"Coward," was the first word out of Vortex's mouth when her daughter limped through the doors of the Lair.

Lucid dropped her cracked helmet on the cement floor. A few more shards of carbon fibre went skittering away.

"You're lucky I made it out alive," she said dully. "The helmet broke and it's a wonder the teleport worked well enough to get me out of the building."

"A prototype." Vortex didn't even glance down, though a fragment of the helmet lay just between her high-heeled black boots, glittering in the sharp fluorescent lights. She straightened one sleeve of her tailored pantsuit.

They were in an open room like a parking garage, high-ceilinged, with a feeling of dimness that didn't match the physical appearance of the place. The two of them were standing between rows of shiny black cars, a lineup of powerful, sleek beasts that anyone would instantly associate with a supervillain. The centre aisle of the garage was the only one lit up – though half a dozen other rows of cars stretched out into the darkness on either side, those vehicles were for function, not fashion. Plain dingy-coloured sedans, pickup trucks, and dirty delivery vans with various logos took up the rest of the garage space.

Lucid's gaze fell to her mother's hands. They were clean and manicured, a square glass sloshing with honey-coloured liquid in Vortex's left hand. The drink wasn't a surprising development, but Lucid remembered vividly those fingers stained with axle grease, in a time when Vortex had fixed cars between missions, when she had been more interested in the mechanical workings of inanimate objects than humans.

Now, it seemed, she preferred to do her experiments on people.

Vortex had to tilt her head up to meet Lucid's eyes.

"You, however, are irreplaceable," she said serenely. "I thought I should let you know that, since you don't seem to care whether you win, lose, or die. How is it, despite your clear advantage, you made so many elementary mistakes?"

Lucid looked thoughtful. "You know, the beginning of that sentence was probably the nicest thing you've said to me in eight years."

She met Vortex's level gaze and kicked the helmet away in an exaggeratedly slow motion. There was a gentle thud as it came to rest against the tire of a '22 Vanquish. Lucid felt like a sulky teenager, and was momentarily ashamed, but a stubborn throbbing in her jaw told her she deserved to sulk.

"We're going to discuss your performance in front of the children," Vortex said.

Lucid rolled her eyes. "Oh, no, not the children."

* * *

The simple question-and-answer structure, using the audio footage from Lucid's suit, had already deteriorated into Vortex off on some passionate tangent about the future of superheroism.

Four teenagers sat enraptured on sofas in the common room, obviously much more interested in the new development than they had been with the first half hour of the discussion. What was the first mistake of the agent (that would be Lucid) when she engaged the second subject? Why was it a bad idea to let her opponent talk? All boring questions. So when Vortex put down the playback device and started in on the government-sponsored supers and their elitist politics, the teens were quick to encourage her.

Lucid perched on a desk against the wall, clad in track pants and a long-sleeved shirt. She had planned to enter with her hair loose around her face, falling forward to cover the jagged scrape along her jaw. But Vortex immediately went to her, tucking the dark hair behind her ear in almost a motherly gesture.

"You're a legend to them," she murmured. "Let them get a good look."

So Lucid let the kids stare. Half an hour ago, they had been watching her like she was a goddess, or maybe a monster that would eat any of them at a given moment. And yet it only took ten minutes for them to realize she was as human as they were.

Ethan Stacey was one of the four, and he had been the first to critique what he heard in the footage. He'd given Lucid the side-eye as Vortex nodded approval, but ignored her from then on. Even the tiny blonde girl had let out a giggle of disbelief at the point where Flickr knocked off the mask.

Ten minutes, and Vortex had them converted.

Thirty minutes, and they were spewing anti-super propaganda like they'd been born doing it.

"It's like racism," said the wiry dark-skinned boy lounging across a blue loveseat. He pulled his legs off the armrest, leaning forward suddenly.

Vortex tilted her head. "Expand, Joseph?"

"Yeah." He pushed up his glasses. "Well, you've got the regular people and the people with superpowers. It's kind of funny, that super genetics didn't start popping up until a hundred years ago – right about when we ended institutionalized racism in developed countries. I'm not saying it's totally gone, just that it's illegal, right?"

Lucid found herself tuning back into the conversation. How old was this boy – fourteen? Fifteen? Younger than she had been when she started thinking for herself... when she'd left for good.

"And the government treats supers like they're a different species," Joseph was saying. "Science has told us enough in the last fifty years about genetics; the difference between people with super genes and everyone else is as tiny as the difference between blue eyes and brown eyes."

Vortex was nodding, and suddenly the tall Asian girl broke in.

"It's like, supers have two choices," she said, playing with a strand of hair. "Either you work for the government or you're against them, right? And if you don't want to become the exclusive property of the government you're labelled a vigilante, like, what if you just want to be a normal person? What if you just like being able to teleport your garbage to the end of the driveway?"

"Or you can get the TV remote without having to stand up," Ethan added, sticking out one hand like he was using his telekinesis. The girl laughed, passing him a bowl of chips.

Lucid found herself staring at the floor. What if you just want to be a normal person?

"And how many of you just want to be a normal person?" Vortex asked, a knowing smirk crossing her face.

The kids glanced at each other, laughing, but no one raised their hand.

"Exactly," she said. "You're all here because you wanted something more, aren't you?"

No, Lucid wanted to say. I just want to be a normal person – but she didn't move, didn't speak. And Vortex swept on, her eyes alight, vision fixed somewhere in the future.

"That's the most beautiful thing of all," the supervillain said. "Science has caught up with superpowers – we can make anyone's dream come true. The government has been hoarding technology, giving out their secrets only to those who pass their elitist programs, the best of the best. And only the rich can afford the best."

Her eyes were probing as she met the teens' gazes individually. "It's just not fair, is it?"

"Can we make it fair?" The blonde girl's breathless outburst lingered in the popcorn-scented air.

Vortex let the silence hang for a moment. She didn't break eye contact with the girl, her expression unchanging.

"How, Kell?" she finally asked.

Kell faltered. Her eyes darted around the room. "Well... if there wasn't any difference between supers and non-supers... I don't know, maybe if there weren't any superpowers—"

"Backwards thinking," Vortex chided. "You want humanity to evolve in reverse, to become lesser than we are? We've only just gained superpowers, and you want us to let them go?"

A fire sparked in Lucid's chest, and she felt the sudden need to defend the tiny blonde. She pushed off the desk, feet spread defiantly.

"If that's what it takes," she said, the volume of her voice surprising even her. "Maybe if that's what it takes to bring peace, to let humanity tolerate itself again—"

"Tolerance is for cowards," Vortex hissed, turning on her daughter. "No one wants to be tolerated – living on the fringes of society, remembering their days of greatness – no. The greatest human need is acceptance, and it can only come if our differences are eliminated. We will not evolve in reverse, so the only solution?"

She turned back to the children, lips parted as if she could almost taste the answer. "How can we make it fair?"

Lucid closed her mouth. Her gaze, like it had been magnetized, dragged itself over the four teens. Ethan's eyes were on the bowl of chips in his lap. The Asian girl beside him was staring at Vortex intently, but didn't speak. Kell was silent, like Vortex's rebuke had taken the spirit out of her.

Joseph sat very still.

"What we couldn't do with racism," he said slowly. "We couldn't make everyone the same colour... but we can give everyone superpowers."

* * *

"That's the art of teaching," Vortex said casually. "Ask the right questions, and they'll think they figured it out on their own. It's simple, really. Don't you think I would make a great teacher, darling?"

The room was empty now, save for Lucid and her mother. The girl was sitting on the desk again, picking at the ends of her shirt sleeves.

"I think you made a great mechanic," she said sulkily.

Vortex laughed. "I'm surprised you remember. Well, the world's changing, and one does have to look for more sustainable employment."

"Like being a supervillain?"

"Goodness, no. That will all be over soon, if all goes according to plan." She slid one hand into a jacket pocket, meeting her daughter's eyes again. "You're my favourite, you know that? I hope your performance today wasn't indicative of how you'll behave in the future. When we reveal our abilities to the public, I need someone standing beside me who's not going to run away if it's two against one."