“Yeah,” Secondhand said. He was back. “One of the Capricorns is down, Antares is a bit injured. They’re ours.”

Dying 15.z

The first thing he looked at when he could see the light again was the computer screen with the numbers. It took a moment for his eyes to focus.

In red, a 96.1%. If and when it hit one hundred percent, this would no longer be a war, a raid, nor a petty rebellion. It would be cataclysm, with his facility at the epicenter. As he watched, the number changed, to 96.15%, then 96.12%.

In white, the number below displayed 66.8%. The floor. What reality as they understood it was willing and able to handle. Every use of power was a small fraction of damage, and that damage would not heal. At best, it could be spaced out, controlled, or targeted toward specific problems.

He couldn’t meander. Remaining in the threshold served nothing and no one.

Teacher stepped out of the back room, accepting the wet towel that his soldier handed him. Pulling off his square-lensed glasses with one hand, handing them to the soldier, he wiped his scalp, face, neck, and wet his beard, before slicking his beard down. The soldier handed him a bottle of water, letting him drink while pulling his shirt off, stopping at the armpit. The soldier took the water back, finished removing his shirt for him, returned the glasses, and went to get another.

He approached a computer screen, tapping keys. A map of the complex showed a series of blobs, suggesting Contessa’s range of influence, assuming a distance that she could certainly travel, assuming she were capable of walking and running, a distance she could probably travel if she could access the right resources, and a distance for how far her influence reached. Could she communicate with someone in a location? That location would be highlighted in yellow.

Saint had noted something on the system, suggesting that one of the parahumans’ hackers had used Saint’s Michael III as a relay. That was enough to compromise everything, his entire facility and the surrounding region were yellow. If Contessa had her powers, she had a knife to his throat.

He would manage. For now, her powers were still gone. It tied him down, because he had to watch for the moment they returned, and consider the damage she could do, much as he considered the damage she had already done.

But he would manage. He had been anticipating her for a long time.

Other feeds showed the state of several battlefields, but finding what he needed was laborious and tiresome. For every glimpse he was given of something he cared about, he saw twelve more screens of white hallways with blood spatters, ruin, and broken structures with bodies.

His soldier returned with a shirt. He took it and put it on himself, aware that he had lost weight.

“What do I need to know?”