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Nadine took a teleporter home instead of the trolley. She hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night, and part of her was still amazed she was alive. Not that she’d actually expected Paris to kill her—but the superpowered woman from the West was definitely pissed at how their meeting had ended, and she would likely strike back at some point.
Nadine was fine with that.
The Eastern Province was nothing like the West. Sure, it wasn’t war torn, but it was exceedingly poor. Nadine would have spent most of her life destitute had it not been for the chance to join an elite group who worked for the governors of Eastern Province.
The sacrifice, what she’d had to do to become one of these Elite members, the people she was never allowed to see again—these were the things that haunted Nadine’s nightmares.
There was hope in Centralia, but there was also a lot of red tape, a lot of politics, a lot of people looking to get in.
And it wasn’t like Nadine hadn’t entertained the idea before. She knew a few people, enough to disappear, but there was a catch-22 with that. Sure, she may never be seen again, but this would also apply to her family back East, her mother and father.
If she disappeared, so did they.
“It’s me,” she said when a slit opened in the door. A pair of oddly-colored eyes looked out at her. The door opened and she entered a dark cellar, where she took a flight of stairs down to the basement.
It was colder here, the air thick with wax from a candle burning in the corner.
“Your disappearing act is getting better,” she told Oscar, the East’s information mule. Oscar had been at this job for years, and Nadine liked to tease him about it. It kept things light, took away their shared longing for home.
“And you’re still as loud and clumsy as ever,” said Oscar, who now stood in the shadows, his bright eyes the only thing visible, one yellow and the other blue. She knew what Oscar looked like: a long face, sagging skin, a sharp haircut, short hair parted on the right.
Nice clothes, too. Whenever she saw him, he was in a vest that matched his slacks, a pressed shirt, a cravat, and a pair of perfectly shined shoes.
Your typical rich older Centralian non-exemplar, at least on the surface.
Aside from missing their shared homeland, Oscar had the life Nadine eventually wanted. He had been trained as a spy, became a handler for a while, and was now simply the person that transferred information.
The necklace he wore granted him a special telepathic ability, the ability to communicate with the other wearer in the East—these communications completely secret, unable to be intercepted.
It was almost a confessional. Oscar sat in a chair against the wall and Nadine sat next to him in another chair, both of them enshrouded by darkness as she relayed the information. Nadine had a handler, but this was the quickest way to get information back to the Eastern Province, where it could be registered, interpreted, and strategized upon.
In the end, there wasn’t a lot of information to relate, aside from the fact that she’d been attacked last night, and that the West was also looking to use Roman as an asset.
“And have you contacted the other asset you are working on, the female exemplar with a special teleportation ability?” asked Oscar, a hand on his necklace as they continued to sit in the dark.
“Not yet, but I was planning to tonight.”
“I see. Well, you’d better get started then.”
“Nice to see you again, Lisa,” Nadine said as the young super approached.
Nadine had chosen a bar not too far from her information drop-off point. She liked the bar, especially since the owner was from back East, and he knew the importance of private booths and dimly-lit spaces.
Lisa Painstake wore a different outfit than she’d worn the previous day. It was still tight, but the fabric at her hips was baggy, allowing for deep pockets. Her pink hair and blond bangs were slicked back, pressed to her head with two hair clips.
“I know you are trying to help me—or you, um, helped me already,” Lisa said after the waitress left. Nadine had ordered waters and left a tip already, letting the waitress know to leave them alone.
“I did help you, that’s true.”
“But I don’t want to take part in anything that’s against the law,” she started to say.
“That’s not why I called you here,” Nadine said, trying to stifle a yawn.
“Then why did you call me here? I thought this was how it worked?”
“You’ve experienced something like this before?”
Lisa sighed. “Actually, yes. It kind of comes with the territory, considering my power. You aren’t the first to want to exploit my abilities, and I don’t believe you’ll be the last.”
Soul Speed, thought Nadine. The ability to move at an extreme speed by detaching one’s soul. It allowed for the type of spying the East couldn’t currently perform. As Nadine removed her earrings—she’d meant to do that earlier, before seeing Oscar—she considered what Lisa had just said. She didn’t doubt for a minute that people had tried to exploit Lisa’s abilities, which meant she would need to come at this a different way.
“Let’s not use the word ‘exploit,’ because that really doesn’t describe what I’m interested in.”
“Then what are you interested in?”
“Are you familiar with the plight of the Eastern Province?” Nadine asked as the waitress brought over two glasses of water. This wasn’t the first time the owner of the small bar had seen Nadine here, always meeting with peculiar people.
Lisa took a sip from her water. “The poorest province.”
“Yes, the poorest, but also the most beautiful. Have you been to the East?”
Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know anyone who has.”
“It’s the views that get you. The magnificent coastline, the mountains, the natural hot springs, the abundance, and the poverty. And it’s not just that the Eastern Province is the poorest; it also has some of the richest people in our world. The separation of rich and poor is something you’ve never seen before. The exemplars, and a few powerful non-exemplars, are at the top with the rest on the bottom, which has created a lopsided situation in which the poor outweigh the rich, and the rich are at the point where they can do nothing to stop it.”
“Can’t they just give their money away?”
Nadine laughed. She could tell by the look in Lisa’s eyes that her words were reaching the young woman. To really deliver her message, she needed to change the topic from the poor to her family. Lisa was from the Southern Alliance, which meant that she likely came from money. Better to change the focus to something she could relate to.
“I guess I should just come out and say it: all this is for my family. Everything I do is for my family.” Nadine took a sip from her water to let that message settle.
“Are they poor, too?”
“Extremely, and it is why I signed up to be what I am now. There are only two ways out of poverty in the Eastern Province: government service, or simply being born rich. At least for a non-exemplar. Exemplars have other options, but not many.”
“So you spy for your family?”
“I wouldn’t say I spy.” Nadine cleared her throat. “I consider myself an information gatherer; I let the others do the real spying, as I don’t have a superpower, so I’m not as useful as someone who could, say, fly, or take over someone’s mind. Everything I am, everything I’ve accomplished from my training forward has been through sheer willpower.”
Lisa took a sip from her water, nodding as Nadine continued.
“But to cut to the chase: there’s information about my parents that I need your help to uncover. For one, they’ve been taken by Centralian forces in the East. So we can start there.”
“You mean they’re prisoners here?”
“They sure are,” Nadine lied, maintaining the sad look on her face without making it feel forced. “And I need your help to get information about them. That’s all. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to exploit your power here; I really want you to be the one who wants to help. Just like the way I helped you with your immigration issue. So, what do you say? Can you help me?”
“Yes,” Lisa said, a stoic look coming across her face. “If it’s for your family, I’ll help.”
