Chapter 153 My Suit.

Chapter 153: 153 My Suit.

"Damn, that’s fucked," Psyren said, not looking up as her thumb casually scrolled through her Instagram feed.

I stared at her for a long moment. It wasn’t exactly the reaction I had been expecting to the news that a cabal of rogue mad scientists had formed a consortium to kidnap her, rip away her free will, and plug her into a doomsday machine.

"Uh, yeah. Basically," I said, crossing my arms. "You’re not... you know, shocked? Or panicked?"

Psyren just shrugged. We were gathered in the former grand ballroom of the chalet, which was currently serving as the housing unit for my newly acquired Octoporian.

Apparently, a massive, dormant war-machine acted as a fantastic aesthetic backdrop for Psyren’s social media posts. I let her use it, seeing as broadcasting the fact that I had a fully functional doomsday device sitting in my living room served as an excellent deterrent for anyone stupid enough to think about raiding the chalet. It wouldn’t have been hard for the industry to figure out I had it anyway, so there was no sense in keeping it a secret.

I’d called the three girls in for this little security briefing. It was more efficient to get everyone on my payroll up to speed at once.

Glacia was standing by the tall windows, her lips pursed pensively as she listened. A cool, localized breeze was whirling around her—a physical manifestation of her agitation.

Rhea, meanwhile, was curled up in a plush armchair in the corner. Her laptop was open, the glow of the screen illuminating her dog ears and woolly collar as she decrypted the USB drive Steve had handed off to me.

Psyren lifted her phone high, perfectly utilizing Glacia’s icy, agitated breeze to give her pink hair a dramatic wind-swept effect. She flashed a peace sign and snapped a selfie in front of the Octoporian’s metallic tentacles with a teasing smile.

"Mmm. Oh, fuck yeah, the lighting here is great," she murmured, admiring her handiwork before finally looking back at me. "Anyway, I mean, like, it’s happened before a bunch of times. One time, some crazy black-ops government program tried to black-bag me and use me in some weirdo experiment to read the minds of Russian scientists across the globe. Poor idiots."

She cackled, grinning brightly. "The federal agent they sent to grab me was my pathetic love-slave before we’d even reached the extraction point! He actually drove me back to his house, gave me all his cash, and signed over the deed to his Honda Civic before I got rid of him. Right around then was when my bro got me the gig working at the Rumble Ring, ya know?"

"Oh. Right," I said, blinking.

I suppose I knew, academically, that people had been hunting Psyren for her powers her entire life. I just never really put together how aggressively humdrum that constant threat level would get after about eighteen years.

"So, uh, you aren’t worried about the Brain Trust at all?" I asked.

"Nah. Aw, wait, this guy again," she growled, her thumbs suddenly tapping furiously against her phone screen. "These fucking Songbird stans are being such assholes in my comments. Yeah, I am better than her! Spend five minutes with me, and you’d be kissing my boots and begging me to step on you!"

"Why not?" I pressed.

"Huh?" she said, glancing up from her flame war.

"Why aren’t you worried?"

Psyren finally put her phone down, offering me a lazy, completely confident grin. "You kidding me, bossman? Because I know you’ve got my back. And those lab-coat fuckers are gonna need a push-broom to pick up whatever you leave of them."

Well. That was... oddly flattering. And a little disturbing. I liked to think I wasn’t that unhinged. Then again, she had watched me mercilessly dismantle Delirium not that long ago. And honestly, this wasn’t terribly different from putting Delirium down. Hell, this was proactive maintenance.

Speaking of...

"Rhea?" I said, turning to the armchair. "What have you got for us?"

"First off," Rhea said, pointing a manicured finger sharply at herself. "I am an investor. A machinist. A creative visionary. I am not your on-call IT support. And you assuming I am is very stereotypical of you—"

"But you found something, didn’t you?"

"Mmmm," Rhea purred, nibbling playfully on her lower lip. The screen flickered across her face as she rapidly tabbed through the stolen schematics. "Looks pretty legit, Miles. I mean, the blueprints your guy pulled are incomplete, but as the resident evil genius, hot chick, and perky scientist, I can offer my professional opinion that this ’Override Array’ could amplify a psychic’s output something fierce."

"Your professional opinion as a hot chick?" I asked flatly.

She smirked, nestling deeper into her chair, her wool collar fluffing around her face. "Mmhmm. And you know if a hot girl says something with confidence, it must be true."

"Ah, yes. How could I forget the foundational scientific citations of ’some hot chick’ and ’source: trust me, bro,’" I said with a heavy roll of my eyes.

"It happens way more often than you’d think," Rhea said smoothly. "Especially in biology. If you want, we could lock ourselves in a lab and do a couple of peer-reviewed studies about it." She wiggled her eyebrows, lazily arching her back to press her plush bust against the fabric of her sweater.

My eyes lingered for a fraction of a second, but I stubbornly shook my head.

"Maybe later," I deflected. "What about the coordinates Steve gave us?"

Rhea shrugged, her fingers dancing lazily over her keyboard. "Mmm. Looks like your guy knew what he was talking about. I just backdoor-pinged Metro Power’s grid data, and there’s a massive, off-the-books electrical draw being sucked straight into the old Metro Greenhouse Complex."

I paused. "Wait. Doctor Green is seriously hiding out in an abandoned greenhouse?"

"I know, right?" Rhea chuckled.

Well, I had to give Doctor Green some points for strict thematic loyalty. It would almost be a shame to kill him.

I mean, I absolutely would kill him, and I wouldn’t lose a second of sleep over it, provided I checked the body afterward. Always check the body. Rule number one of defeating your enemies in this business.

I’d seen way too many promising villains eat a laser beam a week later because their nemesis faked their demise, hid a kevlar plate under their costume, or pulled some other comic-book bullshit.

I trusted Steve’s intel, but I wasn’t going to run in completely blind, either.

He might be getting played by his own clones, and I wasn’t going to be someone’s patsy. But I also wasn’t going to just sit around the chalet waiting for weaponized flytraps to come crashing through my windows to abduct my psychic.

"Alright," I said, checking my watch. "Then I’m heading over there. Someone get me my suit."