Smaller screens around the big board lit up with several different angles showing Fialux in all her glory.

  I wasn’t sure how to react. My hands clenched into fists while meanwhile a blush rose to my cheeks. A blush that wasn’t becoming of the city’s greatest villain looking at the city’s new greatest hero.

  So I focused on the drone feeds instead. Maintaining a fleet of drones hidden behind invisibility shields throughout the city was one of the many devious ways I maintained my grip on said city. A grip that was slipping, but hopefully one of my electronic babies would provide me with some information that would allow that grip to tighten once more.

  Fialux appeared on the other side of the ship. Oh yeah. The feed from my babies was so much better than the stupid feeds they were showing on the Starlight City News Network.

  None of the drone feeds had Rex Roth’s smarmy face overlaid on them pontificating about the meaning of the fight, for example, which was a major improvement.

  I leaned forward. Watching her in action was incredible! She moved so fast and she did it with such style in that amazing outfit. I told myself I was only leaning forward staring with rapt attention because I was interested in her heroics.

  I didn’t want to process what the other pesky feelings that threatened to bubble to the surface every time I saw her meant.

  Fialux pressed against the ship where it was taking a nosedive towards a massive glass skyscraper. I couldn’t remember what that particular building was called. Everyone referred to it as the building that wasn’t quite as tall as the Thomas building.

  I’m sure it was named after somebody who was a big deal when it was built, but everybody stopped caring as soon as it got surpassed in height.

  Now there was a metaphor for the world if I’d ever heard one. You were either on top or nobody gave a damn.

  The pirate ship turned, smoke billowing out of the Fialux sized hole in its side, and pitched down towards the street. CORVAC repositioned one of the drones so that it was in the line of fire.

  I’d probably lose that drone in the process, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

  Our heroine moved down under the ship and pressed up as though she was trying to lift the whole thing. I leaned forward and squinted at the screen. I thought I saw something just as she pressed up. That same sparkling heat mirage I’d seen when I was up close with her.

  Only it was pushing out in the direction she was lifting. It looked like it was, at least. Maybe it was my imagination. I’d have to go back and review the recording.

  The improbable airship started to right itself, started to fly in an almost straight line, but then a loud crack pumped through the lab speakers. Rex Roth screamed like a scared little girl and I glanced up to his screen.

  Now that was interesting.

  The ship’s hull had split right down the middle. Right where Fialux had been pushing on it. Now that it was in two pieces there wasn’t a chance in hell it was going to stay airborne.

  The stern went crashing to the ground immediately, landing on a group of cars abandoned in the street. At least they looked like they’d been abandoned. Nobody in their right mind stayed out in the open when heroes and villains were doing their business.

  The bow kept going since it had the advantage of an attractive superheroine sort of holding it up and almost keeping it on course.

  Fialux barely managed to bring it to something sort of resembling a controlled stop. Almost. At the last moment she lost control as it shattered under the strain of being held up at a single point of pressure.

  Pieces of airship crashed down around her, leaving a very confused hero looking at the two parts of the ship with a bemused expression.

  “Yes!” I shouted. “Zoom in on that expression CORVAC! I want that one to go in the highlight reel!”

  “As you wish, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  I looked up from that wonderful freeze frame to the feed from the Starlight City News Network. Rex Roth was surveying the damage from the top of a skyscraper and narrating. That was about the only thing he was a good for. Narrating other people doing real work.

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  “And despite the valiant efforts of the brave new heroine Fialux, it appears the villains onboard the ship were unable to keep it together,” Roth said.

  I shook my head. “You dumbass. Anyone who’s taken basic high school physics could tell you it was her fault that ship broke up in midair.”

  Not that I’d expect a journalism major to understand something as complicated as basic high school physics. He probably didn’t even bother to take it and opted for a creative writing class instead.

  That seemed like the thing he’d do. I imagined a dorky Rex Roth spending more time writing stories than going out and doing fun stuff like parties and dates and it made me feel better.

  Even though a voice in the back of my head whispered that it’s not like I was partying or dating much in college either. I had my work.

  It looked like the show was over. I went back to trying to think of a way to defeat Fialux. Except I kept coming back to that ship breaking up around a very confused heroine while the whole city watched and Rex Roth jumped to all the wrong conclusions. Again.

  Rex Roth. Idiots. High school. Physics. There was something there. I knew there was something there because my brain didn’t get stuck on something unless that something was there. I was on the verge of something important. I just didn’t know what that something important was.

  It was one of the best things about being an evil mastermind. Never knowing what present my mind was going to deliver to me next.

  Even someone with a basic understanding of high school physics… She’d tried to attack that thing and her “help” hadn’t been enough to save the ship.

  She hadn’t been able to magically lift the whole damn thing. It looked like the laws of physics still applied to her, aside from the whole flying thing. And the whole strength thing too. But still. If I could just figure out a way to…

  “Holy shit!

  “What is it, mistress?”

  “The laws of physics still work for her just the same as they do for everybody else!”

  “Are you feeling well, mistress?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She can fly through the air, she has super strength,” CORVAC started rattling down the list.

  I waved a dismissive hand and mercifully stopped him before he could continue with his litany of all the powers we’d been cataloging since her arrival in the city.

  “I know, I know! I mean aside from the flying thing the laws of physics still apply to her! Don’t you see what that means?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t mistress, but that is why you’re the brains of this operation.”

  I decided to ignore the undercurrent of electronic sarcasm. I’d let him get his little jabs in. They kept up his morale, after all.

  “What that means is she exerted force on that ship,” I explained.

  “And it disintegrated,” CORVAC said.

  “Exactly! She applied too much pressure to one point, more than the structure of that ship could handle, and it shattered right down the middle where she was pushing on it. Don’t you see what this means? It’s basic Newtonian physics. The third law! I can’t believe it’s that simple!”

  “I’m afraid I still don’t follow, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “That’s why I’m the brains behind this operation,” I said.

  I wasn’t above getting my own sarcastic jabs in, after all. CORVAC paused, and then I swear he let out the electronic equivalent of a harrumph.

  “Basic physics CORVAC. Objects exert force on each other. Fialux pushes on a ship with her super powers and the ship can’t push back on her with equal force, so it breaks up. She might be able to fly, she might be ridiculously strong, but ultimately all of her super powers come down to her exerting force on the world around her!”

  “Well yes,” CORVAC said. “That much is obvious.”

  “So she has all these things she can exert force on. The air. Skyscrapers. Unfortunate villains who get in her way. She can do that weird molecule shimmering thing that causes her to fly. She can use her super strength to throw things around. But what if we created a situation where there was nothing for her to interact with? What if there was nothing for her to apply force to?”

  “Are you suggesting some sort of inert field that removes her ability to interact with the outside world?”

  I held up a triumphant finger. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Teleport one of my suits over here. I have to get to work.”

  A suit materialized on my workbench. I glanced up to the hologram of Fialux floating above me. She was smiling down with a triumphant expression. I smiled right back at that hologram. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

  If only she knew what she was in for.

  “Mistress?”

  “Yes CORVAC?”

  “Are we taking development time away from the robot?”

  “You bet your electronic ass we are,” I said.

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “I figure we modify the inertial dampeners somehow, unless you have a better idea,” I said.

  “That is exactly what I was thinking, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Thought so,” I muttered.

  “What was that, mistress?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  I smiled as I started pulling out the inertial dampening unit.

  I’d have to figure out a way to amplify the power a hell of a lot, and find a way to project it rather than having a unit built into my suit that generated a localized field to protect me when the laws of physics threatened to turn my insides to mush.

  But those were trivial problems. I figured it would take me a week or two at most to work out all the kinks and take it on its first test run. Hopefully on its first and only test run.

  I looked up at the holographic projection of Fialux. And for once I wasn’t thinking of how tempting it would be to kiss those lips. How amazing it would feel to have her body pressed against mine.

  No, all I was thinking about was how glorious it was going to be when I caught her in my modified anti-Newtonian field, name still under development, where her powers wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good.

  Oh yes, Night Terror was going to be on top again. And it was going to be glorious.