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“Me?” Nick asked innocently, hand near his throat. “Planning?I’m more of a by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy.” He tapped the side of his head. “Neurodiverse, remember? ADHD makes planning things hard.”
“I know,” Burke said. “Your parents came to me, asking for help with that and something a little… extra.”
“When I say it, it’s cute and fun,” Nick said. “When you say it, it comes off sounding like you’re trying too hard. Maybe leave the quips to me, yeah?”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Burke said. “If you were my child, I’d have strangled you the moment you learned your first word.”
“Neat,” Nick said. “Though, a note, if you’re open to constructive criticism. Every fic author knows you need criticalfeedback in order to grow as a writer. Ready? Threatening to kill teenagers is extremely shitty, and not very mayoral. Focus, dude. You’re obviously proud about the pills, seeing as how you’re stroking them. That’s a little weird.”
“The pills,” Burke repeated, eyes narrowed. “Yes, I suppose I am proud of them. A feat of human engineering, temporary though the effects are.”
Anthony rejoined the goons, and Rebecca Firestone stood next to the desk, arms crossed, expression carefully blank. “But it still doesn’t make sense,” Nick said. “Why would you make pills to give people powers when you want to cure Extraordinaries?”
“That’s your problem, Nick. You’re so wrapped up in the here and now that you fail to see the future. I may not be precognitive, but the future is known to me, and it is glorious.” He stepped away from the pills, gaze trained firmly on Nick. “Imagine, if you will: those whose job it is to protect and serve. Unfairly maligned. Ridiculed. Powerless against those with abilities and the unending tides of social justice.”
Nick frowned. “Social—holy shit. Are you talking about the NCPD?”
“I am,” Burke said. “Give them the tools to do their jobs. An army of Extraordinaries weeding out those who would defy us. Finding the Extraordinaries who hide their powers, who fight back. Removing their powers, leaving them ordinary. And once we’ve proven our success, the entire country will bebeggingme to do the same for them. Why call a SWAT team when you could call a single Extraordinary who could put people to sleep with a wave of their hand?”
Nick scoffed. “There’s no way you’ll convince people that they’ll be safer being protected by cops with superpowers.”
“You sorely underestimate the need for security that people feel. So many of them desperately want to believe the police can keep them safe. And the police want that as well. So if I give them the power to do just that, who do you think the rest will turn to? You, a child playing a game, or the men and womenin blue? And once a few of the officers get a taste of what I can offer, won’t the others want the same thing? You of all people should know what someone will do with abilities like I can provide.” He smiled. “You did everything you could to become an Extraordinary, not knowing it was already in your blood thanks to your mother.”
“Who you had killed,” Nick snapped.
The skin under Burke’s right eye twitched. “Someone’s been talking, I see.” He nodded gravely. “That… was unfortunate. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I did everything I could to make her see the light. That someone like her, someone likeyouneeded to be studied, tested to see just how powerful your telekinesis truly is.”
Stunned, Nick said, “You wantedme?”
“I did,” Burke said. “A child, abilities passed down from his mother. The implications were staggering. Owen didn’t have that. His mother was… well. Normal, as was everyone else in her family, as far as I could tell. And Patricia’s own parents were long dead when I met her, but there’s no evidence they were anything but ordinary. Seth Gray’s parents weren’t able to manipulate fire. So the question iswhy? What is it about certain people that makes them genetically predisposed to pass their abilities on to their offspring while others can’t? ThethingsI could have learned from her. From you.” He eyed Nick speculatively. “Still could, in fact.”
“And she refused,” Nick said, skin vibrating painfully. “So you sent people after her to make sure she couldn’t tell you no again.”
“Collateral damage,” Burke said. “She was onto me, and it was only a matter of time before she spoke. Maybe no one would have listened to her, but I couldn’t take that chance.”
“They would have,” Nick snapped. “She would’ve convincedeveryone.”
“And now she can’t,” Burke said.
“You’re a goddamn monster,” Nick said coldly.
Burke sneered. “What you call a monster, others will see as avisionary. Your mother was an unfortunate—but necessary—sacrifice, not unlike Christina and Christian Lewis.”
“If only she’d listened,” Patricia cooed, forehead drenched in sweat as the shadow tentacles from her back quaked. Trey, head bowed, breathing heavily through his nose. Bob was pressed flat against the ceiling, face red. Miles was near Dad, but they couldn’t reach each other, arms still pinned at their sides. “She could have done so much. Instead, she threw it all away with her misplaced sense of virtue. I would know. I’vebeenher.” She smiled up at Dad, a terrible thing with too many teeth. She arched her back, and a piece of one of the smoke tentacles holding Dad snapped off, shrinking to the size of a quarter before expanding into a thin line with a sharp point at the end, like a spear. Ice began to form at the base, snapping and crackling as it spread until the smoke had disappeared entirely, replaced by solid ice. The spear hovered in front of Dad’s face, the tip inches from his nose.
Nick jumped when something exploded behind him, the bang muffled. He turned toward the windows. Green sparks fell down the side of Burke Tower. A second later, another explosion in the sky, blue and yellow, lines of fire stretching high above Nova City and illuminating the seventy-second floor.
The fireworks had begun.
Burke stepped away and stopped in front of the windows, looking down. From this high up, the massive crowd must have looked like ants. His face lit up in shades of gold and violet as another firework detonated. “Greater men than I have tried to revolutionize the force used to protect their own people,” he said. “But I have something they didn’t.”
“A misplaced sense of grandiosity?” Nick asked. He glanced at Rebecca Firestone, who had her hand on top of the Guardian helmet. She nodded, twisting the helmet until the lenses faced Burke once more. She jerked her hand back when Burke turned around, but he paid her no mind.
“The will to see it through,” Burke said. “No matter the cost. Some won’t understand. They may even think me a villain—”
“Uh, yeah,” Nick said. “That’s because you are. I can’t believe I have to be the one to explain this to you.”
Burke rushed forward. Nick didn’t move, refusing to be intimidated, even when Burke gripped his face, fingers digging into his cheeks. “They will do whatever I tell them to,” Burke snarled. “Sheep need direction. And I will give it to them. Nova City is just the beginning. If you think I give two shits about becoming mayor, you’re sorely mistaken.”
