148 Kill Order

“But do you really think we are on equal terms?” asked Continuity, his voice smooth, almost bored. His expression didn’t show contempt, but something far more irritating. It was calculated indifference.

“So, is the value of this man’s life worth so little to you?” I asked, pushing Blot a bit for emphasis. “He might really die, if you don’t fix that tone of yours…”

“Try me,” said Continuity with a smile. “I don’t think we—”

I let Blot go. Or rather, I let him fall and phased him straight into the ground. Six feet under, still breathing for a moment. Then, he wasn’t. The earth accepted him in silence.

Continuity’s words ended right there.

The wind didn’t move. The world didn’t react. He only watched, his pupils dilating ever so slightly. I remained alert, my senses open, my intangible grip on reality loosened just enough to move if I had to. If this man were the boss of the task force, I had no absolute proof. But it didn’t hurt playing along with him. Since he wanted awe and shock, I’d give it to him.

“I sense anger from you,” I said, studying the minute twitches in his face. My psychic abilities weren’t piercing him, neither with telepathy nor empathy, but people always leaked something when they were caught off guard. “I’m not easy to trust. I feel bad for Blot here, dying just like that, but I want to make my position clear. I’m willing to work with you, but not at the cost of anyone’s incompetence.”

I tilted my head slightly.

“Blot decided to ‘test’ me. He had no right. That’s a right I reserve for you.”

Continuity didn’t move and just listened.

I continued, “Since you’re still standing there, listening to me prattle, I imagine you’ve already decided how much you want me. Let’s start over. My name’s Nick. You?”

He nodded, just once.

“Continuity,” he said. “You pass.”

I blinked. “This… is your test? I don’t understand. What did I pass?”

“I wanted to see what kind of person you are. I’ve seen enough,” he replied. “You are cold, calculating, and you treat murder as a means to an end. I believe your desire to kill the Entity, and I trust your capabilities. I can make use of you, Eclipse. I feel bad for Blot, too… but it would be a greater loss if I let you go.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said flatly. “What was the test?”

“The fact that you can stand before me with your head held high,” he replied. “See, the nature of my power makes every power feel inferior and forces them to submit. There was once a cape that committed suicide just by being in my presence. With exposure, lesser beings can adapt.”

He smiled faintly.

“But you? You’re unmoved. Meaning your power is close to the source.”

Hmmm… Was there a reason for him to give so much emphasis on the word ‘source’, or was he just being mysterious for no reason at all?

“What’s this ‘source’ you speak of?” I asked. “Do powers have a source?”

“Oh, they do,” Continuity said, tone shifting into something resembling wonder. Or pride. “At least, that’s what the scientists theorized. We don’t know where it is, nor how to reach it. But it exists. My power came from a mutant strain from the source, spilled from the void, collected, refined, and injected into me. I’m what you would call a man-made god.”

He raised a finger, and the ground trembled.

His power expanded, an invisible dome erupting from his body. The air compressed. Sound dampened. In that instant, my powers shut down. The world grew painfully loud in its mundanity. My lungs felt too heavy. It was like being forced into a body too small for me.

This was bad.

“This space is now my domain,” he said casually, stretching his arm. “Within this field, all powers are negated. If you want, we could test each other here. No escape. No tricks. Just raw strength. What do you think?”

My mind calculated every possible outcome.

I would lose.

There was no margin of error.

I breathed slowly, eyes locked on his.

“If you have so much power,” I asked, voice steady, “where were you when Light was wreaking havoc?”

Continuity laughed.

“You still don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “If you want, I’ll tell you. Truly. But you may not comprehend it.”

“Sure,” I remarked. “Tell me. I can handle it.”

Who wouldn’t be curious? He was practically taunting me, too eager to share what he knew. The old me wouldn’t have cared. I was fine living in my own little cage of power and paranoia. But times change. Meeting the Entity left something festering under my skin. It wasn’t psychic influence. It was an instinct. An itch. A primal disgust. As though I had seen something so fundamentally wrong that my whole being wanted to erase it.

If Continuity had even a fraction of explanation for that feeling, I wanted to hear it.

“Why do you think the phenomenon that awakens powers is called the pull?” he asked. “It is simple, really. Imagine a tug-of-war between you and the source. The rope is the power. The source pulls from one side, reality pulls on the other, and the power manifests in the middle.”

He paused, letting the words settle.

“And Light?” Continuity continued, “He has become the rope.”

The words hit me harder than I expected.

“No matter how incredible my power is,” he went on, “I am helpless against him if we fought. It’s a matter of incompatibility. The SRC has dozens of contingencies for all sorts of dangers. But the contingency for Light was never a person.”

He smiled, not kind, not cruel, just knowing.

“It was his toys.”

“Toys?” I repeated. “What toys?”

“The Ten, of course.”

He said it like it should have been obvious.

“Did you really think it was a coincidence why the Ten is feared so greatly? Or how Light was able to gather them? We worked with him. Cooperation. Trade. Mutual benefit.” He spoke like he was describing business partnerships, not a group of mass murderer. “There are times capes try to come to the SRC, begging for protection from the Ten… only to be handed right over to Light.”

My jaw clenched, not in outrage, but in recognition of the pattern.

“Did you know?” he continued. “Dullahan was one such cape. The reason she destroyed our branch in Faust was because she discovered how deep our dealings ran. In the end, she joined the Ten so Light would stop targeting her. And we accepted the outcome. The peace was convenient for everyone.”

It was disgusting because it made sense.

Continuity watched me closely.

“Did that set your nerves off? Did you handle it well?” His voice became lightly mocking. “Are you now going to lose your temper and declare war on the SRC?”

I exhaled slowly.

“I understand,” I said. And I did. “Light is a madman with a regressing mind, both emotionally and intellectually. He’s like a child. The only way to calm someone like him is to give him something to play with. I don’t care for Light’s victims. They’re already dead, anyway.”

I stepped closer, meeting Continuity’s eyes.

“But there’s something you’re not telling me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“You told me why you didn’t fight Light,” I said. “Incompatibility. Fine. I can accept that.”

The world simmered in quiet as I reined in my temper.

“But where were you when he was wreaking havoc?” I asked. “I’m not asking out of righteous fury. I don’t care about justice, or peace, or the people he killed. I want to know for a different reason.”

The question felt heavier spoken than in thought.

“Where were you,” I repeated slowly, “all those years while the Ten spread fear and chaos?”

This task force was supposed to be the spear pointed at the Entity. That was how Guesswork described this task force, specialized, ruthless, and assembled for one purpose. If they weren’t dealing with Light, the Ten, or any other calamity, then their attention must have been elsewhere.

But was that actually the case?

Continuity exhaled, like he had been waiting for me to ask.

“Hmmm… You are unexpectedly sharp,” he murmured, amused. “I suppose I’ll know soon enough if you can handle the truth.”

Then he looked me in the eye.

“Where was I,” he repeated, “when Light laid waste to entire cities? When the Ten danced on corpses and headlines? When fear was the only thing any of you knew?”

His red eyes didn’t blink.

“I was interrogating the Entity.”

A cold and blunt disgust crashed up my spine, fast and sharp. My hand curled. My whole body prepared to move, tear, break, phase, and destroy anything to drown the instinctive revulsion.

No.

‘Calm down.’

I forced my breath steady, swallowing the hatred, keeping it beneath the ice.

“What did you find out?” I asked.

“That it wants you,” he said, almost casually. “Desperately. I cannot say why. But in exchange for you, it offered to leave our world forever. It was even kind enough to offer itself up for psychic binding. Quite cooperative, really.”

He spoke like he was discussing the weather.

That left me rather speechless.

Continuity continued, unbothered by my silence.

“I’m not lying when I say I interrogated it. I was only let go about two years ago, after conversing with that… thing. The SRC performed extensive examinations afterward, of course. They didn’t know if I came back contaminated, compromised, or hollowed out.” He smiled faintly. “But they deemed me stable enough to lead my own task force. Isn’t that great?”

The way he said ‘stable’ made me wonder.

“Can I meet it?” I asked. “The Entity, I mean?”

“Of course,” he replied, far too readily. “But first, there’s a mission I want you to complete.”

I huffed lightly. “This is the real test, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm? Think of it as supplementary. If you succeed, we’ll open our archives to you, everything we’ve collected on the Entity: how Division 5 was formed, the nature of the source, the origin of powers… all of it.” He smiled. “You might even learn why you are so special.”

I had no idea what made me worth that kind of attention from anyone, much less an extradimensional horror.

“What’s the mission?” I asked.

Continuity’s smile widened as he stared at me expectantly with manic crimson eyes. “I want you to kill Tigress,” he said. “Otherwise known as Amelia Morose. Can you do it?”