Chương 90: 6.11 How many Samanthas does it take to change a lightbulb?

2104: 02: 29: 13: 01: 05 The good mood from last night carried over to the next day. Mom had been practically glowing with pride this morning when I told her Amber and I had captured Shadeveil and once school started, Millie and Amber had been in a similarly good mood as I – though also a lot more tired. Especially in the case of Millie.

Apparently, we'd caught her right at the end of her shift – technically even after her shift had already ended – and so she'd had to 'wheel and deal', whatever that meant, her way into being allowed to help with Shadeveil. Eleven PM was supposed to be the limit of Prospectus working hours during weekdays barring emergencies or incidental delays. I wondered if Mom would chew her out over it later.

That aside, I was in a good mood, they were in a good-yet-tired mood, and overall the day seemed to be heading the right direction. Which meant of course that something had to bring it down. Lunch break arrived and we made our way to the cafeteria, Amber joining us for it as was becoming an increasingly common occurrence. As Millie, Jolie and I found a spot and saved some seats while Amber and Saga bought lunch, the restrictions on the use of school Wi-Fi got lifted. With it came some potentially dire news.

Literally, as it came in the form of a BREAKING NEWS! report by Intramerica Cascadia. It read: RITUAL MASTER CAPTURED, TERRAGUA DEAD IN RAID; MIELE & VAN DIJK UNDER INVESTIGATION! No doubt inspired by recent successes in Charm, the New York arm of the Guardians have struck a hard blow against the Jannacht Syndicate stronghold in New York.

In a two-front assault both masked and mundane, eighty-three heroes and a similarly large army of police and prosecutors have identified and struck over a dozen locations of interest, capturing over thirty villains, a hundred henchpeople, and dozens of civilian leading previously unknown Jannacht-collaborative businesses. With Jannacht leader Ritual Master captured and the industry giant Miele & Van Dijk once more under renewed scrutiny, analysts say the Jannacht Syndicate heartland has been struck a…

I intently read the rest of the article, scanning the names of dead and captured masked for any sight Darkstar – of Michael. But outside the fate of the big two Ritual Master and Terragua, the article was surprisingly light on details surrounding the involvement and fates of any of the masked. Likewise, Intramerica Northeast and International mentioned only a few names, with most of the articles putting their focus on the effects this all would have on masked, civilians and the involved industries.

Before I could go and search for details in other outlets – maybe even browse social media for a mention of my brother if I had to – my phone caught up on its synchronization. Pop-ups appeared telling of a dozen messages finally coming through. Most, like the ones from Naomi, were old ones that got stuck in queue due to network unavailability, but the one coming from Mom looked important, if very vague. It read simply,'call me somewhere private when you can', which was singularly unhelpful. Couldn't she just…

write it all out or something? Frustrated, I hurriedly rose from my seat, ready to go to the exit and go somewhere private until, "Sam?" Millie asked.

"Something wrong?" The words dragged me back from my fugue and into the real world. Milie was staring at me questioningly, and Jolie was eyeing me as well. Right.

"I… Mom asked if I could call when I got her message."

"Let me guess: no details," Jolie said, stating rather than guessing.

"I hate it when parents do that." Unlike Jolie's simple annoyance, Millie continued looking worried. She likely figured that something had happened in the masked sense of the word. Impatient to get going, I said vaguely, "Can you tell…?" while gesturing towards the line by the cafeteria kitchen. Amber and Saga were still waiting for their turn. Jolie waved me off.

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead." She paused and frowned for a second, annoyance fading towards concern.

"It's probably not, but I really hope it's nothing serious." Not knowing what to say to that, I nodded and left the cafeteria. Making my way through the halls chockfull of students heading to the cafeteria, I looked for a secluded space to make the call. Classrooms and the like were unfortunately locked, and while some halls on the second and third floor were mostly vacated, I didn't feel comfortable enough to make the phone call there.

I headed outside, looking for a secluded enough space outside the school building. Rather than make the call then and there, I shifted into a crow and flew away as quick and far as was reasonable, landing on some business' rooftop a minute's flight away. Only once I was there did I take out my phone and dial Mom.

"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Sam! Just give me a second; need to find a booth." I heard her hurriedly walk through the office, the tap of her boots on the floor audible from the other side.

"There we go," she said with a sigh. After a bit of shuffling and scraping her throat, "Yes, so. I, ah… You've seen the news? About Michael?"

"Hm-mm. I've seen the headlines looked around a bit but I couldn't find anything about Michael. Or any specifics at all, really."

"Yeah, they're being annoyingly coy, aren't they?" she said, tsking right after.

"Well, I've got some good news on that front. It's still all a bit vague and took an annoying amount of effort pulling connections to find it out, but I can tell you this: he isn't among the casualties." I breathed a sigh of relief.

"He is, however, in Guardians custody," she said. I didn't quite know how to feel about that.

"Well, as far as I can tell at least." I frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"As I said, they're playing it close to their chest. While the Wardens don't have a direct connection to the departments on the other side of the continent, our link with the Guardians in general is strong enough that we should be able to get the info clean and clear." She paused." Should being the key word here."

"They don't want to talk?"

"Oh they're talking alright; they just aren't saying much. They couch it all in vague terms; need-to-knows, can't-tell-you-thats and the like; deliberately obfuscating what happened to who, who's involved, where, when and why now. For some reason they're not being open, and I can't exactly dig deeper without arousing suspicion about why I want to hear about Darkstar so much, you know? Sharing a hometown is enough, but with our names so close… it might even be the clue they need to connect the dots."

Unfortunate, but understandable. Showing too direct an interest in Darkstar might reveal that he and Peakstar have a deeper connection than having lived in the same city and fought once or twice. While I didn't know whether Wardens and Guardians commonly exchanged identities – though from the conversations I had with Millie over the months, they probably didn't – having it known that Darkstar was Peakstar's son wasn't good. Not just for PR's sake, but for the Treaty's as well.

Or so I figured, at least, but was it really? I highly doubted the Guardians would do anything with it, and while having the information out there in some unknown system wasn't great, I doubted much harm could come from it. Though I supposed it was for the sake of the spirit of the Treaty more than any risk. That, or it was simply the way culture worked – irrationally, masked or not. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"I don't…" she started hesitatingly.

"I don't want to give you false hope, Sam, but this kind of behavior – the obfuscation, hiding who's been captured and/or killed in the raid, not sharing the info even behind closed doors – there are only a few reasons why they would do this. One of them being a, ah, whistleblower situation, let's say." A pause.

"An informant, rather."

"You think-""I don't know." She sighed, sounding tired.

"I don't know, Sam. It might just be wishful thinking on my part, but… doesn't it line up? There were only a handful of Jannacht masked sent from New York to Charm, and from what I know only Darkstar had prior ties to the city. And considering all that happened, with Michael and us, with Soliloquy…" Another sigh.

"But then again, who knows? Maybe it was a year-long sting operation or something, and Michael's just… unlucky." A minute of silence as we both stewed in thought. If true, this was great news… or it should be, yet once again I was conflicted. Saddened by the fact that my brother might soon be a convicted felon, even if he did deserve it. An irrational, renewed burst anger at the reminder that Michael was still a villain.

A tentative pride and new hope that, if what Mom suspected turned out to be true, meant that my talk – and Mom's offer – might've convinced him to walk the straight and narrow. Or try to, at least. Then there was the part of me coldly assessing the situation, dissecting how all this came to be and how it fit in the bigger picture. Analyzing it, and comparing how the heroes interacted with villains like Shadeveil, like Michael, and how they might deal with me if the truth came out about my nature.

Not all of these thoughts were mine, but I wasn't sure which were and which weren't. So overlapping, wrapped up, blended and mixed together were these worries with my own that I couldn't discern the influence of pseudo-Sam or the Heroic Impulse – not without heavy guesswork. Even the latter thoughts, the colder ones, could be from my own concerns regarding the future rather than the Heroic Impulse's. As I didn't say anything back for a while, Mom spoke again.

"Point is, Sam: I don't know. But either way, I will get to the bottom of this. I'm hoping we'll get a call from him or something, though if he's really flipped sides he might not even get that depending on how strict they take his security."

"Security? Is he in-" I cut myself off. Of course he was in danger. Nobody likes a turncoat, and villains least of all.

"Nobody likes a turncoat, Sam," Mom said, echoing my thoughts.

"And if there's one person who can get to him despite being behind bars, it's Ritual Master – though I hope the fact that they managed to capture him at all means they've found a way to deal with his powers." As he wasn't a frontline fighter, Ritual Master's powers were poorly understood, but for someone to hold his position it was bound to be something singularly powerful.

Add to that the inexplicable behaviors and even the deaths of masked opposed to him, more than a few of which skirted very close to breaking the Treaty, and the iron grip he was alleged to have over the Jannacht despite its cell-structured nature…

"Do you think Michael's in any real danger?" The Guardians wouldn't have done as they did if they weren't sure they could protect him, right? Mom hemmed and hawed.

"Yes and no. Whether he flipped or not, there are people both in and out of jail that want him dead, and not all of them are villains – heroes know how to carry a grudge too. Yet if he was the one that led to the Guardians success against the Jannacht, then… well, I doubt they'd let their crown witness be in any danger." I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything I heard a beeping from the other end.

"Sh- sorry Sam, I've got to go. Duty calls. See you tonight." I said, "See you," but she'd already hung up before I could finish my sentence. I checked the time. There was still twenty minutes left until the end of lunch break, so I shifted and flew back. Entering the cafeteria, I witnessed Jolie, Saga and Millie laughing as Amber scowled and gestured agitatedly in her defense – though she was unable to hide her amusement from me no matter how hard she scowled.

The scene brought a smile to my face and I decided to abandon my thoughts surrounding Michael for now. It wasn't like I could do anything about it anyway. I joined them at the table, the amusement immediately replaced by eyebrows raising in concern.

"Everything alright?" It was Amber that asked, but each of their expression echoed the sentiment.

"Eh," I dithered.

"Something with my brother. Family stuff, you know?" I found that if there ever were a universal sign to let things be, saying 'family stuff' would be it. They backed off. I fetched the uneaten sandwich from my bag and said, "What were you laughing about just then?" The smiles and Amber's mock-scowl returned, the rest of the lunch filled with pleasant teasing about, apparently, Amber's love for – and staunch defense of – country music. I didn't get the joke, but I joined in anyway.

X Mom had returned home late because of another clash between Motorgang and Magistry. All the villains managed to get away, but at least Mom had managed to follow the trail of Magistry's Harehead and managed to close one of their summoning locations in Little Europe. Hopefully that would slow down the clashes between the pair in the Charm's most central district. Mom wasn't broken up about it.

She, and the Wardens in general, seemed content enough with the current state of events – not enough to force a status quo, but content enough to not rock the boat too much. Which might be smart if not exactly satisfying, but I'd come to realize that a part of me would never be satisfied when it came to villains. We had talked about it before. Mom had said that my dissatisfaction was actually good since it meant I kept trying and striving to be better, striving for a better world, but I found it a cold comfort.

Perhaps if it wasn't for the paranoia surrounding Mad Android Syndrome and my Heroic Impulse it would've been more comforting, but alas. Mom and I talked more about Michael and the 'Darkstar situation', but outside of reiterating the same concerns and circling the same talking points, nothing new was added. Her frustration with the whole ordeal was clear, as was her irritation towards the Guardians in particular. Oh, and Michael himself as well.

"Really, you think he'd at least send us a message or call us or something," she complained, "but nooooo. He just has to be stubborn about it. I mean, I was very clear that if he ever needed any help he could call me, and this sure seems like one of those situations, right?" Obediently, I nodded.

"If he wasn't the informant then he should definitely have reached out," she continued.

"For funds, if nothing else. I highly doubt his masked accounts are still open after how thorough the Guardians were with the Jannacht. And if he is the informant," she groaned, "why couldn't he have turned himself into the Wardens! I mean, I wasn't going to go easy on him, but surely that would be better than going to the Guardians!" She was smiling as she said it, clearly joking about the latter, but I simply nodded in response.

Mom remained quiet after that, likely unsure on how to continue to conversation by herself. Throwing her a bone – and wishing to discuss something – I spoke.

"How do you deal with it?" Mom frowned, head tilting sideways.

"Your brother?" she asked, not comprehending. I shook my head.

"With… not being able to do anything about it." She raised her eyebrows.

"Where has the good mood from this morning gone?" I glared at the slight humor in her voice, but all it did was make her laugh outright. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, gentle.

"You're still worried that you aren't doing enough? Even after capturing a villain just last night?" I knew she was right, and yet, "It was just a minor villain," I grumbled.

"It lacks… impact." And I wanted to be impactful in however much time I'd left before going Mad. Getting together with the Sentinels was a great first step, but that was all it was: a step. It wasn't enough – might never be enough until I found a path or set in motion the events necessary to get rid of all the villains in the world. An impossible goal according to everyone, yet I wanted to believe. Or was forced to believe.

"Hm," Mom hm-ed. To my surprise, it sounded agreeable.

"I know the feeling. Seems like whatever we do, there'll always be another villain right around the corner. A forever war."

"You think it'll never end?" I asked, staring intently at my mug of tea.

"That there'll always be villains?" Even to my ears it sounded accusatory. And maybe it was. I'd yet to hear anyone agree with me on the possibility of a villainless world. Only agreeing that the dream is worth striving for. Something aspiring, but not realizable. To my surprise, "I didn't say that," Mom said. My eyes snapped back and grew wide as I saw Mom look as frustrated as I was at the idea of eternal villainy.

"You think there'll be a world without villains?" I asked, almost hopeful. Then I grimaced, looking away again.

"It seems like everyone else has just… given up." I took a sip from my tea, feeling bitter. Yet Mom scoffed at the mention of other people's thoughts and opinions, attracting my attention again.

"Did the people of Rome think there was anything beyond the state, or their master? Did the medieval peasant think there was anything in the future for his kids but the farm, the lord, and the church? Did the citizens of empire, or the capitalist ever think their world was anything but timeless?" She shook her head.

"People in the Golden Age thought that all powered would inevitably play the 'game' as it was called back then – a sideshow to the reality of the institution of the nation state, of trade and capital and labor, of democracy and dictators. Even when people like Black Angel marched with civil rights protesters, and villains with white supremacy groups – they marched with, not ahead. Never in the lead.

"When they were proven wrong and the Dark Age came, people thought that would last forever – or worse, be the end of everything. Then Malcator came along and dispelled that notion. And right as everyone had begun to believe Malcator would last forever, and the Unified State his eternal empire, he was killed and his system overthrown to make way for the new system of the global republic, the Treaty, and the masquerade.

"Now they believe that this will be the world that lasts forever. But there is only one thing that's eternal: nothing. Nothing lasts forever. That, in other words, 'this too shall pass'." She sniffed.

"People are exceptionally bad at knowing what happens next, yet there are always those trying to predict. Those claiming they can deduce it, have foreseen it, or worse: claim they know exactly how things will happen, and what they can do to make it happen. And you know what happens to them?" I shook my head.

"Nth-Sight happens." I suppressed my wince, but not good enough. Mom had noticed, and grimaced as she realized what she'd said. She sighed.

"Sorry, got a bit carried away. What I mean is that no matter how good they are, even the best pre-cog can't predict the future. Sure, we are pretty good at guessing certain things – geological activity, the weather, the movements of planets and stars – the things of natural law and even cosmic randomness. But all the human stuff?

"Just look at what yester-century's politicians said about today, or what the economist of two centuries ago thought would happen in the 21 st – everyone's wrong all the time. So when someone says that something will last forever, or that something isn't possible, know that they don't know sh- stuff about anything." She paused for a second, the energy of her convictions finally leaving her, looking a bit sheepish as she did.

"To, ah, circle back to your question: no, I don't think there'll always be villains." She chuckled. I was silent for a moment as I tried to absorb all that.

"But how do we do that? I… I want to do that, but it feels like nothing is enough." A second of silence, until, "Oh Sammy," Mom said, eyes somehow warm yet oddly grieving.

"We can't stop villainy." It felt like a slap to the face.

"But you said-"" We can't stop it," Mom emphasized." Heroes can't stop villainy – not completely at least. We all want to, but… like the police can't stop crime from happening, or how doctors can't heal all people, or how resurrectors can't revive all the dead – heroes can't stop all villains.

"What we can do is protect the dream; deal with the worst villains, help those who cannot help themselves; but the concept of villainy itself?" She shook her head.

"Only humanity itself can do that. The wish and the time to change in such a way that villainy – and crime, and disease, even death itself – will no longer have a place in the world anymore." Deep conversation vanished after that, the two of us enjoining the rest of the evening by watching the new episode of Carl's Crusade against Time. Mom went to bed and, right as I made ready to go masking with Amber – it was a training day, so not exactly masking but whatever – I saw I had a text from Millie.'

BTW, everything alright?? It wasn't a you-know-what thing, right? I mean your Mom did go out but that was like after, sooooo' I responded,'Nope. Just a my brother thing.'

'From the Christmas break stuff?' I send her a, ' Basically yeajh' and a corrective, ' *yeah' right after.' Ugh! Sooooo glad I don't have a brother. Cousins are bad enough and mine live all but a continent away!!' Some more idle chat later and I sent a final text that I was going training, making Millie pretend-jealous of a vigilante's freedom – or maybe real jealous, I couldn't tell. Either way, it was funny and the conversation lifted my mood somewhat. Enough to go to training with a smile, at least.

Though that might also be the prospect of fighting- I mean, training with my mentor. As Amber said, punching things was good stress relief.