Ray didn’t land close to us. He gave himself 20 feet—which meant that that was as much as he thought he needed. It had been years since he’d died, but I still remembered him.

  As the leader of the Executioners, he’d excelled in planning on how to take down superheroes and their families—families first to increase the stress and emotional pain.

  He hadn’t, as I remembered it, been quite so effective when he’d gained powers himself. It’s one thing to carry out a plan you’ve trained for and still another to copy someone else’s powers and use them as effectively as the original person when you haven’t trained to use them.

  I wondered when this version of him was from and whose powers he’d copied. My first guess would have been Power Burst, but that meant we’d be fighting Izzy for all practical purposes.

  Between the Dominators’ access to people’s minds and Magnus’ access to the device, Ray’s current powerset could have come from someone else.

  I hoped so.

  Ray’s eyes flicked over at Prentkos, and he shook his head, “What are you doing here?”

  Not waiting for an answer, he turned to me. “I heard that I’m dead out there and that you killed me.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” I said, trying to figure out what I could say without giving him a clue as to how he died. “So far as I know, I just knocked you unconscious. Someone else took you out after that. To be fair, I didn’t take a pulse, so I can’t know that without doubt, but I probably didn’t kill you.”

  Ray’s mouth turned into a line. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t sound like you put any effort into stopping him. Aren’t you one of those ‘no kill’ heroes?”

  I thought back to the Deer Crossing sign dropping from the sky to impale Ray’s chest. I had no chance to stop it, not in that version of the stealth suit.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “This is one of those occasions where it’s obvious that you’re out of date. I’ve fought off an alien invasion and participated in a small guerrilla war on another planet since we last met. I genuinely can’t guess at how many people I’ve killed at this point, but I still try to avoid it.”

  Ray’s face showed no expression, but in the pause before he replied, I suspected that he was recalculating who he thought I was.

  “Yeah? Good to know. I’m still imagining the kid at the Christmas party who flew into battle with a Guitar Hero controller. What made you think that was a good idea?”

  I shrugged. “It was a prototype, and I’m still using technology descended from what I developed for that device. I have no regrets. I do have a question for you, though. I’ve noticed that in conversations with potential opponents, you constantly needle them. Are you trying to provoke them into a fight? Are you thoughtless about how people might react, or are you just unkind?”

  Off to my left, Prentkos gave me side eye.

  Ray said, “What the fuck?”

  I shrugged, unsure if it was visible through my armor. “It’s just that you seem like a tactical kind of guy. My gut feeling is that you’re trying to provoke an action. If you’re not, that’s a little disappointing. While I don’t want to compliment you on killing a bunch of innocent people, you did it in such a way that no one knew who you were. It’s sick and disturbing, but shows that you’re effective. I mean, even though most of your targets were civilians and children.”

  As I talked, I wondered what my plan was. I couldn’t kill him, or I changed the whole team’s past. I also didn’t think he’d known his future when I faced him originally. Magnus (or someone) must have told him. If some past version of Jody were in here, he’d also be an option.

  I didn’t dwell on that long. My gut feeling was that he’d copied Power Burst’s abilities. The only thing I could think of was that if Magnus had powered up Ray like he had all of his strongest henchmen, I could take that out by manifesting a sword.

  Then I’d just be facing someone with Izzy’s powers—which still didn’t seem like a fair fight even with Prentkos.

  Asking myself what to do with him might be the wrong route to go, though. If I were in his place, I’d be trying to figure out how to prevent my own death. Bearing that in mind, what did he plan to do with me?

  “Look,” he said, “maybe you and I can make a deal. You give me a way that I can ‘die,’ but not really die, when you kill me, and I let you do what you have to do to Magnus. I know exactly where the guy is, allowing you to avoid all of that.”

  He waved his hands around, indicating the Escher-style maze of madness around us. “What do you say?”

  Prentkos muttered, “Speaking from experience, he’s probably so deeply programmed that he’ll betray you even if he means it.”