Chapter 3

WHEN THE SKY SHATTERED

SIX WEEKS LATER

Specter whistled tunelessly, helmet tucked under his arm, as he made his way towards the uppermost level of the prison. It was ironic to him that wearing the black helmet, with its intimidating black face guard, made it harder for him to slip through the prison unnoticed. Two of his powers didn’t really work properly if his face couldn’t be seen.

He’d spent the last few months in this shithole, and he was ready for today’s epic conclusion.

Though he could have gotten the job done quicker, he’d erred on the side of caution. A wise decision, he knew, especially with at least one Tier 3 superhero sitting pretty in the facility built above the prison. He didn’t know which it was; the risk of finding out hadn’t been worth the payoff. That didn’t make it any less frustrating.

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Specter mentally recited a mantra to bring himself back to a calm baseline. This was not the time to set his emotions free.

So what if it had taken longer? He had pulled off the greatest infiltration ever.

He had slipped into one of the oldest and most secure prisons built to house those with the Will. The place was a monument to bureaucratic efficiency and corporate cruelty: twenty levels arranged around a central shaft, each ring of the spiral lined with sixty cells spaced evenly, packed so tight there was barely a corridor between the doors. From every level, narrow halls stretched out like the spokes of a wheel, crammed with even more reinforced doors.

He’d spent weeks mapping every corridor and blind spot, recording the precise spatial coordinates of hundreds of cells holding their targets. Well, just the ones worth recruiting or rescuing.

Each level held well over a hundred cells, and thousands of people were locked away in this place. Forgotten. Out of sight. So the rest of the galaxy could sleep at night, pretending they didn’t exist.

And in just a few minutes, he’d be transmitting that data to the star of today’s show.

This was the day they became legends! What they were about to pull off would be the talk of the galaxy for years to come!

Specter clicked his tongue again, returning to his mantra. It had been too long since he killed someone. That’s what it was.

His abilities weren’t perfect, and no one knew their limits better than he did. Once the forensic technicians and superheroes with sensory or specialized abilities started examining the incident to come, even he would be outed. They’d never see him directly, but the sheer number of strange glitches in the recordings, combined with survivor testimonials, would be evidence enough that Specter had been here.

He didn’t mind the infamy, even if the name wasn’t one he’d picked himself. The media had called him that during his petty larceny days.

He approached the final bulkhead and felt the first flicker of unease.

The squad of cybernetically enhanced guards stood exactly where he’d expected, rifles strapped across their chests. But the man sitting behind the secondary biometric terminal was all wrong.

He knew the guard rotations by heart. He’d planned this moment for months, carefully avoiding this exact scenario.

He should have been looking at a combat specialist. Someone strong, bored, and content to rely on the scanners. Instead, the man in the chair was slim, with eyes focused on every readout. A sensory type.

Specter slowed just a half-step, then corrected. It wouldn’t be enough to draw attention, he hoped.

“Evenin’,” he said, his voice a practiced drawl.

The sensor didn’t reply, simply regarding him. Specter felt a tingle run across his skin. A probe, subtle, but not enough to escape his notice. Apparently happy with what he’d gleaned, the sensor grunted and looked back to the console.

The bulkhead split apart with a hydraulic sigh. It was way better maintained than the one to the deep cells. Thinking about the deep cells caused familiar frustration to reignite. In the end, he hadn’t been able to work out a way inside that section of the prison without scrutiny. Another risk that hadn’t been worth the potential pay-off; those in the deep cells were probably all unstable psychopaths anyway.

Specter passed through, stride lengthened, mantra forgotten. He was so close.

On the other side of the bulkhead was the guard’s barracks, with that quiet, regimented hush that came from long habit rather than discipline. Rows of lockers gleamed, and a handful of off-duty guards lounged at the far end watching the holo. None of them glanced up as he passed by.

Beyond lay the main hall: a broad corridor stretching hundreds of meters, and lined with reinforced doors and the occasional side hallway. He could see the control center’s sign at the other end. Almost there.

He was several impatient paces down the hall when he heard the barracks door open again behind him.

“Hold up,” a voice called, closer than he expected. He didn’t seem suspicious. Yet.

Specter didn’t slow, pretending he didn’t hear, but quickly evaluated his options. His breathing slowed, every heartbeat measured, the previous emotion replaced with the cold, calm precision of a practiced killer.

Footsteps followed behind him, quick and purposeful. He knew it had to be the sensory superhero.

“Hey,” the man called again, voice casual but focused. “Just gimme a sec, alright?”

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Specter stopped, turning calmly to face the man. “Oh, you were talking to me?”

The sensor jogged the last few steps to catch up, his breath hitching from the exertion.

Limited physical capability.

“Yeah, listen, it’s probably nothing, but I gotta scan you again. I caught a weird echo as you left.”

Specter tilted his head, feigning confusion. “An echo?”

The sensor nodded. “Like I said. I’m sure it’s nothing. Just need to re-scan you.” He gestured to the doorway of a nearby maintenance cubicle. “Look, let’s just step in here.”

Specter followed his gaze. It was a gamble. The main hall had cameras every 10 meters. Inside might have personnel.

He nodded. “Sure.”

The door hissed open on approach. They stepped into a small four-desk office, empty but for the two of them.

As the door hissed closed, Specter struck without hesitation. One step forward. A single, precise thrust of the hardened plastic blade he’d kept hidden in his sleeve. The sensor’s eyes widened, his last words lost forever.

He lowered the body to the floor, hand on the man’s chest until the heart pumped its last. Only then did he allow the tremor to take over his hand. It really had been too long.

He wiped the blade on the dead man’s uniform before concealing it as he considered his options. There could be no more mistakes.

He had seven minutes from the moment the upload completed to get clear.

It would take thirty seconds to reach the command room from here, and less than a minute to punch in the commands and complete the upload.

The sensor's extended absence would be noticed in minutes. Hiding the body properly was impossible. The cameras would still show him entering. The corpse would be tracked down no matter what.

Decision made, Specter stepped out and resumed his measured stride, heartbeat steady.

The door to the control center hissed open, a wash of muted voices and electronic noise spilling into the hall.

The control center was a half circle of holoscreens and terminals. He’d studied every detail, knew what each workstation’s purpose was, where the redundancies and backups were, and had long since secured the authorization he’d need for just this moment.

He made his way to the secondary comms console and entered the stolen credentials. He slotted his wrist tablet into the terminal and ran the memorized command line. The interface lit up, the upload initiated.

Specter took a moment to look around the room. Not one of them knew they were about to experience the worst moment of their lives, if they even survived. The terminal beeped once. Upload complete. He swiped the wrist tablet, pivoted, and exited the command center.

Seven minutes. Enough, if there were no more mistakes.

The man sat cross-legged atop the starship’s hull, his form dwarfed by the armored vessel. Mars curved towards a distant horizon above him, the once completely red planet now dotted with domes of encased greenery. The sun’s rays caused shimmering golden waves to ripple through a nascent atmosphere.

If anyone were watching the scene, he might have appeared patient and calm.

He was anything but.

A barrier encased his body, containing his body’s internal pressure and enough of the life-giving gases needed to survive being in space. He could feel the constant push, as they tried to escape his shield and disperse into the emptiness of the void around him.

Absolute Barrier was not so easily broken. It was an extension of his Will, and maintaining it was as simple as breathing.

His implant pinged, notifying him that a transmission had been received by the ship’s computers.

Specter’s timing was perfect, as always. Three and a half minutes from upload to receipt. The time it took for the transmission to beam directly from Earth to his distant Mars orbit. Another two to decrypt.

He exhaled softly, releasing tension in his neck and shoulders. A slow breath to steady himself.

The data unfolded itself in layers within his mind’s eye. Coordinates, schematics, and personnel manifests. Most of it was irrelevant now. Specter had always been thorough, though. He closed his eyes and focused, committing the coordinates of each cell to memory, relying on the implant to manage the data.

Then he opened his eyes and lifted his gaze to look beyond Mars’ horizon. There, far in the distance, was a spot of light amidst the dark: Earth. Waiting and unaware.

That was about to change.

Shifting his weight forward, he rose with a single fluid motion, the pull of Mars assisting him. Finishing the routine, he tensed and relaxed the muscles in his legs.

The surrounding barrier pulsed, reinforced with a thought. With another he seized the starship in an invisible grip. Metal groaned beneath the sudden pressure, the sound lost to space.

The space around him flickered and twisted.

In the beginning, he could only teleport himself. He had long since mastered the power, though. The ship rode with him, a leviathan wrenched across the void in a single impossible instant.

Atmosphere screamed at the sudden intrusion of mass as they reappeared, suspended a mere thousand meters over the prison facility. The sky fractured in a thunderous shockwave, alarms already wailing below.

He floated clear of the ship, telekinetically pulling on his barrier to mimic flight.

He extended one hand towards the starship, forming a spear-shaped barrier around it, stretching out in front like a vanguard. The ship would add crucial mass to his shield.

He grasped with his other hand towards the prison, reaching down through concrete, steel, and rock, feeling for the marked cells. Hundreds of separate threads of Willpower slipped from his outstretched hand and into the prison’s depths, wrapping near-invisible barriers around cramped cells. Even finer strands of force coiled around the bomb collars locked to the throats of the cell’s occupants, ready to smother any explosive failsafe.

He’d worked hard to accomplish this level of control over his abilities. Years of hardship and sacrifice would culminate in this glorious moment.

For a few heartbeats, he simply studied the complex below. They knew that there would be at least one powerful superhero on duty, a Tier 3 like himself, but they hadn’t known which. He couldn’t see them yet. It was disappointing, really. He’d expected better.

Then he drove his hand down. The starship plunged toward the facility below, faster than gravity alone could manage.

The impact came as a single, blinding explosion. Glass erupted. Steel fractured. Concrete sheared open in a wave of flame and wreckage. The prison cracked to its foundation; many of the unshielded cells ruptured instantly.

Before the dust could settle, he pulled. The ship wrenched free of the crater, trailing concrete and other debris behind it.

In the same instant, the barriers he’d anchored around each of the cells flexed. Doors exploded from their hinges. Bomb collars ripped free and crumpled with a flex of his Will.

The ship settled onto a damaged stretch of the parking lot, crushing vehicles beneath. He hadn’t finished with the stolen starship just yet; it was a necessary component of their escape plan.

Hovering above in silence, he watched as emergency lights flickered to life. Below, survivors were desperately struggling to save friends crushed beneath the wreckage. Others wandered about, dazed and confused.

The attack had not gone as flawlessly as he’d envisioned. Fighting free of the collapsed building, several heroes flew up to meet him; others spread out to help the mundane humans.

It hardly mattered. They had accounted for every possibility. Now, it was time to see which plans survived first contact with the enemy.