We didn’t talk too much after that. At any rate, we didn’t talk much. People leaned back in their seats and napped or at least closed their eyes. I would have too if I hadn’t been flying the plane.

In the end, it wasn’t a long trip. I took the jet up to a high altitude and then aimed the jet downward toward Grand Lake.

We didn’t have any trouble with intercepting planes, missiles, or paranoid supers. Instead, we dropped into the lake, entered through the underwater entrance, and emerged in the base.

After the water drained from the airlock, I floated the jet into the hangar. 

We were home. It wasn’t even 8 AM.

After we’d showered and put away our costumes, everyone paused in the break area. Kayla had picked up breakfast. Whether it was amazing or merely okay, in that moment, it was amazing, not to mention somehow hot enough that it could have come straight from the kitchen.

At least that’s how I remember it. I may be deluding myself. Fitting the pseudo-Waffle House style of the restaurant, there were waffles, sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, and biscuits with sausage gravy.

Also there were lots of them. Supers ate more than most people to begin with, but there were a bunch of us… Haley, Marcus, Jaclyn, Cassie, Amy, Tara, Izzy, Daniel, Camille, Sydney, Julie, Chris, Kayla, Rachel, and I. We’d invited Dayton, Sean, and Jody, but they were bringing Jody to their team doctor.

He’d woken up on the way back and seemed okay, if confused, but the implant modifications hadn’t faded away. They needed to be catalogued and understood.

I couldn’t blame them and honestly, I couldn’t say I minded. As much as he’d been through a hellish experience and I hoped he’d get the therapy and medical attention he needed, I’d been in fights against him three times in the last two days. I didn’t want a fourth.

Near the end of the meal, Cassie said, “I don’t know what you’re doing today, but does anyone want to watch a movie tonight?”

Haley looked up from her plate. “My parents are planning Travis’ funeral today. Since we’re home, I should help, but I might be able to.”

Daniel and Izzy looked at each other and answered, “Sure,” at almost the same time, having most likely had a short telepathic conversation.

By the time we were done, almost everyone could make it. Personally, I decided to play it by ear. If Haley needed me, but wasn’t up for a group of people after family stuff, I’d do something with her.

We kissed as she left, telling me, “I’ll tell you what I’m doing by  three. We’ve made a lot of decisions already. I’ll know if I’m up for people by then.”

Then she stepped into the elevator and the doors closed.

I turned to find Rachel behind me.

“I should have caught the elevator with her and gone home, but I missed a lot. You told me Dad knows now, that Uncle Steve’s here, that Travis died, and that the Dominators messed with Ana, but only in snippets. I want to hear all of it in order and in detail.”

So that’s what we did for the next hour or two. We sat in the break area talking through it and it wasn’t just us. Amy and Tara, the only members of the group that didn’t have families to go home to here, stuck around and helped.

When we were done, Rachel stood up, “Okay. Now I’m going home. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that Mom killed Number Eight. That’s crazy. And practically in front of Dad and Uncle Steve and in our basement?”

“They seem okay,” I said. “I thought I had, but I guess I didn’t. It’s been one thing after another since Major Justice went after us. Oh… I didn’t see it till just now, but Dad sent me a text saying he’s putting in a new front door himself. All the local handymen are working on mushroom zombie damage. It’s probably a good sign that he’s trying.”

Rachel frowned, “Only if he does better than when he fixed the bathroom door. I think we both need to get home as soon as possible.”

The bathroom door did stick a lot after that, but cutting off the bottom quarter inch fixed it.

“There a couple things I want to check on first,” I told her. “I’ll probably be an hour, but not longer.”

Crossing her arms and meeting my eyes, she said, “It better not be longer,” but she still left.

I walked into my lab, logged into the computer and found myself greeted by an avalanche of messages. I would have seen them through the comm system except that I’d set a status that allowed Hal to filter any messages from people outside the mission and respond to any that were important.

On a practical level that meant that an AI called Our Mutual Friend might have loosed steampunk style battlemechs on anyone who attacked the League’s families. While I’d told Hal that I didn’t feel comfortable releasing their locations, but he’d told me, “No need. OMF already knows, but he interacted with Lee after individuals in Syndicate L learned your identity and won’t reveal anything.”

Lee had once told me that people in Syndicate L who’d learned my identity had met with, “unfortunate blender accidents.”

I’d told him not to do that again, but hadn’t looked into it too deeply. I didn’t need to know whether it had been a literal or metaphorical blender.

Anyway, most of the messages were from other hero groups that Hal sent messages about the Nine and their assets to. They asked for confirmation and he’d successfully pretended to be me.

From the news alerts that continued to pop up, I couldn’t complain because the last few hours had been a metaphorical bloodbath for the Nine, their mind controlled assets, and businesses. It hadn’t been great for Syndicate L either. A number of their top people had been mind controlled assets.

The other messages came from friends who’d been in the hero groups. Courtney had been hired by a super group secret enough that she wouldn’t tell anyone its name, only that they were on the edge of something big and she couldn’t talk about it.

Her most recent message said, “Hal, thanks for admitting it’s been you, but could you make sure the Rocket sees this one? Rocket? I just watched what you’ve been doing on the island. We should have been coordinating with the League the whole time.

“We discovered that Goldenlash, leader of the Seattle Sentinels was working with the Nine willingly and turned his whole team. Hal just handed us the evidence we’d been missing and the opportunity to catch them in the act. Thanks for that. Oh, and Stephanie says hi. We used her mind control symbols a lot.”