Atomic Rebooted

34. Alliance

MIRA

We met on a rooftop, behind a giant billboard advertising Atomic Energy. After all, I couldn't freely talk using Dr. Banning's phone I'd borrowed in the middle of the night. I'd been sure to delete the record of the call before returning it to the correct spot in its desk.

And now I was standing in front of him, struggling to put to words what I needed.

"I was kind of surprised you actually took me up on it." He scratched the back of his neck. "I kinda got the impression that you guys didn't like me all that much."

"We don't.," I admitted. "But you're the only person who I think could help me."

He paused and frowned, looking contemplative. "Why? What's going on?"

"It's about Verity." I struggled to put the words together, to form them, to voice my suspicions.

"That's Mystic, isn't it?"

"Right, you'd only really know her hero name, wouldn't you?" I closed my eyes—already, the. details of her face were becoming more blurry, harder to picture and remember.

But I wouldn't let go of her and her memory so easily.

"She told me one last thing, before Ka—Powerline, that is, killed her." That still echoed in my head, clearer than anything else in the world. "They're lying to you."

I opened my eyes again. There was sympathy, pity in his expression. No, there was more than that, I decided.

There was this understanding in his eyes. Like he knew what I was going through.

He gently nodded, with a sad, encouraging smile.

"I want to find out what she meant." The words carried with them a weight, that had been dropped into my very heart. "Dr. Banning and the others—they don't understand, they say that Verity was a mistake, an anomaly. They're already trying to forget her, to make us all forget her. But I can't."

"You want to know why she turned."

"Yes." I smiled, grateful that he could put into words what I could not. "And I want to make Heretic pay for what she did. Verity's blood is on her hands."

Warlock shook his head. "I know Heretic, I think she's just as much of a victim as Verity was. And you said it yourself—Powerline killed Verity, not Heretic."

I bit my lip. "Verity didn't burn down a building and kill an innocent civilian and destroy our only means of keeping independent heroes accountable."

"You're right, Heretic did do that." Warlock nodded. "But I know that was an accident. She doesn't try to hurt civilians—"

"You're making excuses for her?" I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows in disbelief.

"It's a little more complicated than that." Warlock's cheeks turned red and he shrugged, looking away. "Let's just say I have a personal interest in finding out why Heretic turned, too."

I frowned, recalling the records in the database. "But I thought she was always a villain."

"Not always." Warlock paused. "So we don't agree on Heretic. That doesn't matter—at least, right now, anyway. We still have a common goal—we want to know what Verity meant, don't we?"

I tilted my head to the side. His nonsensical belief in Heretic did give me pause. He was a little too goody two-shoes for my taste. Too naive, believing that these people who had omitted serious crimes and hurt people could somehow change, were somehow victims of some great and terrible injustice.