The Legion of Nothing

Vaughn stopped, and frowned, “I mean, I probably can’t do much of anything up there except for throwing lightning inside the jet or my suit, but it’s still the moon. It would be cool. It’s just that the more I think about it, the more I think I’ll be a lead weight—no powers except where they could do more damage than help.”

Looking up from my screen at the table, I said, “We can think about it. It’s probably a bad idea, but if there are… I don’t know… Selenites or something up there, for all we know there might be a secretly inhabitable area. It’s not like that never happens in comics.”

“Or Nazis,” Vaughn said, shrugging.

I thought about it, “Not impossible. It would even be thematic given our grandparents’ history. That said, we should go up with the people we most need and the people most likely to survive a fight up there.”

“Easy,” Vaughn said, “that’s the space crew—Jaclyn, Marcus, Cassie, you, and Rachel.”

Haley frowned, “I wanted to go, but Vaughn’s right. They’ve all got Xiniti implants and Rachel has more experience in space than anybody.”

Sitting near Jaclyn across the table, Amy said, “I don’t know anything, but I don’t think you should wait. If anyone sensitive to Artificer technology feels what Magnus has done, it’s anybody’s guess who’s already on their way.”

Rachel waited for Amy to finish and said, “I haven’t worked with you a lot, but you’ve got good sense. Normally, I’d want to find out more, but none of these records tell us where they found Lee’s device or hid it. We do know that they went back to the moon more than once.”

Jaclyn clicked a button on the computer in front of her, “I’ll call Grandpa.”

She’d sent her monitor’s picture to the big screen on the wall. We could see it when the phone app appeared on the screen. When he picked up, she said, “Time for the first question. Should we go to the moon?”

He sighed, “I can’t say anything more, but it’s worth a look.”

I leaned toward her across the table, “Can he tell us where we should go there?”

She relayed the question and he said, “No. Sorry. Good luck.”

Then he hung up.

We all looked at each other. I said, “I guess we have to go.”

In terms of going to the moon, it was weird to consider how much thought, fear, work, and hope went into the original landings and the comparative casualness that we could take. This morning we weren’t planning to go to the moon.

Now we were preparing to go and by preparing, I mean that I told Hal, our AI to warm up the jet, logged into the door system to check on our exit to the lake, and started the preparations for take-off.

Meanwhile, those of us who were going were pulling on our costumes—which in my case meant powered armor. As I stood in my lab, letting my armor form around me, Daniel caught my attention telepathically.

My grandfather contacted me mind-to-mind while we were talking to C. He cautioned me against using prescience to find Lee’s device.

I thought back, I’d noticed that you weren’t saying very much. Is he afraid that you’ll give us too many hints too?

Daniel didn’t have to say no. I knew how he was feeling through the link. You know how telepaths and mystics that try to use clairvoyance on Lee tend to go mad?

I remembered that pretty well. Daniel had copied a little bit of what Lee did and put it in my head. The Syndicate L telepath who’d tried to break into my mind at Ray’s direction had gone into a coma afterward. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever come out of it.

In retrospect, the fact that it had worked that well should have been a clue that might share more with Lee than I realized—though it was interesting that Daniel wasn’t affected by it.

Daniel caught my train of thought in response to his question and said, All of that. My grandfather thinks that we’re all affected by Lee’s presence—you in that close association has activated potential abilities you might not have accessed otherwise. He thinks that I’m affected too, adapting to him. That’s not the reason he told me not to connect to the device.

It’s because I might be able to connect to it too, but without the right situation, whatever that is, I might not survive contact.

I thought back, I hope we find out what the right situation is before we find the device.

I felt his agreement through our connection, That’s why I’m not going along. I wish I could. On the bright side, if those of us who are still here help with the cleanup, that won’t hurt.

I thought about the city of Grand Lake. The mushroom parasite had taken over the entire city and then died all at once. Removing tons of mushroom growth would be the easy part. The people still hadn’t even had time to discover how much they’d experienced.

Meanwhile, the last bits of the Rocket suit locked into place. I started walking toward the hangar.