Chapter 194 Impossible.

Chapter 194: 194 Impossible.

"Holy shit, Miles," Rhea breathed, puffing slightly as she jogged to keep up with my long strides. "So, uh... what’s the actual plan?"

"We’re breaking her out of there," I said, fishing my burner phone out of my pocket.

"Wha—really?" Rhea gasped, her wolf ears perking up.

"An excellent strategic choice, sir," Glacia said, gliding after me as elegantly as a deadly figure skater. "It is high time the surface world learns to truly fear the name of Polaris!"

"Or I end up as just another notch on some S-lister’s ’villain of the week’ belt," I muttered, flicking through my encrypted contacts until I landed on Steve’s number.

I was absolutely dreading this call, but it had to be made.

It rang twice, then clicked.

"Ehhhhh. Miles! My man," Steve’s lazy, infinitely relaxed drawl floated through the speaker. "How’s it goin’?"

"Not good," I said flatly, pushing through the swinging doors into the chalet’s massive kitchen. "Listen, did you ever work inside the BSA headquarters?"

"Suuuure, man. Sure. I had a me be a janitor in there for a while a couple years back. Why?"

"Micheal Carter kidnapped Psyren," I said, ripping the band-aid off. "He’s the telekinetic mastermind behind the Override Array. He switched her out with a shapeshifting mimic while I was fighting Mystic at the mall."

Total silence hung heavy on the other end of the line.

When Steve finally spoke, the lazy, surfer-dude drawl was completely gone.

"I see."

There was an ocean of meaning in those two words. A thousand unspoken, bloody promises buried in that low, dark tone. It was the terrifying voice of a man who owned a very large collection of baseball bats, but had never played a single inning of the sport.

"I’m going to get her back, Steve," I told him, gripping the edge of the marble island. "I swear to you."

There was a long pause.

Then, "I know."

"You do?" I said, slightly taken aback.

"Of course, my man," Steve said. His voice was drawling once more, but it retained a razor-sharp, jagged edge. "I know you will. You’ll get her back. Why’d you think I wanted her running with your crew in the first place? Kidnappings happen in this biz, my man. It happens."

"It shouldn’t," I said. Dammit, why did Steve have to be so horribly... understanding? I felt even worse. It would have honestly been easier if he had just screamed at me and threatened to send fifty clones to break my kneecaps.

"I know, my man. But I know you, too. You’ll get my sister back. And you will absolutely wreck every single person standing in your way. Right?"

"That’s the exact plan," I promised.

"Cool, man. Cool. If you need anything from me, man, you just let me know. Alright?"

"I will. I think I can handle the assault, but there is one thing I need you to do on the outside. I need you to find where they are treating Mystic, and I need you to get to her. If I can take down Micheal tonight, I need you to fill her in on what actually happened with the Brain Trust. If I fail... try and get her out of there."

"You’ll do it, my man. I know you will. It’s all in the bag. And don’t you worry about the magic lady. I’ll find her, man."

"Thanks, Steve," I said.

"No problem, man. You do what you gotta do, and I’ll do what I do best. Call me when my sis is back. Alright?"

"Sure, Steve. Sure."

"My man," he murmured, and the line went dead.

I pocketed the phone. Well, that was one massive hurdle cleared. Now, all I needed to do was successfully wage a one-man war against the United States government. Simple, so long as you completely ignored physical reality.

I started opening the kitchen drawers, yanking them out with metallic clatters as I hunted through the utensils.

"What exactly are you looking for, sir?" Glacia asked, watching me with a raised aristocratic brow.

"I need some... aha!" I said, triumphantly pulling a long silver tube from behind the baking sheets.

"Who knows if this will actually work or not, but we have to try," I muttered, unrolling a long sheet of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil and crudely crushing it into the shape of a bowl. I turned and shoved it directly toward the ice manipulator. "Here. Put this on."

Glacia took the crinkled silver hat with extreme hesitation, holding it by the very edge as if it were coated in toxic sludge.

"Sir...?"

"It’s a trick Psyren told me about," I explained quickly, tucking the rest of the roll under my arm. "Apparently, organic telepathy really struggles to penetrate a solid layer of tinfoil. It disrupts the psychic waves."

"Oh, Milesy, absolutely not!" Lilith gasped from the doorway, pressing a hand to her cleavage in sheer horror. "You cannot ask this poor, elegant darling to wear kitchen supplies! It completely ruins her silhouette! It clashes with the icy aesthetic!"

"She wears the foil, Lilith, or Micheal scrambles her brain from three floors up," I snapped.

"If you insist, sir," Glacia sighed, casting a withering look at the succubus before gracefully placing the crinkled tin foil atop her pristine white hair. She looked utterly ridiculous, but she wore it with the stoic dignity of a condemned queen.

"Rhea?" I said, turning to the mechanic.

"Yeah?" she said, perking up.

"I need you to get me a full structural schematic of the BSA headquarters. I need to know exactly what kind of black-site room they’re keeping Psyren in. Where the Override Array is. How deep underground it goes. I need every digital blueprint you can pull up."

"Miles! Are you seriously asking if I’d do something as wildly suicidal as hack into the BSA mainframe, rip out classified schematics from one of the most secure federal databases on the planet, all without getting caught?"

"Can you do it?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Rhea purred, a wicked, feral grin stretching across her face. "I’ll scrape every fucking classified file off their goddamn hard drives!"

"Good. Do it. But Rhea? One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Do not be subtle about it."

The entire room went dead silent.

"Make sure Cortex’s IT department can trace the breach right back to us," I said, my voice hardening. "I want him to know exactly when I’m coming there tonight."

Everyone stared at me blankly.

"Uh... you sure about that?" Rhea asked hesitantly, raising her hands in a placating gesture. "Not to, you know, bust your balls here, Miles. But do you really think it’s a good tactical idea for a fortress full of capes to know the bad guy is knocking on the front door?"

"Positive," I said firmly. "I want Micheal to know I’m stopping by. I want him to panic. I want him to pull every single S-class hero he has currently mind-controlled and put them directly between me and Psyren."

"Sir?" Glacia asked, her icy blue eyes wide beneath her tinfoil hat. "Are you suggesting we attempt to defeat the entire BSA... all at once?"

"Absolutely," I said.

And then, I explained my plan.

As the details fell into place, Rhea stared at me, completely slack-jawed. Glacia visibly shivered, a hot, breathless flush spreading across her pale cheeks.

"Oh, sir," Glacia gasped softly. "That is... that is simply diabolical."

"Oh, Milesy!" Lilith squealed, aggressively fanning her face with her crimson hands, her yellow eyes practically glowing with lust. "That is so horribly, wonderfully naughty!"

"Well," I said, offering them a grim, cynical shrug. "I am the bad guy."

"I’ll say!" Rhea cheered. She stepped right up into my personal space, rising on her tiptoes with a hungry, wicked grin. "And I’m just gonna say this right now, Miles. I really love it when you get evil."

She grabbed the collar of my jacket, pulled me down, and planted a hard, electrical kiss right on my lips. Then, giggling like a maniac, she spun around and bolted out of the kitchen, sprinting back toward her lab to tear the federal government’s firewalls to shreds.

Good. That was the logistics out of the way.

Now, all that remained was to actually pull off the impossible.