“Me too,” I said, “but either way, I don’t have a better idea.”

“I don’t either,” Haley said, staring past me into the night.

We were over Florida by that point. Our rendezvous with Prime would be over the Everglades in a spot that Dr. Transylvania described as “abandoned by humanity.”

My suspicion that “abandoned by humanity” meant “populated by vampires and alligators” was given a little life by the looks of the place. There weren’t any lights, but a scan of the area as we arrived showed weeds, wooden buildings that leaned as if they were about to fall over, and concrete foundations partially covered by dirt and weeds.

The rusted, abandoned cars, many of them with their doors open, appeared to date from the 1960s.

It would be a great place to hide an army of undead, but if I were a vampire, I’d be building underground tunnels. None of the buildings looked likely to stand another day, much less keep the sun off anything.

As I slowed the jet to hover over the place with the two podjets that Alex requisitioned from the SoCal Defenders, Haley said, “That must be Prime.”

I’d noticed a shimmery shape as we came close, but it was only now that I could see it in detail. Wedge-shaped with rounded edges, it floated about 100 feet above the ground.

I identified the material of the hull as a ceramic commonly used in the Human Ascendancy, as well as by the Abominators. My implant confirmed that and added that it was an armored personnel carrier design that had been manufactured 500 years ago. Prime’s people had been in contact with the Ascendancy after the Abominators’ empire had been destroyed. It didn’t surprise me.

By then, everyone was either looking out the windows or tapping into the jet’s sensors.

Prime popped up on the comm channel we’d designated for this mission. “We’re ready to go,” he said and smiled. “Dr. Transylvania’s team is here too, but they’re sorting something out at the moment.”

Vaughn responded before I could, “What does that mean? You make it sound like someone challenged him for head vampire or something.”

Prime laughed, “I don’t think any of his people are that dumb. No. Vlad’s got an unexpected visitor, but the good kind. He’s helpful, not a vampire slayer or something.”

Another person joined the comm channel. I recognized the name. The Atoner worked with Dr. Transylvania on the Probationers, a team for former supervillains. The Atoner was the Feds’ presence on the team. He wasn’t a supervillain himself, but he had murdered his team while under mind control.

Now visible in his armored, red exoskeleton, his picture flickered to life. “Doc’s got a few final preparations to make before we go. I’m here to prevent certain metaphysical bindings from causing him problems. This mission would be unauthorized without my presence. He thought he’d be able to get around it, but,“ and here he looked off-screen, “I don’t like seeing my friends in pain when they don’t have to be. So I’m here, making this an official mission.”

“Except now,” Dr. Transylvania’s voice came from off-screen, “you might also get in trouble.”

Giving a small nod, The Atoner said, “I’ve seen worse. Anyway, Doc’s activating a final protection or two, but since you’re here, I’m going to make us visible.”

The air above the ghost town rippled, and in a space that I’d thought empty air appeared the Dragon’s Bastion (as named by Dr. Transylvania), sometimes called Castle Dracula (in online forums), and occasionally referred to as the Dragon Turtle (by me) because that’s what it looked like.

A flattened dome with clawed feet and an armored “head” in the front, it flew like a flying castle and crawled like a tank. Its turrets weren’t obvious now, but they were still there, waiting for the right moment to pop out of the armor.

Dark and multi-leveled, the flying dome struck me as a cross between a cast iron stove and an ironclad warship–if they flew and had been decorated with dragon motifs.

From the indrawn breaths elsewhere in the cabin, I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d recognized it. We’d all seen it in the news. Back when Dr. Transylvania was trying to conquer the world, it seemed to appear everywhere—Washington D.C., Moscow, Beijing, and countless war zones. I’d seen it destroy warships and buildings, releasing undead and hordes of rat demons.

Images of it made nightmare fuel for much of Earth’s population.

“Wow,” Vaughn said, “I guess we should be glad no one invited the press to this mission.”

“We’ll be taking footage and releasing it as needed,” Daniel said. “By the end of this, we might want to let everyone know they were here.”

“We might,” Haley shook her head. “I’m so glad we have PR people because I don’t want to explain that thing.”

Over the comm, the Atoner said, “This is what I was talking about. Without me here, everyone’s going to assume Doc reverted even if you destroy the Nine. It’s still not going to be easy, but at least someone with authority will be able to keep on saying the words, ‘Authorized mission’ until everyone gets so sick of it that they agree to pretend.”

Vaughn stared at the Dragon’s Bastion. “It’s not an authorized mission?”

The Atoner looked into the camera, “I authorize it. I haven’t gone beyond that because you can bet that someone with the authority to know is an asset of the Nine. At that point, you might as well send Magnus an announcement that you’re on the way.”

In the background, Dr. Transylvania said, “I’m finished. Let’s go. They’ll never see us coming.”

The Atoner smiled, “That’s what I like to hear. Alright everybody. You know the plan. Vampires infiltrate. Prime’s people smash everything in sight, and the Heroes’ League attacks in the chaos, extracts the hostage, and takes down Magnus.”

“An easy, simple job,” he said, winking.

Though a part of my brain couldn’t help note that it was our plan and he hadn’t been involved in making it, I contacted Hal through my implant and said, “You heard him. I hope the world’s AIs are ready to do their bit.”

Hal replied, “It’s already in progress.”