawled at an awkward position, a pool of green blood spreading onto the stage from the back of its head. This was the true identity of the global chrome-electronica superstar? Some weird freak of nature? She wasn’t sure how to feel right now. Adam wiped his hand over his face; it came away grimy and dark with sweat and particles of blood and tissue that had sprayed back when he’d killed the creature. “Whatever it is, it’s not human,” Blaze said. “It could be genetically engineered, maybe? I mean, it looks human from the neck down. This is crazy. Everybody thought he was a man this whole time…” “And why shouldn’t they have?” Floyd asked, his eyes wide. “Man, what a curveball.” Blaze didn’t have an answer for him.

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“All part of the Y Syndicate’s manipulation and trickery,” Adam said calmly. “Whatever this creature is, you know we had to stop it, Blaze, no matter what.” Axel nodded. There was a lot to talk about, but they’d have to deal with all the ramifications of this later. Right now, the focus was still on the mission. “Great work, guys,” he said, and meant it. The wall behind the stage suddenly began to whirr open, rolling on a hidden hydraulic mechanism. In the flashing dark… it was difficult to see the patterns in the shadows of the hidden doorway as it emerged. Then, a dozen utilitarian lights flashed on overhead, revealing a backstage staff control room. Ms. Y was standing inside at a technician’s live monitoring station, examining a readout, not twenty feet away from where they stood. Mr. Y stood beside her, looking out at them, a look of disgust firmly set on his youthful, handsome features. Ms. Y turned her head, and caught the gaze of Blaze Fielding. “Just like our musical charms, DJ K-Washi was created using the technologies of our… benefactors,” she said, a strand of her white hair falling across her face. She brushed it aside with an absent hand motion. “We can rebuild him, you know, using the same technology. It’s not a problem. You can’t stop us. Your efforts here tonight mean nothing. We will simply have our people make it look like a publicity stunt. Yes. DJ K-Washi will rise again, make no mistake. A new mask. Stronger than ever, perhaps. Like a Phoenix.” Now it was Blaze’s turn to look puzzled. “What benefactors…? Where is this technology coming from? What is this creature?” “So many questions,” Ms. Y purred, smirking. “But I’m afraid it’s really above your pay grade, my dear.” “You don’t know when to quit, do you?” Blaze gasped. The female clone seemed satisfied, sensing a certain capitulation in Blaze’s attitude. Axel and Adam also stood in a noisy silence, breathing heavily from their exertions but saying nothing, not even to each other, or the two tagalongs. She turned to look at Mr. Y. “Brother,

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we should return to the island facility immediately. We will be better equipped to deal with the fallout from this setback there.” He smiled and gave a slight bow. “I agree, sister.” Floyd took a couple of steps toward them, flexing his arms, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. It’s over, son,” he said, to an arrogant snort of laughter from Mr. Y. “Just surrender.” “Oh yeah?” Mr. Y roared. He brought up his Uzi 9mm. “I’ll see you in hell before I do that!” He squeezed the trigger, forcing them to scatter and dodge away to avoid getting ripped apart by the savage torrent of bullets that followed. Then he put a hand at the small of his sister’s back. The motion was subtle but signaled his immediate intention to leave. “Shall we?” Hurriedly, they stepped on a motorized elevator assembly on the edge of the control room, not six feet wide, used for hauling equipment onto the stage floor from ceiling ports above – not designed for human passengers. Mr. Y hit a switch, and a large circular hatch on the roof ninety feet overhead cranked open, revealing the starry night sky beyond. The platform they stood on rushed upward toward it, attached to a large steel support structure. There was no other way up from this part of the stadium. No ladder or scaffolding that somebody could climb, nothing. “Shit!” Axel yelled. “They’re getting away. Again.” Blaze frowned, her face set in a grim, lipless stare.

On the stadium roof, the Y Twins climbed into a waiting fighter jet, an F-15 Lightning III, one of six such craft operated by the Y Syndicate in the mainland United States. Mr. Y took pilot’s seat, with his sister as co-pilot. A rushed systems check later, and the engines were firing up, ready to go. “This will cost us time, brother,” Ms. Y said to him over the helmet radio. “Nothing more.” He didn’t respond, his lips pursed. He hoped she was right. These pests had been a thorn in the side of the Syndicate for many years.

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“To the island,” he said, and the jet swooped upward as he yanked at the controls, then rocketed away into the starlit night.

* * *

At some point, Adam Hunter fell asleep. He awoke at ten the next morning, still on the sofa back at ZanTech Labs. Estel was standing over him, a look of concern on her face. “You look a mess,” Estel said, placing her cool fingers on his still- tender cheek. “What happened?” “There was some fighting. DJ K-Washi is dead, but the Y Twins got away. Simple as that.” She sighed. “I was worried about you guys. There was a lot of talk on social media when stuff at the concert started going down. I was watching all the live tweets on a news broadcast. Glad you made it out in one piece.” “I’ll live to fight another day, as always. How’s things, Estel?” Adam was alert now, jaw pushed out, eyes narrowed. He sat up. They were in a recreational room where, more often than not, Floyd Iraia could usually be found racking up high scores on the pinball machines, or challenging ZanTech’s various guests and visitors to bouts of pool during their downtime. Right now he was sat across from the sofa on a similarly comfortable piece of furniture, minding his own business, swiping the screen as he stared down at a tablet device in his right hand. “Good, Adam. You’ll be pleased to know that I was able to hack into Ms. Y’s personal computer – after I stayed behind at Y Tower yesterday,” Estel said. “Managed to download some pretty sensitive data.” She stroked his hand, running her fingertip along a three-inch- long gash that had crusted over with an archipelago of dark, glistening scabs. “Something we’ll be able to use to end this war.”

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He pulled his hand away and got to his feet. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Could murder an aspirin. “Oh?” Floyd looked up from his tablet. “Estel provided us a lot of stuff, Adam, including transponder codes for the Y Syndicate’s fighter aircraft. You know, like the one they got away in? I’ve been working on a way of using ZanTech’s satellite technology to track their location.” “Any luck?” “Well, we know this island facility is somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean,” Floyd said. “Right now, I’m just working on some refinements to the satellite triangulation systems to get a more precise lock on the signal coordinates. Gimme a few hours, and I should have something concrete.” Adam gave him a pat on the shoulder and left him to work. Estel followed him as he walked through the door into the hallway, and then through another door into the main lab. Dr. Zan was there, working at the main computer. Today, his face was that of a bald Japanese man in his sixties, a long white mustache falling at either side, reminiscent of his human face before the death of his body. Part of the good doctor’s charm these days, Adam figured, was that he could alter his facial appearance whenever he felt like it thanks to the nanomuscular fibers in his cranial structure. Zan had designed the nanosystems himself, he would proudly boast. “Dr. Zan,” Adam said as he strode into the room. “Talk to me.” Zan pressed a button and the air around them was lit by a holographic display, showing a three-dimensional representation of the Pacific coast and the many islands offshore, panning across a rotating axis. “I’ve been using infrared thermal-imaging technology to scan the islands off the Pacific coast. I have surmised that the Syndicate base must be one of three islands in this sector here,” he gestured, and the hologram shifted, zooming into one of the squares on the overlaying grid. Three islands were shown from a bird’s eye view. Thermal imaging showed huge heat signatures coming from various structures. “None of the other islands in the entire area are emitting so much heat,” Zan said.

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“Not even the ones used by the United States military. This kind of heat output is… unusual.” “When Floyd finishes his refinements, we’ll know for sure, I guess,” Adam said. He turned to look at Estel, and a mischievous grin came over his features. “Ever stormed a secret Syndicate base before?” Her face creased and she burst into laughter. Had it been a joke? She thought it was funny, at least. “No, I haven’t,” she said. “Not yet, at least.” Adam Hunter took a deep breath, and turned his gaze back to the hologram. It rotated on its axis, small labels and dialog boxes giving detailed descriptions of various statistics scrolling and blinking by. “This wouldn’t be my first time,” he said. The bluish-green lines of the hologram were distorted as they moved across his face, caught in the visualization field, continuing its rotation. “We’ll need to be well prepared, if my past experiences are anything to go by.” She clenched her jaw. Of course, she’d read his reports from during the old days of Mr. X’s Syndicate. He’d dealt with robots, clones, consciousness-transference, superweapons and doppelgangers back then. She knew he was right. They’d have to be prepared for anything when it was time to make their move. “Yeah.” “I gotta get an aspirin,” he moaned. “There’s a first aid kit in the cabinet to your left,” Zan told him, shutting off the hologram. “You should find some in there.” He turned back to the main computer and returned to his calculations. Adam opened the cabinet and found it. He took a bottle of water somebody had left on the side and used it to wash them down, then turned as Cherry Hunter walked into the room from the doorway. “Sleep well, babycakes?” he said. She came and gave him a hug. “Good morning, dad.” “So?” he asked, kissing her on the top of her head. She stepped away and smiled. “So what?” “So… did you sleep well?”

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She lowered her gaze, then looked away. “Not really. There’s too much going on. Too much to think about. What about you?” “I’m good. Don’t let it bother you, baby,” Adam told her. “Daddy’s gonna make all this bullshit go away. First chance I get.” He clenched a fist, picturing Mr. Y’s smug face in his mind. “I really hope it’s that simple, dad,” Cherry said. “I just worry about how my cognition could’ve been changed without me knowing. You know I was a DJ K-Washi fan my whole life.” “The music is good,” Adam said to her. “Just try not to overthink things, Cherry. We keep moving forward, and we take life as it comes, okay? The past is the past now, no matter what. You seem just fine to me, baby.” She nodded. “Right. Thanks, dad.” He went to use the restroom, and take a shower. It was a welcome moment of solitude after recent events. When he came back, freshly dressed in clean clothes, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding were in the lab. “I think DJ K-Washi was an alien,” Cherry was saying. Axel frowned. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. They said he was created using some kind of technology, provided by a benefactor of some kind.” “It must be somebody pretty powerful, maybe something we haven’t seen yet,” Blaze said. “The Y Syndicate had the resources to become as powerful, if not more powerful, than the X Syndicate, in a comparatively short space of time. Whoever they are…I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more about these so-called benefactors as time goes on.” “So, he’s genetically engineered?” Cherry asked. “That’s the most logical conclusion,” Adam said as he joined them. “A monster of science. An abomination, perhaps.” Dr. Zan turned from the computer. “That’s what they said about me, you know, Mr. Hunter. Ever since I was made into a cyborg at RoboCy Corporation.”

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“Difference is, you’re not trying to enslave the human race through nefarious means,” Adam told him, sensing the rebuke. “And you know right from wrong.” “And DJ K-Washi didn’t?” “Does it even matter at this point?” “Alright, we’ll get into a philosophical debate about all this later,” Axel said. “The point is, he was created in a lab by Syndicate scientists. And they can create him again, just as easily… unless we stop them.” “The only way to stop the Y Syndicate is by cutting off its head, it would seem,” Blaze said. Cherry nodded nervously. “The Y Twins.” Adam looked toward Axel and Blaze, and took a deep breath. How many times had they been here? he thought, letting the breath out slowly. It would soon be time for a final assault on Y Island.

Axel stood outside, smoking a cigarette by the railing. Blaze came out. “We’ve got a location. Adam and Floyd are just figuring out the details now.” “Okay, good,” he said. “I’ll be right in.” He turned away, taking another puff of the cigarette. She watched him for a moment, thought about reconsidering this… but then came closer, and the door clicked shut behind her. “How are you doing, Axel?” she asked. His eyes met hers and he smiled. “I’m good, Blaze. Living my life a day at a time. I’m looking forward to spending some time with the kids when this is all over.” “You didn’t have to cut us off completely.” Her eyes appraised him, a shadow of sadness playing on her lips. “Yeah. Well, over time, I’ve come to understand that.” She allowed her feelings to wash over her, shivered, and took a deep breath. “We both said things to each other that we regret.”

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He nodded. “It’s in the past, Blaze. I’m ready to be there for my kids. As for us, well… I’m hopeful that we can remain friends. We had what we had and it was great, but you were right, Blaze. People change, they move on. That’s life.” She gave him a light squeeze on the arm, feeling responsibility for her part in what happened. “It’s been good seeing you again, Axel. We’ll see how things go.” He looked at her, but before he could reply she stepped back to a more sociable distance, then turned and went back in through the door without another word. He watched her go, then turned back to his cigarette. There were only a few puffs left on it. He took a hit and inhaled the fumes, looking out into the courtyard, wondering how this was all going to go.

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Pacific Ocean 59 miles off the coast of California

Squadron Leader Nicholas “Nick” Costa had flown seventy-three combat missions as a US Air Force pilot, some in hot wars, others as part of the NWO’s continuing peacetime battle against its enemies. This mission fell into the latter category. He checked his instruments. One hundred miles to the target. Well over the Pacific Ocean now, he and the other members of his squadron were flying at 50,000 feet at Mach 2 – 1,535 mph. The official designation for the American-made F-16 he was flying was ‘Fighting Falcon’. But the captain, like his fellow pilots in the NWO and the United States Air Force, called it the Viper. The mission was simple, if risky. There was a squadron of experimental ZanTech Mecha being transported to a remote island, carried by lifting CH-17 Chinook helicopters. They had received credible intelligence that a Mecha combat group was being developed by the Y Syndicate in a secret facility there. Costa and his squadron were tasked with destroying designated targets at the facility and everything in them. All were robotics factories staffed by Syndicate terrorists or terrorist trainers and, as such, legitimate targets. The ZanTech Mecha they were escorting would be transferred to the island shoreline, to engage enemy ground forces in the east. Meanwhile, Special Forces personnel would attempt to infiltrate a fortified castle structure further north, to capture the Y Syndicate’s leaders. The Vipers each carried a pair of AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles secured to hardpoints beneath their cropped-delta wings. Four Sidewinder air-to-air missiles apiece would cope with any threats from

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the Syndicate’s air force units. Keeping his radio communications to a minimum, Nick spoke for only the second time on the mission. “Snakes – four minutes to run. Confirm.” In turn the other five pilots acknowledged the order. “Two. Standing by.” “Three.” “Four.” “Five standing by.” “Snake six.” The six gleaming fighters dived from 50,000 to 5,000 feet, their wingtips leaving narrow threads of condensation behind them, the contrails white against the azure sky as they banked toward the island, which was now coming into view over the horizon. Costa could see the factory targets ahead in the distance, shimmering in the heat haze coming off the tropical landscape. He flicked the switch on the instrument panel to arm his Mavericks, confident that his squadron were doing the same. With a minute to go – range 14 miles – he locked his targeting system onto two of the buildings and fired his Mavericks. He banked sharply to starboard and began a vertical climb, back to the jet’s operational ceiling. Behind and below him, the rest of the squadron followed him in, arming, locking on and firing their own Mavericks. Between them, they launched 12 missiles – three-quarters of a ton of high-explosive anti-tank warheads – that streaked towards the terrorist robotics factories at over 700 mph. The missiles hit their targets 55 seconds later. Their shaped charges detonated with a series of shattering explosions, propelling jets of molten metal and superheated gases into the buildings and the cellars beneath them. Costa and his squadron, three men and two women, turned for another pass. Godspeed, Nick thought, watching the Chinooks approach with their weaponized cargo and pass beneath them on his heads-up display, as his wing of fighters banked into the opposite direction. The battle on the ground was going to heat up, and fast.

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The chopper, a bulky CH-47SD Chinook, touched down in a bouncing landing that rattled Axel Stone’s teeth in his jaw. He checked his watch: 2.00 PM local time. The rear ramp jerked downwards, descending with a great hissing from its hydraulics before clanging down, admitting bright sunlight into the dim cargo hold. Outside, jungle foliage reflected the heat in shimmering waves, a few low-growing trees swaying lazily in a warm breeze blowing off the ocean. More helicopters, four- and five-rotor blade model Chinooks, sat on the grass some distance away, like dragonflies resting after the hunt. Three hours earlier, Axel and Adam had stood on the tarmac outside San Diego Naval Base in Coronado, watching as three Triumph Tiger off-road bikes were ridden up the ramp and lashed to the cargo rails with nylon straps. The bikes were painted in a broken pattern of beige, white and a pale yellow: tanks, seats, engines, wheels, every part. The tires were made of a sand-colored rubber compound. From the dim interior of the cargo space, three NWO mechanics now unstrapped and brought the camouflaged Tigers down and over to Axel, Adam and Estel, where they heeled out the kickstands. Axel walked round one of the bikes, kneeling down to open each of the panniers and additional storage bins strapped and bolted to its frame, examining them. From his crouch, he looked up at Adam. “You ready for this?” “Nope.” Adam grinned and shook his head. “We’re doing it anyway, though.” “Yep.” Donning wraparound sunglasses, Axel, Estel and Adam grabbed their rifles and slung them across their backs. They wheeled the Tigers down the ramp onto the hard-packed ground, then Blaze, Cherry and Floyd came and sat on the backs of the bikes, as passengers. Axel waved at the helicopter pilot, who waved back before lifting off again

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and swinging the aging machine due southeast, over the ocean and towards home. Axel looked around. Their pilot had picked a good spot to drop them off. No signs of human habitation. Or animal, come to that. Just a flat, sandy plain sloping gently up and away from the ocean, with a cracked and weedy strip of tarmac heading in a northeasterly direction. Palm trees grew beside a clump of rocks, and their spindly branches waved in the breeze blowing off the sea. It smelled of salt, sunbaked air, overlaid with the heavy aroma of aviation fuel. “The Mecha squadron moved east, toward the robotics factories,” Floyd was saying. “Let’s hope they perform as well in the field as Zan was boasting,” Blaze told him, fastening a camouflage bandanna over her nose and mouth. “Ready?” Axel asked. She nodded. He adjusted his own bandanna, resettled his sunglasses on his nose and started his bike. Adam and Estel did the same. With a spurt of sand from his rear tire, Axel moved off, bringing his white boots up onto the footpegs and changing up through the gears. They crested the rise that led away from the ocean and got their first decent look at the terrain. Fifty miles or so of scrubby desert, grassy plains, dense jungle, and in the far distance, snow-capped mountains, blue-grey in the haze. No roads. No settlements. Nothing. All to be covered as quickly as possible, without breaking the bikes. As he reached sixty miles per hour, Axel changed up from third to fourth. He didn’t kick it into the highest gear, wanting a reserve of torque in case the bike hit a patch of soft sand. He heard Adam and Estel matching him, and they rode on at the agreed top speed, ten feet apart, leaning forwards a little to counter the wind. The two triple- cylinder engines generated a weird, thrumming beat as their thrashing pistons came into, and went out of, sync.

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The bikes’ already forgiving suspension had been specially tuned for off-road riding, and although Axel could see the front forks dipping and rising almost to the full extent of their travel, the effect on his hips and spine were kept to an acceptable minimum. Floyd, his passenger, certainly wasn’t complaining, hooting and hollering from the back of the bike like he was having the time of his life. Even so, stretches of hard, bumpy ground surrounded in trees had them both standing up in a half-crouch to avoid the kidney-bruising jolts transmitted up into the seat. After some time, Axel glanced sideways. Blaze was looking straight ahead, her arms hooked around Estel’s abdomen as she drove. She’d tied a second bandanna around her forehead and knotted it at the back. Her hair was pinned back in a bun, but a stray hank had come loose and was whipping around in the slipstream created by her head. She looked across the gap between them and nodded. He imagined her smiling behind the sand-crusted bandanna covering the lower half of her face. A wind-rippled sand dune rose before them. Standing on the footpegs and opening the throttle wide, Axel powered up the slope. At the top he gasped. Spread out before him like a multicolored handkerchief was a vast field of roses. Squares of red, white, pink and apricot. He brought the bike to a stop and flipped the gear lever until the bike was in neutral. Then he sat back and pulled his bandana down under his chin. He inhaled deeply through his nose. The wind was blowing towards him and on it rode the sweet, peach fragrance of the roses. Estel drew up alongside him, followed by Adam. Blaze, on Estel’s bike, uncovered her own face. “Mmm,” she said. “Beautiful.” “Do you ever wish the people we go up against would just stick to flower farming, or hymn-singing, and not world domination?” Axel asked. “Yes. All the time. We could retire. But until then, we have a mission to complete. So come on, stop daydreaming.”

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“Yeah, Axel,” Cherry teased, sitting on the back of Adam’s bike as she was. “Stop daydreaming.” Skirting the rose fields, the three bikes rode on, passing through dense jungle canopies before eventually more scraggy desert. They reached the point where they were to wait at 3.10 PM and dismounted. The rocky outcrop they’d spotted was no higher than fifty feet. But carved by wind, or possibly prehistoric peoples, a cave led downwards from the sandy surface at a shallow angle. They wheeled the bikes down a few yards then returned to the shade of the entrance. Adam sent a short, coded message to Dr. Zan then turned to Axel. “Now we wait,” he said. “And watch,” Axel replied. He took a pair of Zeiss compact binoculars from a pocket and brought them up to his eyes, pushing the yellow-lensed sunglasses up onto his forehead first. The stone, Benedictine-style castle structure of the Y Twins’ stronghold stood out clearly against the sapphire-blue sky. Although heat haze rendered the point where the ground met the sky a fuzzy, blurred line, the outlines of the blocks, spheres and cylinders were sharp. “There it is. The castle.” “Good. Because I – ” “What the fuck’s that?” Axel asked, looking up before Floyd could finish his sentence. It sounded as if an attack by killer bees were imminent. A harsh buzzing filled the air. Axel turned a full circle before locating the source of the noise, which was growing louder with each passing second. He pointed to a grey cloud advancing on them from the south, from the direction they’d just ridden. It had to be a couple of hundred feet across and flying at maybe twice that altitude. “What the hell is that?” Cherry frowned. “A swarm of locusts?” Blaze shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted. “I don’t think so, Cherry.” A few seconds later, the leading edge of the swarm reached them. Craning his head, Axel got a good look at the first ten or twenty

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members of the swarm as it buzzed overhead. Each individual was roughly six feet across, configured into an X-shape, and lifted by whirring rotor blades at each of its four extremities. Dangling from a wire loop beneath its center was a small, white, finned projectile. As he gaped at the drone swarm, he tried to count the identically configured craft. After estimating his way to fifty he gave up as hundreds more flew over the cave mouth, headed on a straight-line course to the robotics factories to the east – where the Mecha battle would now undoubtedly be underway. The noise was intense, as the swarm of drones continued to pass overhead. “That doesn’t look too promising,” Estel said, echoing their collective sentiment. She watched as Adam sent another coded message to Zan, updating him on the situation. When the drones were gone, Axel refocused his attention on the castle. “Let’s just watch ourselves, okay? And hope we don’t draw too much attention on the approach.”

The move, when it came, was deceptively simple. Cherry Hunter hooked her right foot around Gudden’s left and delivered a lightning-fast, open-palm strike into his solar plexus. His breath left his lungs with a sharp “Oof!”, and he flew backwards, over Axel’s foot, and landed on his ass in the dirt, then rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach and mewing as he fought for breath. Cherry turned to Gudden, who got to his knees, and was panting with the effort of breathing as he staggered to his feet. He balled his fists and took an ill-advised swing at Cherry’s head. Which wasn’t there. He’d telegraphed the punch so completely that before his fist had even started on its forwards run from his shoulder, she was sliding sideways and rotating her body out of the way. As his fist passed harmlessly

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through the air a foot from the tip of her nose, she counterattacked. A flurry of punches to his side put him on the ground, and she knelt on his chest, grabbed his right wrist and yanked his arm high into the air over his shoulder, before jabbing her straightened fingers into the soft place just beneath the angle of his jaw. He screeched and went silent. Cherry stood, and looked out. The castle structure was getting close. Four massive, square towers formed a protective barrier all around the multi-story Benedictine-style keep, and were connected by vast fences made of steel. Grand stained-glass windows were positioned around the walls of the keep in asymmetrical patterns, along with quaint overhanging crenelations for archers and artillery, though their design was decorative rather than functional. A great gate with massive metal doors was already open, with Syndicate punks spewing through by the dozen. Axel, Blaze, Adam, Floyd and Estel were all fighting their way through, the battle in full swing. The path had brought them to a higher elevation above sea level, and legions of Syndicate-affiliated punks had been waiting for them on the approach. Two men wearing black suits and sunglasses emerged from the metal doors. One of them, a large, imposing African-American named Bronze, shoved Cherry hard in the chest with both hands, laughing heartily as she stumbled backward. The second, a Caucasian in his fifties called Silver, stepped forward and slammed her in the head with his right fist. The sixteen-year-old gasped in pain, tasting blood. Bronze was reaching for the pistol at his belt. He should have had it already drawn before shoving Cherry in the first place. Underestimating their target was their first – and last – mistake. In the act of stumbling, she’d twisted round and righted herself with an extra- long step toward the ground. Her pelvic floor tightened and she thrust herself back toward him. His gun arm was on its way up and she slid inside his reach, knocking his wrist wide with her left hand where it collided with Silver’s face. Her knee came up, smashing into Bronze’s

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groin. Not once, but twice. And she smacked her curled-up fist into the center of his forehead. He dropped like a demolished tower block. Straight down into a tangled heap of bent limbs. She turned to Silver, who’d drawn his own pistol from a shoulder holster. A stubby suppressor lengthened its barrel by a few inches. He hadn’t been able to shoot for fear of hitting his partner. As the man fell back, he had a clear shot, but Cherry had one too. She grabbed his gun hand and twisted violently, turning his arm outwards, forcing him to drop the weapon. Then she pushed him away and leant way back before kicking up and breaking his lower jaw with a loud snap. He moaned in pain, a deep lowing sound like a cow, clutching his ruined face with both hands. Still in motion, Cherry swept her foot round against his left knee, delivering a punch to his throat at the same time. He fell back, screaming. Now, they were making progress…

Panicked, Deezee Kujaku ran toward his ZanTech Mech, which he’d been forced to abandon during the attack from the drone swarm, his M-16 slapping against his back. The roar of weapons fire cut through the air and bullets passed him, ricocheting off the thick legs of his Mech. He whirled around and pulled up his rifle, letting loose a broad spray of fire. He saw a half-dozen enemy soldiers dive for cover behind piles of boulders. To the west, Deezee could see orange fire and thick, black smoke from the robotics factories boiling up hundreds of feet into the air. Even from a couple of miles away, the noise of the continued bombardment had been immense. As the warheads hit the ground and detonated, the individual flashes had combined into a distant light show, bright despite

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the harsh sunlight. Jets of burning chemicals speared into the sky, burning in bright greens, blues and pinks and trailing white smoke. Nearby, a couple of the drones had hit some smaller structures. The metalwork was twisted and blackened, burst apart and ripped into a tangle of sharp-pointed steel brambles. The guard post to the left had taken a direct hit. Nothing remained but a black starburst on the tarmac and a scattering of unpleasant, charred gravel, black on the surface and red at its core. The smell of burnt flesh was everywhere, making Deezee want to vomit – but he wasn’t being shot at anymore. He took a shallow breath, trying not to imagine particles of carbonized human being entering his lungs. Less than a second later, he took the opportunity to begin climbing up to his cockpit. In his rush to get up, he took the first few rungs too quickly and his right foot slipped. His hands held tight to the rungs above, but his right shin slammed into a rung and a red pain shot through his leg. He cursed and continued up. As he worked his way up the rungs, a bullet slammed into his left side, tearing through the meat just above his hip. He did not fall, for his muscles all tightened at the moment of impact and his hands clung tightly to the rungs. His teeth clenched, and he roared reflexively, “Shit! Come on, come on!” He glanced up, and the cockpit seemed tremendously far away. Bullets were ricocheting all over the surface of the thirty-feet-tall experimental ZanTech Mech, which had a bipedal design: a large metallic torso that could rotate to either side independently from the chicken-walker legs, powered by state-of-the- art robotics engines. Another bullet caught Deezee in the shoulder and he found himself dangling from a rung by one hand. As he swung around, like a weather vane in a changing wind, he saw soldiers running, fighting, yelling. There…! Coming over the crest of the nearest rocky dune like a vision from some nightmare, was a huge, three-thousand ton Y MECHA unit: a monstrous, quadrupedal crab-like machine armed with missile

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launchers and heavy railguns, looking like some powerful, glistening demon from the ancient world, ready to sow the apocalypse to anything that came into its field-of-view. “Aim for the heat sinks!” somebody screamed. “It’s the only way!” Deezee scrambled painfully up the last few rungs and hurled himself into his cockpit and pulled the latch shut. He flipped switches, powering up, just as a missile spewed by the Y MECHA slammed against his rear torso. The ZanTech Mech started to fall forward. The engines fired up. The fire-and-smoke-filled horizon rushed past as the machine toppled, the ground looming closer and closer. He threw one of the machine’s legs out to break the fall, then pushed his throttle forward, using the momentum of the fall to get into a quick run. Deezee knew that the ZanTech Mech stood no chance against the Y MECHA, but he also knew he could outmaneuver it very easily. He might just make it. He glanced at his monitor, and saw that only four of the ZanTech Mechs from the squadron were moving in the immediate vicinity; the others had moved off in the direction of the robotics factories. The NWO F16s and Syndicate F15s were dogfighting in the skies above like swarms of flying ants. Moving in a westerly direction, Deezee decided it was best to deal with the Y MECHA before anything else. He turned his Mech from the waist around ninety degrees, and dropped his targeting crosshairs over the edge of the Y MECHA’s torso. The heat sinks – which they knew was a Y MECHA’s weak spot thanks to the wealth of information Estel Aguirre had provided from Y Syndicate computers – were located just there. All he wanted was to shred the heat sinks – and within a matter of minutes the enemy machine would be reduced to little more than a useless hunk of metal and biomaterial. Anything more would be a nice bonus. When the cross hairs were in position, he squeezed the trigger for primary weapons fire. Thick red plasma bolts blew through the air in

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tight bursts. Several bolts connected, burning away some of the Y MECHA’s armor, and then he fired two short-range missiles. The missiles struck home, and the outer armor of the Y MECHA’s torso blasted away, revealing a shredded heat sink. With the temperature in the cockpit rising sharply, Deezee checked his heat monitors. He was running hot, and felt a sudden relief when four of his fellow ZanTech Mechs moved forward and opened up with their own missile launchers. The Y MECHA issued a groan, and collapsed to its knees. Suddenly, plasma bolts shot past him to his right. Looking back, he realized an enemy Mech was shooting at him. Then an autocannon shell exploded against his Mech’s back, tossing him forward. He hadn’t strapped himself in, and the blow slammed him into the thick window of the faceplate. The impact made his right shoulder go numb. As he struggled to disentangle himself and get back into the seat, the Mech ran forward blindly. He repositioned himself and brought the Mech’s speed down by half, then turned sharply and saw another autocannon shell fly past him. He accelerated again, rushing past the enemy, getting a shot out before the other man could fight back. “Boom, motherfucker!” Deezee roared between gritted teeth.

From their vantage point at a higher elevation above sea level, Axel, Blaze and the others watched the attack through binoculars. From this distance, they could see the sparkling muzzle flashes of the weapons fire. Missiles left their characteristic white smoke trails as they shot upwards from launchers, the projectiles arcing toward their targets, detonating. The horizon boomed repeatedly like it was the Fourth of July.

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“Alright, let’s move,” Axel said, nodding as he brought down the binoculars. They ran toward the castle. Resistance was thin now; the Syndicate punks they encountered before were slumped against walls, unconscious. Someone was hanging by their shirt on top of a cooling tower. The air was thick with the familiar yet horrific stench of a full- scale military attack. Combustion gases, the sharp tang of gunsmoke, the coppery stink of freshly spilled blood. Fires burned, adding an acrid overlay of burning rubber, plastic and chemicals. Axel took the lead, through double glass doors that served as the main entrance to the castle building. The glass had been shattered. Millions of twinkling fragments covered the ground. Without slowing, he leapt through the empty steel frame, swinging the muzzle of his rifle through a sixty-degree arc. It was some sort of reception area. A huge mural hung on the wall, cut from stained glass: an image of George Xetheus, better known to the world as Mr. X, his hands curled out in a gesture of dominance and power. The letter ‘X’ was proudly emblazoned in yellows and oranges at the center of the image, like he was some kind of mythical sun deity. And beneath the image, the word ‘SOCHARIS’ written in bold red letters. Blaze Fielding rolled her eyes. There was a rudimentary desk and a steel security barrier. Beyond both, a single door surmounted by a pair of security lights – red and green – seemed to offer access to the innards of the building. As Axel strode towards the gates, readying himself to vault them, the door opened and a man wearing a matte-black uniform similar to Riot Gear worn by the Wood Oak City PD appeared, an assault rifle at his hip. His head was covered by a black helmet with face shield, plastic visor. His eyes met Axel’s. On his face a mixture of expressions appeared to be warring for supremacy: fear, surprise and aggression. Baring his teeth, he lunged forward, throwing a series of small shuriken stars, then loosed off a burst from what Axel saw was an AK-47, or

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some sort 0f copy. But in the time it had taken for the guard, whose name was Shadow, to process the fact that he had several intruders to deal with, Axel had dived sideways behind the reception desk, saw the others lunge away. Shadow didn’t have time to think about a second attack. Axel fired along the ground under the desk, hitting the guard in the ankles and sending him, screaming, to the floor. Axel’s next burst shattered the face shield, hitting him full in the face, smashing his skull in a welter of blood and brain matter. Then Axel was on his feet again. He used the dead man’s rifle to shoot out the door lock then kicked hard to send the door swinging back against the wall. He shouldered the AK and moved through the door. He led the others into a carpeted hallway, lined on both sides by stained glass windows and cloth banners showing various family crests and coats-of-arms. The ‘Xetheus’ name had been very prominently represented; the same banner of a red upside-down triangle repeatedly displayed throughout. At the far end, twenty feet away, an elevator awaited. They ran. At the elevator, Axel pressed the button to go up. The doors immediately slid apart with a hiss. They stepped in, one by one. The lift jerked into motion, and Axel took a few deep breaths as it moved, the others taking up ready stances. Tucking his arms in tight against his ribs, he went down on one knee against the left side of the elevator, bracing his back. He aimed both rifles at the door. If anyone tried to stop them, he wouldn’t hesitate. The elevator stopped with a bump. Axel let his latest breath out in a hiss. The doors opened.

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Ms. Y stepped back smartly as the sword reached the end of its swing. But her ceremonial garb hindered her normally athletic movements, and she caught a jet of bright, arterial blood full in the face. Spitting the hot, salty liquid out, she swore. “Fuck!” The blood was issuing from the cleanly sliced arteries in thick, ropy jets, spattering everywhere. She waited until the heart gave out before stepping closer. Swiping a baggy sleeve across her mouth, she pushed her right foot against the corpse’s chest. Slowly – gracefully, she thought – she checked to make sure the man was dead. Indeed, he was. This Galvice, this pathetic rodent of a so-called man who, up until right now, had been her head of security here on the island… Now he was just a disgusting corpse on the floor, executed by her own hand for his sheer incompetence. His pathetic failure had allowed the enemy to storm into their most intimate abode, the castle… the place she and her brother had called home since childhood… and he had paid with his life. Nothing else was acceptable for such gross negligence. Her father would have thought the same thing, she knew. She turned away, sheathing the sword at her hip. Her brother stood calmly some feet away, watching, an eyebrow raised. “He had it coming,” Mr. Y said, his tone unnerved. She looked at him, aggravated. “We can’t rely on anybody else now, brother. Do you realize what’s happening here? What this is going to cost us? Our Y MECHA are destroyed, our forces ruined…I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

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The gaze of his blue eyes met hers, and before he could say anything in return, the elevator doors at the edge of the lavishly- decorated hallway pinged open. “You’re under arrest!” Blaze Fielding said, with confidence, as she emerged. Axel and the others fanned into the room quickly, holding weapons. “It’s over,” Adam said. Ms. Y widened her eyes, revealing emerald-green irises beneath her long lashes. “Over?” She kicked away Galvice’s corpse without further thought, and unsheathed the sword at her waist with a long, razor-like shiiiing sound, moving into a fighting stance. “Oh-ho! Is that what you people think?” she laughed, the sound a high-pitched cackle masking desperate emotion beneath. Her brother turned and fixed a predatory glance in their direction, perhaps finding some final shred of defiance, looking straight into Axel Stone’s eyes. “I will not surrender,” he said. “My fathe – ” Axel shrugged, then aimed low and shot the man through the left knee, sending him, screaming, to the ground. One down… Ms. Y leapt toward Axel, aiming her sword at his throat, yelling at the top of her lungs. Simultaneously, Floyd dived for her, reaching out with his cybernetic arms, hammering down. She ducked under the incoming blow and swung her sword at Axel’s torso. Axel doubled over to avoid being sliced in half and aimed his fist at the side of Ms. Y’s head. The punch was wide but connected with her left shoulder, her sword arm. She gasped in pain, and the sword flew from her fingers and skittered away. Now, Ms. Y was on her belly, stretching out her right hand to get to the sword. Floyd kicked her hard in the side, and she rolled away. Estel lifted her right leg, ready to stamp down on the woman’s stomach, but she was too fast. She scrambled to her feet, in tears, drawing in a breath, filling her lungs, then bellowed loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “You belong to me! You will all die for this!”

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Blaze sprinted to close the gap between them and launched a flying kick that connected with Ms. Y’s mouth, shattering teeth and breaking her jaw. She stumbled back. She must have bitten her tongue: blood was flowing freely from her broken mouth and sheeting down over her chest, obscuring the ceremonial dress she wore. Ms. Y’s eyes were blazing with anger. She rushed at Blaze, arms pumping, fingers curved into talons. But it was hopeless. Cherry Hunter kicked Ms. Y on the side of her right knee. Ligaments popped as they separated from bone. Ms. Y collapsed sideways, screaming. Floyd Iraia lunged, pushing his leading knee under the back of the falling woman’s head. As her head jerked backward, Adam Hunter chopped down once with a blade-hand, across the windpipe, wreaking irreparable damage to the soft tissues of the larynx and esophagus. The twenty-year-old woman did a liquid snort, and collapsed in a twisting, spastic jig, defeated. Two down. Adam signaled to Estel, and she nodded her understanding. Quickly, they moved to handcuff the Y Twins, restraining their hands with tight bonds behind their backs. Once they were secured and their bonds electronically locked, Adam sent another coded message to Zan: Mission successful. Y Twins in custody. “You have the right to remain silent,” Blaze was saying. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” Mr. Y grimaced through pain. Blood was everywhere. He looked up at Blaze. “You’re going to pay for this, Blaze Fielding,” he said menacingly, spitting. “Mark my words.” Ms. Y was barely conscious. Her lips moved and she tried to form a sound, but her throat seemed to close of its own volition, and she felt a searing pain round the soft part of her neck across her windpipe. Gasping for breath, groaning in agony, tongue protruding, she struggled to move against her bonds. “Save your strength, sister,” Mr. Y told her. “It’s going to be okay…”

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The last thing he saw was the blurred shape of Axel Stone’s fist coming to punch him in the face.

* * *

ZanTech Labs The Next Day

After a long, scalding shower and liberal application of men’s guest-room toiletries, Axel figured he had removed not just the dirt and sweat from battle, but ninety-nine percent of his previous self. His recurring dreams had seemingly stopped now. He hadn’t had a single one since the death of DJ K-Washi days earlier. No more Enigma killing his family and friends. No more self-doubt. No more ‘World Behind the World’. No more toxic thinking. It was such a relief, like a cloud had lifted from his mind. He felt like he was thinking clearly for the first time in years, and it was thanks to the efforts that they had all made over the past few days. And it felt good, like it was real, personal progress for him. Redressed in jeans, T-shirt and white sneakers, he went to find his friends, a smile on his bearded lips. In the lab, Zan was talking to Cherry and Adam as they stood by the main computer. “With the Y Twins in NWO custody, DJ K-Washi dead, and their factory facilities gone, the threat from the Y Syndicate has been all but neutralized,” Zan was saying, “but the long-term effects of their actions, of the cognitive control they held over the police force and city hall, are yet to be known. The fallout from this could take years.” Adam gave an acknowledging nod to Axel as he saw him approach, then turned his gaze back to Zan.

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“But the police and the government are back to normal now though, right?” Cherry said. She’d done her hair with hold spray, and looked great. “For the most part,” Zan said. “Thanks to Estel’s data mine we were able to find the name of every high-ranking person whose cognitive functions they corrupted, including at the Wood Oak City PD. NWO agents are working on giving them all cogniclock treatments ASAP. Just to eliminate anything residual, and to keep things moving forward.” “Probably for the best,” Axel said, joining the conversation. He thought about Blaze, how she’d told him she wanted to prosecute the case against the Y Syndicate herself. “We’re going to need some pretty impartial judges when this whole thing goes to trial.” Adam looked at him. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve done the leg work now. Justice will prevail over the coming months, as it always does. Blaze Fielding is an ace attorney, you know that. We just have to exercise a little faith.” Axel smiled. It was the first time Cherry had seen him do that since first seeing him, before they went to find Diva. “You look a lot happier now, Axel,” she said. “I feel better. Slept like a baby last night. It’s like the recurring dreams just stopped. Go figure.” “The internet is going crazy with what happened to DJ K-Washi. They’re gonna be talking about it for years.” “I’m sure they will. Hell, people still think they see Elvis Presley walking around…” Cherry chuckled. “And Tupac. Don’t forget about him.” Axel felt happy and relaxed. “You know, being here with you guys these past few days, taking down the Y Syndicate… it’s helped me come to terms with a lot of the stuff that’s been going on in my life. Puts things in a new perspective, when you learn that someone was messing with your cognition.” “It’s good to see you getting back on top of things, Ax,” Adam said. “It hasn’t been easy at home, you know. With Max.”

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“I know. And that’s one of the first things I intend to work on.” Adam nodded. He’d known Axel his whole life. He always believed he’d come through in the end. “Back in the game, huh?” Axel’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve only just started, buddy.” Cherry left Axel and Adam to reminisce about old times, and went to talk to Floyd, who was sitting at a computer on the opposite side of the lab. Floyd sensed her coming. He turned to look at her, appraising her muscular form as she approached. “So, what will you do now, Cherry?” he said, taking earbuds out and placing them on the bulkhead. He gave her his full attention. “I have to go back to school and finish this next semester,” she told him. She sounded disappointed, like there was somewhere she’d rather be. “Aren’t they going to say anything about you cutting class?” he asked, scratching at his chin. It had been a few years since he graduated now, but he was pretty sure they still expected you to attend school every day. She shrugged. “My dad always has my back with school. Besides, I think the whole helping-to-save-the-world thing might work in my favor…” He laughed. “True.” “Lucy would go crazy if she knew where I’ve been. All this stuff with DJ K-Washi. What he really was.” The look in her eyes was wistful. “Hey, need to know, remember?” he said, frowning. She caught his gaze. She already knew she wouldn’t be able to tell her friend about it. National security, and all. It would be kind of hard, she supposed, but she would just have to manage. “I know. What about you?” she said, changing the subject. “What will you do?” “My place is here,” Floyd said. “I’ll always be at the lab, helping out with whatever Dr. Zan has going on from one moment to the next. I love it… it’s my life now. You should stop by every now and then. We

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could hang out. Gets lonely around here sometimes with nobody but a brilliant android cyberneticist for company, you know.” Cherry smiled, brushing the hair by her face absently with one hand. “I’d like that.”

Two weeks later Downtown

The luncheonette was two blocks from the Wood Oak City PD Precinct Building, a narrow corner shop with a long Formica counter and a half-dozen window booths, most of the décor done in pale blues and white. The windows had been tinted to cut the sun’s glare, but it still threatened Murphy with a drumming headache whenever he glanced out at the traffic. Now that the Y Syndicate had been exposed and defeated by NWO forces, he was at no further risk of any more dangerous brainwashing incidents. The two he’d suffered already had been bad enough. What a thing to live with, the fact he’d turned on friends that he loved. He grabbed his tie and jacket and fled the office, stomach growling unmercifully, his head threatening to expand with repeating thoughts about what had happened over the past month or so. Murphy didn’t have any answers, and he had told them that, the people who had questioned him, more than once. He went into the luncheonette, which was called ‘Perla’s’, sat down and ordered. The trouble was, stomach or not, the overthinking and the heat had combined to kill his appetite. The burger and fries looked greasy enough to be delicious, but he couldn’t bring himself to pick anything up, even for a taste. Dumb, perhaps, but still, he couldn’t do it. A siren screamed; a police car raced down the center of the crowded street. In the booth ahead of him, two couples chattered about baseball while at

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the same time they damned the heat wave that had been sitting on Wood Oak for nearly two weeks. On his right, on the last counter stool, an old man in a worn cardigan and golf cap listened to a podcast on his phone, a talk show whose callers wanted to know what the local government was going to do about the looming water shortage and constant brownouts. A handful were old enough to still want to blame Neo Chaos, who once run rampant in the city. Murphy sighed and rubbed his eyes. In calmer times, it was nice to know his expertise and experience as a Wood Oak City PD detective was appreciated; in times like these, exacerbated by the prolonged heat and recent events, he wished the world would leave him the hell alone. He picked up a French fry and stared at it glumly. The podcast announced a film festival on one of the streaming TV channels. Old films from the nineties and noughties. Not at all guaranteed to be good, just fun. One of them was titled ‘Streets of Rage’ with Mimi Lesseos. He grunted, and popped the fry into his mouth. All right, he thought; I can hole up at home with Finnegan for a while. Finnegan was his pet beagle, a Jack Russell mix. He smiled to himself. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. In fact, he thought as he picked up the burger, it sounded like exactly what he needed. He was finished before he realized he had eaten a single bite. A good sign. He grinned more broadly when a woman slipped into the booth and stared in disgust at his plate. “You know,” Blaze Fielding said, “your arteries must be a scientific wonder.” He reached for the last fry, and she slapped the back of his hand. “Take a break and listen. We’re wanted.” She was near his age but shorter, her face slightly more rounded, her dark brown hair settling softly on her shoulders. More than once, the object of one of their manhunts had thought her too feminine to be an obstacle. Not a single one of them had held that thought for very long.

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Murphy wiped his mouth with a napkin, the grin easing to a tentative smile. “Wanted?” “Bernstein,” she told him. “First thing in the morning. No excuses.” The smile held, but there was something new in his eyes. Anticipation, and a faint glimmer of excitement. Commissioner Bernstein asking for them now, would mean only one thing. Something new had come up. “Maybe,” she said, as if reading his mind. She snatched the last fry and bit it in half. An eyebrow lifted. “Or maybe you’re just in trouble again.” He looked at her. “Hey. I didn’t do anything this time, I swear!” His smile widened to a grin. She laughed. “It’s good to have you back, Murphy. After what I’ve had to do to get us to this point, I’m glad you’re not letting all this Y Syndicate stuff drag you down. If you know what I mean.” “As long as you still trust me, Blaze.” “Murphy, you never lost my trust. You are not to blame for what happened while you were under the influence of mind control. As long as you’ve still got my back, we’re good.” “Always,” he said, and meant it.

* * *

Later that day, after Blaze got home and took off her jacket and shoes, she entered the living room to find Jennifer playing a game of Scrabble with Axel. Some of his laundry was hung out to dry around the room on clothes hangers, hanging on the backs of chairs, off the end of a shelf. Evidently somebody had forgotten to start dinner, since the lights were off in the kitchen and there was no smell of food coming from within.

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Axel gave Blaze a look. “She insisted.” Blaze smiled knowingly. “Uh-huh.” Jennifer turned her head slightly to look at her mom. “Can he stay longer than two days? Please…?” Axel frowned. “I told you, honey, I can’t. I have some business to take care of with Adam and Estel first, and your mom needs her space. After that I’m going to see if your brother will talk to me. But you know what? I’ve been thinking about getting a place down here in Wood Oak. Maybe on the west side. That way I’ll be closer.” “I’d love that!” Jennifer squealed. Blaze felt touched by the warm energy between them. It was something she hadn’t seen for a long time. She went into the kitchen and put down her car keys, then flipped the light switch. The fluorescent bulb flickered on. “I’ve got some ready-made frozen meals in the freezer,” she said, opening it up and staring at the various Tupperwares inside. Nothing she saw was very exciting at this moment. “Or shall we just get takeout? There’s this new Mexican place that opened down the street I’ve been meaning to try out.” She slammed the freezer door shut. “Takeout sounds good, mom.” Jennifer took a few Scrabble tiles from her rack and laid out the word HOPEFUL across the board. “Fifteen points,” she grinned. “Nice one,” Axel said to her. “Hey, that ‘F’ is a double letter score. It’s nineteen points altogether.” “Oh yeah! Thanks dad!” She updated the score count, looking very proud of herself. “That puts me in the lead!” “Wow. You must be super smart, Jennifer.” “Mmhmm.” After the game was over, the three of them sat down to takeout Mexican at the dinner table. Blaze had phoned in the order while they’d been busy with their father-daughter game – which Jennifer had won, as she’d already boasted about at least three times.

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“Thanks again for letting me stay awhile,” Axel said to Blaze around a mouthful of carnitas burrito. “I really appreciate it.” “It’s no problem,” Blaze said, smiling. Neither of them had had much time over the past couple of weeks while they filled out reports, filled out more reports, went to meetings, and listened while Commissioner Bernstein told the newspapers and local television news reporters a nice cover story about DJ K-Washi’s ‘accidental death’ due to a ‘stage pyrotechnics malfunction’ during a ‘stunt’. It was a lie, of course, but the NWO didn’t want the real truth getting made public, for security reasons. As such, they’d had mountains of paperwork and red tape to deal with in the aftermath of the Y Syndicate’s downfall. Axel had figured if he was going to stick around for that long, better to start making that effort with his kids now – and here he was. “Yeah, dad. It’s not a problem.” After dinner, they sat quietly for a while, reminiscing, making jokes, having fun. When Axel got up to leave, Blaze accompanied him as far as the front door. They hugged, promising to meet again soon, and Jennifer gave him a kiss on the cheek. “See you soon, dad,” she said to him. Reaching the pavement, Axel Stone turned and waved.

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EPILOGUE

Rose Hills Cemetery Whittier

Axel walked down a row of headstones, his gaze lowered. It was an early morning in April, still fairly chilly from the cold California night which was normal for this time of year. He’d made the trip early, before sunrise, so he could fit this in before leaving to take care of his affairs in Alaska. Whittier was only an hour away from Wood Oak City by the aircar lanes, best way to travel in the domestic United States these days. Finally, he stopped. He knelt at a simple marker, just a name and dates: SHELLEY STONE, Born: 1986, Died: 2014. He brushed away some leaves. “I haven’t been here enough,” he said, laying a hand on the stone. He closed his eyes… reliving memories of the woman he’d loved in such a whirlwind time, and wed and buried… Stays that way for a long time. He opened up his eyes again. “You already know I need to talk to you about Blaze…” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “We’re talking again.” He smiled. “You and I just never got the chance, did we?” His eyes welled up in tears, and he remembered that, despite everything, everyone would be happy together at the end of everything. “I still love her, Shelley. I want her to be happy… so that’s why I let her go. I knew you’d understand.” He stood in silence for a long while, the wind gusting at his long blonde hair and beard.

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Estel Aguirre walked up the row of headstones from the path leading back to the chapel. She was wearing a black jacket, her hands in the pockets as she walked. When she saw Axel standing at the headstone, she stopped. Suddenly uncomfortable. She realized she had stumbled onto Axel in a very private moment. She started backing away, and stepped on a twig. Axel whirled around at the snapping sound, gun in hand… “Estel. Jesus. You almost got yourself shot,” he said, lowering the gun. “I’m sorry, Axel,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude. It’s just…” She regarded the headstone. “Shelley Stone. Your first wife… she was killed…” He gritted his teeth. “Yeah. It didn’t last long. I find those kind of things never do, in the end.” Estel could see his pain. It wasn’t her place to comfort him, but she could empathize. What this man needed was beyond her capacity to give, besides. “I’m sorry. You want to be alone. I understand,” she said in a friendly tone. “Hey. I’ll be waiting at the chapel. With Adam.” She turned, and started off. He watched her go, then turned back to the headstone. “I think that one’s gonna be trouble,” he said to Shelley, a smile forming on his bearded face.

* * *

Precinct Building Wood Oak City

Blaze and Murphy went into the squadroom. Blaze’s eyes went to the bulletin board, on which someone had posted a photo and headline from the National Enquirer. The photo was of Axel Stone smashing DJ

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K-Washi’s chromium face mask with his Grand Uppercut. The headline read: “Man Takes Down K-Washi at Armageddon Concert”. They headed for Commissioner Bernstein’s office at the back of the room. The damage here had long since been cleaned up. Inside, Bernstein was standing at the slatted glass, staring into the squadroom. “Well, Commissioner?” Blaze said. Bernstein looked at her through his wire-rimmed glasses. “Good to see you too, Fielding. As I’m sure you’re aware we’ve disbanded the task force hunting you, and your… associates. Amazing what saving a city can do for your image.” She took a deep breath, watching Murphy as he sat down in one of the brand-new leather chairs. “Of course. And you know I’ll be prosecuting the case against the Y Syndicate myself.” “Then things are getting better,” Murphy said, getting comfortable in the seat. Bernstein nodded. “You took down the Y Twins. You’ve started something – bent cops running scared, hope on the streets…” He left his sentence hanging between them. Blaze raised an eyebrow curiously. “But…?” “But there’s a lot of weird trouble out there right now. A lot of unanswered questions. My guys might have found a lead on these mysterious benefactors you talked about.” He fished in his pocket, pulling out a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside the bag was a small rectangular card. “Multiple armed robberies, homicides… double homicides… a taste for theatrics, like you, I suppose. Two guys and a robot. Preaching all kinds of shit. They leave a calling card.” Bernstein handed Blaze the bag. She turned the card over. It had the words SONS OF DARKNESS written in a simple font. Her eyes caught his gaze. “I’ll look into it,” she said firmly, then turned to leave. The Commissioner took a step toward her. “You know, Fielding. I never said thank you.”

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Blaze turned back to him and smiled. “And you’ll never have to, sir.” With that, she left the room, the door closing quietly behind her. Bernstein looked at Murphy, who was sitting and regarding the Commissioner with raised eyebrows. Bernstein smiled. He couldn’t help it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Drury is a published author who lives in Southern California with his wife Marci and their two children, Lois and Jackson. He grew up in England, not far from London. He has been a fan of ‘Streets of Rage’ since 1992. For ten years he ran the ‘Streets of Rage Online’ Fan Community (2006-2016) where he launched the previous novels in his ‘Streets of Rage Saga’ series. Comments? Feedback? Email me: [email protected] Follow the official Twitter account at @sagastreets