Chapter One: The Girl Who Woke Up In Her Own Bed

My mother loved the petunias on the wallpaper. I'd hated them then, and I hated them now.

Dad had vowed to tear the wallpaper out and paint my bedroom a color of my choice more than once over the years, but it hadn't ever happened. As I stared at the pink and purple petals now illuminated by my bedside lamp, I suspected Mom had allowed him to make those promises because she knew he wouldn't make good on them.

My eyes dropped back down to my legs, which were tangled in sunburst-patterned sheets. I had kicked the sky-blue duvet to the ground at some point during the night.

I took a deep breath and slid my hand under Lyo-Leo, king of the pride of stuffed animals I hadn't grown out of. I'd always kept my phone in bed, a bad habit that stemmed from needing to be able to respond to an alert immediately . . . and from wanting to text Dean into the wee hours of the morning.

4:50 AM, April 16, 2011.

My right hand stopped shaking as it fell into the familiar motion of tapping out my phone's password. It was my old phone, the one my parents had bought for me at the beginning of my senior year, the one that had been taken from me when I went to the hospital, the one that had been thrown away or recycled years ago. The one I was holding.

My gut told me that this was either a dream or a master effect, and it didn't feel like a dream.

I reached for the Wretch again.

It still wasn't there.

I opened the text messaging app and hesitated.

I was about to cross a line. Logic dictated I was under attack, even if it didn't feel like it, and if I did what I wanted to do here, I'd be giving in to a temptation that could give my attacker more power over me.

After another minute, I pressed the latest conversation anyway and entered a message.

You up yet?

It was as neutral as I could manage. Dean and I had been a lot more affectionate, provided we weren't on a break, but I was afraid to pour too much of myself into expressing the hope I was feeling against my better judgment.

There wasn't an immediate response, but I hadn't expected one. Dean kept his personal phone on silent during the night and didn't wake up until seven. I had the number to his Wards-issued phone memorized, even now, but abusing that just so I could hear his voice right now was out of the question.

None of this could be trusted. Nevertheless, I got out of bed and started to pace around the room, taking stock of what I'd supposedly been gifted. The Wretch gone, Dean alive, my home intact, an apparent chance for a do-over; it was as though someone had decided to give me everything I had most wanted during the long months of confinement.

Except nothing was really that easy. I had spent four and a half years struggling to rebuild myself, to come to a kind of peace with my past, and to forge my way ahead. Every step of that progress had been earned, fought for and won by dint of labor and pain.

My best guess was that I was under a master effect that absorbed the subject in a world of their own making. I didn't know how I could break it, since it seemed to be using my knowledge against me.

I wasn't sure if going to the Protectorate for help was an option. If the PRT existed in an illusion generated by a Master, it would only act to confirm my impressions.

Regardless of what I ended up choosing to do, I needed some time to put my thoughts in order first. I also needed that time away from this house and the people in it.

I had to get out of here.

I changed into tight jeans and a green and pink plaid button-down reminiscent of Faultline's costume, completing the ensemble with a pair of low-heeled boots from my uncle. The brown bucket bag I loaded my keys, wallet, charger, and the few pieces of jewelry I had that were worth anything into wasn't one I'd particularly missed, but it was the largest I owned.

I flew past my sister's door so the sound of my footsteps wouldn't wake her up on my way to our shared bathroom. I was completely unequipped to see or talk to her.

April 16, 2011. Saturday. The first full day of Bakuda's rampage. My mom and dad would be out still, up late with my aunt and uncle trying to contain the ABB. I had stayed out until two or three in the morning, though the body I was in now didn't seem to feel like it had only gotten two hours of sleep.

Amy was here, then, and she'd been held hostage and threatened with the reveal of a dark secret less than forty-eight hours ago. I hadn't woken up before the event that had sent her spiralling out of control into a series of choices that would permanently sour my relationship with my family, land me in the hospital, and harrow me to the core. She'd insisted on going to the Birdcage, where she had found an equilibrium with her father, and then turned around and used that equilibrium as a base to conquer a world.

She was standing on a precipice, and any wrong word or action on my part would only push her over.

If the effect didn't dissipate, if I had in fact somehow traveled through time, I would eventually have to talk to her. Try to get her some help, if she was even capable of being helped.

I didn't flush and I used hand sanitizer instead of the sink, again to avoid waking Amy. I needed to put off taking too her ass long as I could. She'd notice the sudden change in my attitude towards her, and I doubted I could lie or otherwise pretend that the last four years of my life simply hadn't happened.

And I didn't want to.

I looked at the cabinet. Did I have time for makeup?

No. I needed to escape as soon as possible. My mother would be getting back soon and I didn't want to talk to her any more than I wanted to talk to my sister. I'd leave now and text them later, say I was staying with Dean for the weekend, the better to coordinate with the Wards' response to Bakuda. That would buy me some time to develop an approach.

The part of me that hadn't been able to apply makeup for two years and the part of me that had had to go with subpar and limited makeup for another two and a half stuffed my favorites into the bag. I could indulge later.

There was a man waiting in the hallway when I opened the door, and only my desire to avoid my family allowed me to suppress a shriek.

"Victoria Dallon," he said as he extended his right hand.

I shoved mine into the pocket of my jeans. "Kurt Wynn."

He stood to one side, revealing a portal to a white hallway as he extended his arm in a gesture that turned the rejected handshake into another invitation.

Another piece of the puzzle snapped into place. I'd seen portals like that before.

I thought of Sveta, currently in the asylum. My friend as she'd been when I'd first met her: guilty, lost, out of control, hurt without any of the knowledge or experience that had eventually helped her.

"No," I said.

He dropped his hand to his side. "We are prepared to offer you access to some of our resources."

"I'll manage."

"Talking to us is the right thing to do."

"You aren't the kind of people who make arguments based on morals."

"You are, and it is true. You know something about the end of the world, and you know we are the people best equipped to put that information to use." He paused. "One meeting. An exchange, cooperation rather than an alliance. Information for assistance."

I'd made the same offer to his wife just yesterday—in 2015. They did know the right buttons to push.

"One meeting," I said.

He led me through the portal into a room where Alexandria and two women I didn't recognize on sight stood waiting. We exchanged introductions but not handshakes and then took seats at the glass conference table, me across from the four of them. They were the first thing I'd seen since I'd woken up that a master effect couldn't have recreated using my own knowledge or memory, and I tentatively accepted that as a good sign.

The woman who called herself the Doctor was likely the same one Sveta had met and killed. I didn't know of the woman she identified as Contessa by name, but I could guess she was the enforcer, the one who silenced anyone speaking truthfully about powers.

The Doctor barely waited for me to sit down before she began speaking. "Fifteen minutes ago, we detected a massive breach in our security. The presence of someone who knows things about us that are not public knowledge."

"Like the mass human experimentation?" I shot back.

"Among other things," the Doctor said, ignoring my tone. "The fact we exist. Alexandria's dual identity. What we are doing and why. You are not a thinker, you are not a client, and we conceal the world's fate from all but those in this room and Eidolon. In short, you know things you should not and we want to know what the extent and origin of your knowledge. We will gladly bargain."

I turned to the Number Man. "I talked to you and your wife yesterday."

"I'm a bachelor," he said.

"Not in four years, you aren't," I said. I was alarmed by how calmly I was responding, considering who these people were. Part of it was that they'd ambushed me, grabbed me before I'd had the time to think, and I was forcing myself to be calm so I could retain what little control I had over the situation. "You're married to the mayor of the largest surviving human settlement. Jeanne . . . I don't know her maiden name. Citrine."

Alexandria nodded. "One of Accord's. Her power would work well with yours." She put a hand on Number Man's shoulder. "Also, she's twenty-four. Congratulations."

The Number Man didn't blush, but he looked discomfited as he shrugged out from beneath Alexandria's hand. "You believe this?"

"Yes," Contessa said. She seemed to be staring at a point on the wall just over my head.

The Number Man adjusted his shirt, smoothing it down from where Alexandria had wrinkled it. "I don't—"

"Yes," Contessa said again.

The Number Man fell silent, affording the Doctor room to interrupt.

"Surviving human settlement," she prompted.

"After Scion. Fifty million of us or so in one city on Gimel. Refugees from Bet."

Contessa's eyes snapped into focus and bore into mine. "After," she said. "What does after mean?"

"He snapped in June 2013. No idea why. Killed tens of billions of us across a bunch of worlds, unleashed a lot of scary stuff, more or less rendered the planet uninhabitable—"

"We know that will happen," she said. She leaned forward and the look in her eyes became even sharper. "Why did you say after? Did it decide to stop? Did it go dormant? Is it still active on other worlds?"

"After he died. After we killed him."

I felt a shift in the atmosphere of the room. The tension somehow spiked. A ratchet getting tighter. There was now open hunger on Contessa's face as she asked her next questions. "How? Were you there?"

"Yes, we all were."

Alexandria jumped in. "The five of us?"

I shook my head. "No. Yes. Sorry, I'm not being clear. When I say all, I mean all the parahumans who'd survived the first days of Scion's rampage. We all came together. The Number Man was there, though I didn't see him. The Doctor was dead. Your body was there under Pretender's control, had been since you died in 2011." I waited for a reaction, but Alexandria didn't give up anything. I turned back to face Contessa, forcing myself to meet her eyes. "I don't know anything about you."

"I would have died alongside the Doctor."

"Maybe? There was a group of people here, in your building. My friend was one of them and she mentioned the Doctor and the Number Man but not you. They came to ask you questions, but Scion came too. He was looking for his partner and they mocked him when he found it."

"How? Why?"

"By throwing parts of it at him."

"A more direct route than we've taken," the Doctor said, sounding almost as though she had a sense of humor. "Your friend?"

"You called her Garrotte," I said. "After you took her name. She's in the asylum now, struggling to come to terms with all the people her body chose to kill. She came here because she wanted answers. She wanted to know who had done that to her and why and—"

I looked around at the four, saw only degrees of indifference. Sveta had called Cauldron sociopathic, so I wasn't surprised the Number Man and his coworkers looked bored.

It was Alexandria who got to me. I'd heard her be called a traitor, but seeing a hero of her status just not react to a reminder of the crimes that were occurring here, probably beneath her feet while she was sitting back in a leather chair, was something else entirely. "And you don't care," I finished.

The Doctor spoke. "If we could control the results of the formula, we would. We cannot, and I won't insult your intelligence by feigning remorse for trying to do something about our imminent extinction in spite of that lack of control."

That much was true; I had seen broken and uncontrolled triggers since Scion's death, and I knew things did not always work out. That did not erase the issues of kidnapping, identity erasure, brainwashing, and consent. I shoved my seat back from the table. "This isn't going anywhere."

"You will tell us," Contessa said. "About Scion."

I looked at her, took in the intensity of her gaze. It scared me enough I had to consciously assert control, to stop myself from lashing out with my aura (no more Wretch, and I was surprised to feel a pang) out of fear. What was it Goddess had said? Inevitability. Doom in the form of a monster that looked human. This woman could be that.

"In due course," the Doctor said. "We'll take everything you can say into account, including your concerns about our operations. Why did your friend attack Scion that way?"

I took a breath to center myself. I knew that "take into account'"could mean "think about it for the exact period of time required to discard it," but I could fight that battle later on. "To taunt him. It was the key, from what I know. His emotions."

That was the part Weaver had used me for. I'd been floated in front of Scion, made to twist the Wretch's heads to face him, cry out to him through its mouths, extend its hands to him. It was hard to explain considering my current body, so I started with the Endbringer attack on my city and how it led to my abandonment at the hospital. I skipped over my stay there, other than to get a dig in about how I'd met Sveta, to what I knew of how things had unfolded before my sister had modified Weaver's brain.

They were interested in the presence or absence of particular capes or whether this or that strategy had been tried. All I could really say for certain was that Eidolon had died, the Faerie Queen had lived, and that everything had more or less fallen apart.

Which led me to explain how we'd come together and everything I could remember about Skitter-Weaver-Khepri's career. I spoke for more than an hour, interrupted only by the Doctor or Alexandria asking clarifying questions and the Number Man trying to give me a bottle of water.

The Doctor referred to her notes. "In sum: Panacea modified Skitter's power to control humans instead of arthropods, and in turn Skitter used Doormaker and presumably his companion to find every parahuman and bring them under her control. She then directed attacks on Scion, culminating in a psychological attack reminding him of his loss until he effectively gave up. Our enemy has hidden itself in another dimension. How did she breach its protections? Who dealt the final blow?"

"I don't know. The Endbringers might have played a role there, but nobody knows why they joined in to begin with. I'm sorry I don't know more, but people like you were very strict about information sharing and I wasn't important enough to be in the know."

"That is reasonable. What can you tell us about the Endbringers?"

"Some of them died or disappeared, but the Simurgh and Khonsu at least are definitely still—"

"Khonsu?"

"Scion killed Behemoth in July 2011," I said. "Three more replaced him. Khonsu was a teleporter with time-distortion fields. Bohu turned the landscape into traps, and Tohu took on any three parahumans' powers at a time, amped up to Endbringer strength."

"Endbringer attacks every six weeks," the Number Man said.

"Every two months. Bohu and Tohu worked in tandem, with Tohu defending Bohu as she destroyed a city."

Alexandria shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Christ," she said. "A hydra."

"One that learned," I agreed. I explained the shift in Endbringers' tactics, the guerilla-like strikes, the multiple attacks, the names of every target I could remember. Unfortunately, I'd mostly paid attention to Brockton Bay while I was in the asylum, and the information I'd accumulated after Gold Morning was spotty. I found myself apologizing to the four most evil people I knew outside the Slaughterhouse Nine for my incomplete knowledge a third time.

"We haven't ever seriously believed we might win," the Doctor said. "And we abandoned even the tiniest shred of wishful thinking in that direction long ago. Every piece of information you have provided is more valuable than you could possibly imagine."

"Valuable enough for you to change?" I shot back. "Valuable enough for you to stop the experimentation, stop the mind-wiping, stop disregarding the human cost?"

"I will make no promises to act in accordance with the dictates of your conscience," the Doctor said. "But I do promise to take your viewpoint—"

"Into account," I said at the same time she did. "Scion didn't kill you. 'Garrote' did. She was contained, but her container failed and she was released. She'd learned just enough control over her body to pick a target, and she passed over the Number Man and Skitter and killed you. You didn't enjoy it."

The Doctor shrugged. "If those were the choices, she acted correctly. Is there something more substantial and definite we can offer you?"

There were a lot of things I wanted, but not a lot of things I needed, and I wanted to limit the amount I was willing to use Cauldron for my own gain. Using them acknowledged their value, and acknowledging their value seemed like the first step to accepting them, and accepting them seemed like the first step to justifying them. I'd use my cred here to take care of people, individuals, who needed help I genuinely could not provide. "My sister is a threat. Not just to me, but to everyone. You were the ones who set up Goddess on Shin, right?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "She serves as the controlling factor for dangerous but potentially useful capes. You want us to send your sister there?"

"God no. Yesterday my sister had her killed and took Shin for herself before the corpse had cooled. That's how much of a problem she is, that's the kind of scale she can operate on, that's the kind of thing she's willing to do with her power. I want you to get her help."

The Doctor glanced at Contessa, who answered her unspoken question. "We can remove her from Brockton Bay and install her in a team where she is more likely to receive the assistance she needs to come to terms with her power without abusing it. I can convince her to leave and smooth things over with your parents."

I nodded.

"The Elite would be suitable for her needs," Contessa said. "She would be under less stress, away from you and your parents, and able to learn to approach her power differently."

Another villainous organization. Would they lead her down as dark a road as Marquis had?

A thought struck Contessa, and she rubbed her chin. "On the other hand, it is likely the Simurgh will notice our interest in Panacea, and we shouldn't run the risk of her influence on so unstable a personality paired with such a vital power. An eath other than either Bet or Shin might be most safe."

I shuddered. I remembered what Jack Slash had talked her into doing, and I didn't need to know what an Endbringer could unleash. Nobody did. "Be convincing," I told Contessa.

"I will do my best."

There was also Breakthrough to consider. Sveta, I could reach out to. I'd approach her online and work my way up to visiting. I didn't know enough about Chris to do anything there and I wasn't sure what I could do about Ashley just yet. Natalie could take care of herself; the only thing I could imagine her wanting from Cauldron was superpowers and I would never ask for that.

"Can I ask for four IOUs?"

"If your information proves to be valid, you can assume you have a limitless number of IOUs," the Doctor said. Then, again acting as though she were capable of making a joke, she added: "Terms and conditions may apply."

I ignored it and thought about Capricorn. That was a situation I could prevent from happening, but it would be hard to insert myself into their lives, even assuming I could find them. "There are two boys somewhere in Maryland. Byron and Tristan Vera, twins. They should be thirteen now and they're going to trigger as a Case 70. Can you separate them? The further apart the better, I think."

"Agreed," said the Doctor.

"And there's another kid, Kanzi or Kenzie Martin," I said. "I think she's seven now and lives somewhere around Baltimore. Her parents Irene and Julien are abusive, as in they-should-be-incarcerated-immediately levels of abuse. Take her away from them and give her to another couple, Keith and Antonio. I don't know their last name or names, but they're married and looking to foster or adopt. Make the adoption stick, make sure sure she knows she's theirs and that her parents aren't ever going to get her back."

"Also acceptable."

"All right," I said, and leaned under the table to collect my bag. "That's it. I should be getting back home."

The Doctor set her pen down on her notepad. "One final question. What are your plans?"

"I'll rebrand. Leave New Wave for the Wards," I said. I anticipated that my city would be destroyed before I'd get the chance to graduate in May, so I'd start work on my GED soon. "I'll join the Protectorate once I join eighteen, maybe pick a city that isn't Brockton Bay. I'll do what I can before Gold Morning."

Before ushering me back through the portal, the Number Man handed me a white business card that bore only a phone number with an area code local to Massachusetts. "If you need us, call this number. Give your name and location and we will meet with you."

It was just after seven when I returned. The noises coming in the kitchen made me think Mom had returned. She'd be expecting me to burst in and demand details about their night and the battle against the ABB. Rather than speak to her, I slipped out through my bedroom window and sent her a text saying I would be with Dean and the Wards for the day.

Then I took to the skies, reveling in being able to fly at full speed without worrying about the wind or the early morning chill. The sun had finished rising but it still hung low in the sky, and I flew over the bay to take in my sprawling and untouched city.

I eventually landed and texted Dean again, suggesting we meet at the Batter of the Bulge. It was a pancake house that prided itself on "melding the human drama of the Allied struggle against Nazi Germany with the tasty goodness of all-day breakfast." Empire vandals targeted it regularly.

He called me back seconds after I hit send.

"Hey, gorgeous," Dean said. The warmth I felt from hearing his voice, still gravelly from sleep, was a surge that swept away all my remaining doubt.

This was real. It had to be.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath before assembling the words. If I tried to say everything I wanted to at once, I might not convey anything at all.

"Hi," I managed at last. "How are you?"