And do you know what? In some ways, that was the most interesting part of the training montage because Jody learned surprisingly little. I mean, sure, Jody did learn how to phase through matter, but he wasn’t great at it.

As we learned in our fight with him, he barely controlled it. Any additional distractions and he wasn’t able to concentrate enough to use it.

There’s no denying that he learned something useful, though. His speed had increased, and he could run through a city without hitting anything. People didn’t even seem to notice him which might have been because of the speed, but he also might be using some of Rachel’s invisibility.

It was hard to know from his perspective.

If he was turning invisible, though, it was only at his highest speeds when he’d disappeared into the flow of running.

Magnus didn’t teach him what I was learning from Kee. There were no exercises, no naming of the various techniques for controlling and releasing energy, and no using “Artificer vision” to see (or feel) the energies I had the potential to tap. There definitely wasn’t any kind of instruction in how to use the Ghosts’/Artificers’ ability to communicate in real time over interstellar distances.

Maybe Magnus didn’t know them either. Maybe he didn’t trust Jody. Either way, Jody didn’t have a flexible understanding of what he could do.

It was, of course, possible that Jody could not use it. Unlike me, he hadn’t hung out with Lee all his life, affecting me in ways I didn’t even know about, giving me a head start in all things Artificer.

Of course, I still couldn’t do much. If Kee were to be believed, I had a thousand or more years to go before my abilities truly became useful. From what I’d seen, I could almost believe I’d live that long, provided Magnus, the Artificers’ Destroy faction, or some random supervillain didn’t get me first.

I needed to talk to Kee sometime when I had a spare minute, but not now.

“I think this is as far as we can go without digging randomly through his brain,” Daniel said. “I’m taking us out.”

And then we were back. My eyes blinked open, seeing the wood, metal, and treated glass of Justice Fist’s table, all of it undamaged. Presumably, Haley had caught me before I hit.

I pushed myself up—carefully. Otherwise, I might have shattered it with a push.

Haley thought at me through her implant, “Are you okay? I could tell that all three of you were learning things that made you nervous.”

“Pretty much,” I thought back.

Daniel was already sitting up. He’d probably been that way the whole time. “Okay, here’s the situation: Jody does believe that Magnus is acting in good faith. He believes that Magnus wants to save the world. He also wants Magnus to teach him to be more powerful, which Magnus has done, and it’s working.”

Dayton shook his head, “I knew it. I should have guessed from the time we signed up with Futuremen. I love the guy like a brother, but everything in the world set him up to go wrong.”

Sean stared at the table.

Glancing at the two of them, Daniel said, “I’m sorry, but if there’s any consolation in this, he didn’t see it as betrayal. He justified it to himself by believing that Magnus was trying to save the world and that every hero would recognize it eventually. The other thing you should know is that it might not be entirely willing.”

Dayton said, “Really? That’s… Well, it’s not good, but it’s better than I imagined.”

Sean looked up from the table.

Daniel almost smiled, but said, “It’s better by a little. Magnus used to have Dominator powers, but rivals damaged them somehow. The problem is, he’d already developed them more than normal, and they might be coming back. He talked with Magnus a lot over the last few years, so if he could be influenced, he was. Beyond that, a Dominator directly commanded him to kill himself if you found out he was working with Magnus—unless he could run away.”

Sean turned toward Jody, muttering, “Bro…”

Dayton took a breath and asked, “Can you fix him?”

Julie shook her head, “Not easily. The woman who did it was good. To be sure, we’d have to get Kals, the Rocket’s friend, back from space.”

At that, Sean turned to me, “Can we get her back?”

Jaclyn responded before I could, “She just left, and she had to go because she was leading a rebellion against the Human Ascendancy. She was here as a favor, but she’s helping run a war right now.”

“Damn,” Dayton looked over at me. “She’s rebelling against the Ascendancy? That’s crazy. Jody and I spent time on Earth’s ships. That’s a big deal.”

“Yeah,” Sean paused, staring at the table and then saying, ”If she can’t be here, who can fix him?”

“Well,” Daniel said, “Julie and I might be able to with enough time. Kals taught Julie things she’d missed, and Julie’s got access to Dominator training materials now. Here’s the problem: I’m going to have to wipe his memory of being discovered. After that, you can’t give even the ghost of a hint that we know anything.”

“Because if we do,” Dayton said, “he’ll run away or kill himself.”

Sean clenched his fist, “This just gets worse.”