timeblink
Masks: Heartland Justice, 2025-03-13
opening panels
- Espinoza, the AEGIS HQ building engineer, making a call. Behind him, the steel tank holding the black tar that possessed Void is terribly corroded.
- Abed, in the woods, checks his phone. He has a half dozen missed calls from Espinoza. In each successive voicemail, he grows more panicked about the state of the tank.
- A janitor mopping under the tank. A drip lands on his shoulder. He looks up. A black splotch lands between his eyes.
- Patton speaking at a rally at Buckingham Fountain, claiming to have evidence that elements within AEGIS plan to interfere with the election in a couple days
- Miles pausing at the plaza at AEGIS HQ. Agents and supers are holding back protestors wearing Patton masks and hats. A commander gets word that Patton's speech ended at the fountain and the crowd is moving north toward HQ.
Dark Storm
Miles go to AEGIS Command Center to find his mother, Storm. The door is blocked, but he can open it: the body of the janitor, with inky stains on his uniform. In the center of the room, Storm faces away from Miles, heaving for air, beneath her, Planetar is laying in a pool of golden liquid. Dead. Storm turns to Miles, her eyes are utterly black.
"Why?" Miles asks.
"He interfered," answers Storm, in a voice not her own.
"With what?"
"Me."
She steps over to a computer terminal and types something. A moment later, Richard Roberts, chief PDG legal council, walks in from another door with an entourage of AEGIS Legal. He hands a folio to Storm. She signs. He flips pages. She signs again. Pages. Signs.
As she hands the folio back to Roberts, Miles tries to take it. But Storm and Miles both have it. Still holding onto the folio, she unleashes a barrage of blindingly fast punches, but Miles dodges them.
Behind Miles, Roberts, annoyed, says, "You know we can just print another one."
"I want to read it," Miles answers.
Then Miles pulls Storm outside and onto the lake. At superspeed they run on the surface of the water, but each struggling to direct the other, they trace a looping, drunken path. A cloud of mist rises around them.
Miles takes a blow and fights through the pain. He tries to bearhug Storm and sink them both but can't. Storm delivers another blow and wrenches free. She starts running circles around Miles, creating a whirlpool beneath him and a tornado above. Miles sinks. He starts to drown.
out of the woods
After leaving Rayburn at Loyola Hospital, Abed, Clarke, and Diego go to AEGIS HQ. With his super senses, Clarke sees:
- to the left: at the plaza where the protest is happening, Randy Roberts and Legal emerge from HQ, confer with a commander, and AEGIS agents begin standing down, protesters begin to fill the plaza
- to the right: the march from the fountain nears HQ and scattered among the marchers are others in SkumTech exoskeletons
- forward: on the lake, the mist parts for a moment, Miles sinks beneath the water
Clarke and Diego push past protestors in the plaza to enter HQ and find the tank. Abed, meanwhile, goes to the lake to help Miles.
Clarke and Diego find the tank. It has a large whole in it and is empty. They go to Espinoza's office and find him laid out, half in and half out of his office. He's unconscious and bleeding from a head wound, a bloody and broken mop nearby. They summon a medical team.
timeblink
Drowning, Miles has a Moment of Truth. He runs beyond the speed of light and steps out of time, watching scenes of his recent past roll past in reverse. The fight on the lake. Storm standing over dead Planetar. Calling Storm from the van.
Miles steps back into time but in AEGIS HQ, at the doorway into the Command Center. The janitor has his hand on the knob. Inside, Miles can hear his mom's phone ring. The special ringtone that means it's a call from him.
Miles collides with the janitor. They crash through a window. They're falling to the street below.
double consciousness
Abed hovers over the lake. Over the cloud of mist. Suddenly, it's gone. Actually, it was never there. But Abed remembers it. It feels to him like what it feels like when he edits reality, and he and he alone remembers what now never happened. Something changed.
Abed reaches out with his awareness and makes a psychic connection with Miles0. Through Miles0's eyes, Abed sees him step through time, collide with the janitor, and crash through the window.
Abed goes there, where 15 minutes ago, Miles0 was falling with the janitor.
medical responds
A pair of medical first responders meet Clarke and Diego at Espinoza's office, administer aid, and assure them that he'll be okay. Clarke and Diego go to the security center of the Containment Unit.
They do this remembering when they entered HQ. The plaza was clear. Roberts and Legal had not come down. The commander had not ordered agents protecting the plaza to stand down. They have no memory of any contrary events.
Outside the security center, they find two security agents unconscious in the hallway. Inside, they scan security camera footage. In the shadowy corner of one camera's view, they see the tank breeched and the janitor infected. They trace the janitor's movements across cameras, through the building. They access security logs. They piece together a timeline.
After infection, security agents respond. The janitor dispatches them. Then the janitor attacks Espinoza. Then the janitor goes to the Command Center. Miles0 collides with him and they crash through a window.
Clarke and Diego rush up to the Command Center.
dirty window
Miles0 creates a cushion of air for him and the janitor to land on, but as he does, the janitor reaches up and places a hand on Miles0's face. Rivulets of black tar move under the janitor's skin, into Miles0's pores. Miles0 sees black fingers closing across his vision.
Miles0 vibrates through the plate glass of a nearby coffee shop's window. He stands in the middle of the coffee shop. Patrons stare at him, lattes perched at their lips. Behind him, black tar slides down the outside of the window.
temporary containment
Abed lands beside the janitor, who is just then pushing himself up on his elbows. He's in the middle of the empty street, blocked off because of the protest to the south. He's unharmed but for bloody knuckles. He is utterly confused.
"What the hell is going on?" he asks. Abed explains, then tells him to find his supervisor, file for workers' comp, and take the rest of the day off. He does.
Then Abed turns to the puddle of black tar on the sidewalk. It churns. A shoulder of tar emerges and collapses back into the puddle. A hand of tar reaches up along the glass of the window and falls back. It keeps trying but cannot hold a form.
Abed reshapes the sidewalk into a vault to contain the tar. He knows the steel tank only held it for so long. Concrete will surely fare no better.
Miles0 pokes his head out of the coffee shop and offers Abed a drink.
redo
On the way to the Command Center, Clarke and Diego meet Miles1 also on his way there. They assume it's the same Miles they saw crash through the window. All three enter the Command Center.
Inside, Planetar and Storm are having a heated conversation with Randy Roberts and AEGIS Legal. Supers Stupendo, Yellow Goblin, and Jai Alai stand by, supporting Roberts and Legal.
Roberts threatens legal action to bring all of AEGIS under Legal's control. He offers a settlement that would avoid court. Planetar and Storm reject that. Roberts and Legal retreat, with the disloyal supers glaring at the loyal ones before they too leave.
