The Immortal's Guide to Supervillainy 1 by M.E. Thorne

Author:M.E. Thorne [Thorne, M.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Eris barely made an appearance again a few hours later, once dinner was ready.

Cassiopeia had ordered a huge surplus of food, so much so that it took three drones to carry the delivery.

I ended up searing up all the steaks, which Jenn and Ari wolfed down with gusto. As I cooked, I filled in the ex-hero on my history with Cassiopeia and CMS. Eris ate her share as I talked, and then she quickly returned to her room, claiming she was exhausted.

“She’s going to let all this wine go to waste,” Jenn said as she grabbed another beer out of the fridge.

The blonde villainess was already on her third or fourth beer by the time we were cleaning up the dishes. Despite her blusterous attitude, I noticed she refused to meet my eye, always shying away at the last minute. Ari was quiet as well; several times during the evening I had seen them together, whispering urgently between themselves.

Not that I had any interest in interfering. I could tell the two shared a tight bond, one that wasn’t likely to fracture or break due to a few life-and-death battles. They would figure it out on their own, I was sure.

Finally, I retired to the master bedroom at the end of the guest wing. I invited Ari to join me, but she politely declined, saying she wanted some time alone.

I didn’t take it personally. I wasn’t a clingy lover.

Grabbing a shower, I took the time to check with Cassiopeia. She confirmed the remaining CMS facilities were intact, though she was withdrawing her assets back to the Bastion, ensuring that our foe couldn’t attack an outlying node to get to her.

CMS was little more than a shell company, but it still possessed a large cadre of lawyers and PR flunkies who were out in force running damage control. They claimed ignorance as to why the battle beetles and terror-bots had attacked their Sun Gorge location, though they demurred that it might be tied to the company’s defense contracts with the US government.

There was no word about Cassiopeia herself, or CMS’s connection to her or me, so it appeared the company would survive the day.

Which was nice. Spinning up shadowy, nefarious-sounding companies took a lot of time and money.

Cassiopeia was looking into the parahuman who had identified herself as Gremlin, but there were no records of her at the UN, nor in any of the government files the AI had access to. She had found signs though that someone had tampered with things. There were holes and gaps in the record that indicated data had been purposefully expunged.

Whoever we were fighting, they had people in powerful places.

There was something about the mysterious parahuman that was familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Have I met her somewhere before?

That thought kept tormenting me as I rolled against the mattress, trying to fall asleep.

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