Chapter 5

First Lieutenant Blaine Winters rolled through the gates of Winter House, his family’s Mount Kisco estate, a little after sunrise. As such things went, the place wasn’t too large — a mere fifty acres set off from the road by a low stone wall and a long, tree‑lined cobblestone drive. Technically, the family still owned the beaux‑arts style Diogenes Building a few blocks north of Columbus Circle, but his father had moved the family up to Westchester shortly before Blaine was born. That made Winter House the only home Blaine had ever known.

He gunned his motorcycle’s engine, flying up the estate’s tree-lined cobblestone lane until it gave way to the long, curving driveway that arced in front of Winter House proper. The manse sprawled across ten thousand square feet of red brick colonial construction accented by classic white wooden gables and windowsills alongside a long white colonnaded front porch. This central section was then flanked on either side by smaller, more intimate residential wings that curled back around the estate’s rear gardens, providing a familial outdoor space well away from prying eyes.

Blaine brought his motorcycle to a halt, kicked down the kickstand, and drew his sunglasses from his face. Though his father had ridden a Harley, Blaine himself preferred the Ducati Panigale Superquadro. Both bikes had been built for relative comfort on longer rides, but only the Ducati’s engine purred doing ninety-five up the West Side Highway. Blaine never wore a helmet. Neither had his father. New York State law might’ve declared helmets a necessity, but as Blaine’s mother was always quick to point out, it was important to find little ways to remind people who you were. Neither man needed a helmet because of who they were, and if that didn’t necessarily set a good example for the little people, well, mundies weren’t Blaine’s concern. Besides, Blaine had yet to meet a traffic cop with the stones to write the freaking Centurion a ticket for riding without a helmet.

By the time he got to the manse’s front door, it already stood open. “Your mother is expecting you, sir,” Antonio said. His butler’s voice remained cool as ever. “She awaits in the salon.”

“She’s expecting me?” Blaine said. “Crap.”

“I believe that she saw the news this morning whilst taking her morning coffee. Said something about making sure we had enough in case we had a guest.”

“Dammit,” Blaine muttered. “I guess I’ll take mine there, too.”

“I’ll tell the lady you’ve arrived, sir.”

Blaine shook his head, wondering what he’d just gotten himself into. He stepped into the foyer, boots clicking softly on the white marble tile.

The family’s move to Mount Kisco had proven fortuitous given that the government had tried to seize ownership of the Diogenes Building through eminent domain once the Enhanced Forces Act went into effect, nationalizing the Diogenes Society and, indeed, the larger ultrahuman community as a whole almost ten years ago. Blaine’s mother’s lawyers had put a stop to any actual seizure, if barely, but they’d failed to retain operational control of the building, nor could they exclude Blaine from the legislation’s impacts. As a result, the government had forcibly leased the former Diogenes Society headquarters from the Winters family in perpetuity, though at market rates as set by a neutral arbitrator, while Blaine agreed to join the ROTC Detachment at Fordham University ostensibly of his own free will.

He passed beneath the chandelier, its crystal facets scattering morning light across the floor. Unconsciously, he braced himself at the edge of the foyer proper.

For his part, Blaine liked the way things had worked out. He’d always wanted to serve and indeed, had wanted to go to West Point, though the government disallowed that for ultrahumans. Still, ROTC remained an acceptable compromise. His mother, however, had worried at the precedent his service set for other ultrahumans. Blaine did not personally want to spend the rest of his life fighting the government, either literally or in court, but he suspected his mother might’ve tried one or both of those things under other circumstances. For that matter, events likely would’ve unfolded very differently had his father lived to testify to Congress during the Enhanced Forces debate. As things stood, however, Blaine’s desire to serve had won the day, though not strongly enough to retain full control of the family’s real estate empire nor to protect the rest of the ultrahuman population from the government’s desire to expand and reinforce its nascent EFD.

In effect, they paid him hundreds of millions of dollars a year to live in a building he already owned, supporting the team that would have been his birthright regardless. Thus, Blaine could serve without putting his family’s financial legacy at risk while the government got an ideally placed ally within the ultrahuman community at a price that was, if not cheap, then at least affordable within the larger defense budget. Blaine could only hope that the downside didn’t put too many of his people at risk down the road.

He exhaled slowly. None of this was what he’d imagined when he first dreamed of wearing the uniform. He wanted to uphold his family’s traditions, not make choices for other people.

The manse’s foyer had been designed to dazzle visitors, but to Blaine it only underscored the weight of his family’s history. He passed two battle scenes, both done in oil on canvas, showing Octavius Winters during the Revolution. The first showed then-Captain Winters at the Battle of Monmouth. In the next, Major Winters stormed the works at Yorktown at the head of General Alexander Hamilton’s command. 

Further down, paintings gave way to old daguerreotypes and gelatin silver prints in large gilded frames. In the largest, Blaine’s great-great-great grandfather laid the eventual Diogenes Building’s four hundred pound cornerstone with his own two hands. 

Press clippings started at about this point alongside more modern photos of Winters men in uniform. Blaine passed depictions of his forefathers in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and in Europe for the Great War. His great-grandfather’s original “hero’s uniform” stood here as well, dressing a life-sized white marble statue, next to pictures of the man as an Army captain in North Africa.

Ultrahuman genetics had remained the stuff of legend through the early part of the twentieth century, but the advent of fast film photography alongside widespread scrutiny had all but forced Horatio Winters to go public with the family genetics. A showman at heart, Blaine’s great-grandfather had responded by designing a uniform straight out of the Saturday morning radio serials and proclaiming himself the first Centurion. He’d then headquartered the nascent Diogenes Society right there in his own building, which he’d rechristened the Diogenes Building to reinforce the Society’s brand value. Even after Blaine’s father, the second Centurion, had moved the family to Mount Kisco, the Society had stayed in the City in their erstwhile building. This cemented both their legacy as a New York institution and the Winters’ place at their head.

But that’s all ancient history, Blaine thought. We live in a new world now.

Even so, Blaine always felt like his great-grandfather watched him whenever he came through the manse’s front door. 

Blaine’s father’s uniform stood across from the original, complete with its famous eighties-style domino mask, zippered pockets, and red leather trim. Framed press clippings surrounded this newer uniform. The largest showed his mother, then a bikini-clad teenager, climbing onto the back of the Centurion’s Harley at the end of the Radical Robot Rampage. That shot had famously appeared above the fold on the front page of the New York Times. “Centurion Saves City!” The photographer caught the moment just as the sun was coming up after the climactic battle.

Unsurprisingly, none of the displayed clippings showed that battle’s beginning, when Emma Jean Winters, the infamous Ice Queen, rode a robot tripod-tank alongside Dr. Destructo. This particular slice of history was careful to show only the aftermath, once she’d switched sides and helped the Society send her former paramour to a supermax prison. She and Blaine’s father had then literally ridden off into the sunrise. 

They’d married a mere six months later, to the eternal delight of New York’s tabloids. 

Unfortunately, Blaine could think of no one else from whom he could get perspective on what he’d seen the previous night. The world had changed a lot since Blaine’s parents’ day, but his mother remained well-connected. Indeed, with his father gone, she had become his best and perhaps only real resource for understanding his place in the world.

Blaine took a moment to check himself in the mirror. The Army had designed its ACUs to be wash-and-wear, so it was hard to make them look good. Still, he wanted to at least try. Experience had long since proven that he should always look his best when visiting the Ice Queen. But his uniform looked about like it always did, which was just as well given that he couldn’t do much about it now. He kept his hair in a close high-and-tight, so even that didn’t look mussed from the ride over. His mother would still find fault, of course, but Blaine had lived with that for as long as he could remember. 

He was a soldier. His mother would never truly accept that, nor would she agree with his decision to acquiesce when the government had started trying to nationalize the superhero business. Against the value of Blaine’s legacy and his family’s future, his actual desires mattered little in her eyes.

Rehashing that debate would change nothing now, however. 

“Mother,” Blaine said when he walked into the salon.

A relatively intimate space given the size of the manor house, Blaine’s mother’s salon nevertheless remained her favorite room. Its great glass windows overlooked the rear gardens, providing pristine outdoor views and plentiful natural light. The room’s simple, white-painted trim accentuated this effect to the point that the view could become distracting at midday. In the morning, though, it caught the light perfectly. A little-used white leather loveseat sat at the room’s center, looking out onto the garden, but Blaine, of course, found his mother sitting off to one side in her favorite white upright armchair.

She looked up from the Times, and Blaine felt like he’d come under a cobra’s gaze. Her expression remained placid enough, but her eyes held their habitual icy blue stare, and Blaine could almost imagine her tasting the air, probing for any hint of weakness or fear. He could see at once that she truly had been expecting him and not just because she’d seen the news. Her white-blond hair was down and curled at the bottom in a hard set, the result of several hours spent with Sophia, her ladies’ maid, and a well-worn curling iron. She also wore so much makeup you’d think she was expecting to do television later in the day. Considering that the hour had not yet reached nine in the morning, Blaine’s visit provided the only possible reason she would have gone to this much trouble so early in the day.

Thankfully, she’d not formally dressed. Instead, she wore a white silk dressing robe trimmed in a blue that matched her eyes along with her favorite white fur slippers. This merely confirmed that she’d dressed specifically for Blaine. Had she been expecting real visitors, she would have worn business attire, meaning a white pants suit and pearls.

“Why, what an unexpected surprise,” the Ice Queen said. “To what do I owe the pleasure this morning, lieutenant?”

Blaine didn’t let her play dumb. “Antonio told me that you saw the news. I came to talk about Tiffany Trujillo and Dr. Necropolis.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, standing to kiss him on the cheek. “You came on business. Well, it’s good to see you in any case, darling.”

“What can you tell me about them?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid,” his mother said dismissively. “Neither rose to the level of your father’s notice. Well, not very often, in any case.”

“You must remember something,” Blaine insisted. “Titania was a member of the Diogenes Society.”

“Yes, fine,” his mother acknowledged. “I knew her a little. Haven’t thought of her in ages, though.” She shooed her hands outward, as though flicking the memories away. “I never liked her. She was a little slut, if you must know, and practically a mundie. She’d never have been anybody if she hadn’t been screwing that infernal Oberon. Why your father ever allowed her into the Society in the first place I’ll never understand. Don’t get me started. I mean, Oberon, he could afford to be eccentric because he had such exquisite superpowers. You know, he was really ultrahuman. But Titania—”

“Wasn’t Oberon an alien?” Blaine cut in.

“Oh whatever, Blaine. You know what I mean. He was a superhero. A real one. Not some slut off the streets who could barely fly.”

“Well, Ms. Trujillo is an FBI agent now,” Blaine said. “I met her last night at the crime scene.”

“They put her in the FBI?” Blaine’s mother asked. She sounded horrified. “I’m surprised the FBI’s not investigating her. She and that Necropolis were supposedly thick as thieves once upon a time. There’s another asshole, that Dr. Necropolis. He really is a mundie, you know. Another jerkoff scientist trying to play God in a world nature never intended for him.”

Taking his coffee from Antonio, Blaine sat across the table from his mother. The coffee tasted rich and bitter.

No surprise there.

 “Did you know Necropolis? I mean, back in the old days?”

“Phaw! Your father and I might’ve chased him a time or two, but the Diogenes Society wasn’t founded to chase mundies, darling. Your father fought Necropolis’s partner a couple of times, the Siberian Tiger. You know, toward the end of his, uh, career. But McGuinness himself remained strictly bush-league. An actual human. We let the police handle that kind of trash.”

“But I thought Oberon—” Blaine began.

“Well,” his mother said, cutting him off as though he hadn’t spoken, “I suppose they’ll be sending you after that Siberian Tiger here in a bit. The EFD may not know their heads from their asses, but it’s the obvious play. It’ll be good for you, I suppose. Get your face in the papers when you finally bring him to heel.”

Blaine blinked. “But wasn’t Oberon the one who finally brought in Necropolis? I mean, if he was just some small time mundie—”

“Oh, please!” his mother cried, cutting him off. “The man was an alien. There’s no telling what went on in that outer space brain of his.”

“But that’s right, isn’t it? That Oberon brought in Necropolis?”

“Yes, of course! Now will you shut up about Dr. Necropolis? You need to worry about the Siberian Tiger. He’s the one they’ll be sending you after. McGuinness is rotting in jail.”

“I can’t,” Blaine said. “Agent Trujillo asked me to go with her to see Dr. Necropolis tomorrow morning up at Sing Sing.”

“What?! No! No, don’t you dare. You’re going after the Siberian Tiger. Why would you waste your time with that asshole—”

“Because the Tiger used one of Necropolis’s inventions. It’s called the—”

“Who cares?” his mother said, voice icy. “The Siberian Tiger is a Russian mobster with some real juice. And he’s practically an animal. He’s perfect for you!”

“But—”

“No!” His mother almost yelled it at him. “You stay away from goddamn Frank McGuinness, do you hear me? The man is a delusional psychopath, and he’s capable of anything. You think you’ll be safe just because he’s in some cell in a mundie prison? The man is psychotic. Stay away from him!”

“But you just said—”

“Now you listen to me, Blaine Cornelius Winters. There is nothing for you there, trust me on this. You just worry about going one-on-one with the Siberian Tiger, and you’ll be fine. Do you hear me?”

Unsure what else to do, Blaine nodded slowly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m serious, Blaine. Stay away from McGuinness. Nothing good can come from getting mixed up with him. He is an absolute madman. Let that slut Titania worry about him. You need to stay focused on the Tiger. That’s who you need to go after. He’s the one who will make your reputation. Not some mad scientist who’s capable of God knows what.”

“I understand, mother.”

“Good. Make sure you do. Now, tell me who you’re dating. The tabloids have been remiss regarding your love life.”