Tanner Bane's indictment as the Cybernaut - including the laundry list of related crimes such as criminal conspiracy, theft of restricted technology, and so forth - will shake the foundations of New Troy. Leo Snow sits in the calm at the eye of this storm, and listens to Judson Snow talk. Next to Leo is Pneuma, a stern scowl adorning her otherwise-pretty features. Her body language makes it clear that anything she says will not be well received by anyone here. And Agent Ted Waters is near enough to keep a very sharp eye on the supervillain, but not close enough to overhear the conversation.
"You want to take it from the top?" Leo asks. His voice is calm. He's unmindful of the faint trail of blood seeping from a cut on his brow, which Pneuma had to forcibly bandage without his cooperation. His skin is slightly browned in places, a relic of the electrical attacks he suffered. Niki is off looking for paramedics; whether Leo will cooperate any more with them is uncertain.
"I guess this is overdue," admits Judson, shrugging. "You could say that everything I've been doin' here is for two people. First 'n foremost, myself. I'm not a goodie-two-shoes, never will be. I don't apologize. But the second person is Kaguya Kotobuki. Your mother."
Leo's eyes go wide. But he says nothing, refusing to interrupt the flow of information with an errant word. The elder Snow goes on.
"Y'see, Kaguya was what you might call an Enforcers wannabe, or Junior Enforcers type. She wanted to be a hero. Her power was cyber-empathy or cyber-telepathy. She could feel what was going on inside devices 'n computers 'n so on. Not really Enforcers material, know what I'm sayin'? But she was great in the lab, and there she stayed. That's when she and I met. Touchstone Solutions hired people like us. People with talents for machines and inventing. Seems they had this source for rare materials an' just threw big brains at the problem of finding uses for it all."
"I'd never been smooth with the ladies. But she.. well, first she told me my inventions were the most beautiful thing she ever felt. She said they were like 'flowers blooming in silicon'. And I've never heard a compliment I disliked. So we get acquainted."
"Fast forward a few years. I was gettin' real tired of Touchstone. We're gettin' used an' used an' used. None of us got the credit we deserved. So I told Kaguya that I was gonna make it big. I was gonna strike out on my own. I was better with tech than business, but I figured, hey, I'm a smart guy, right? I can work it out. Besides, there were a few customers that Touchstone wouldn't touch, that I'd be happy to work with."
"So one night we take off with a few of my more interesting innovations - hey, don't give me that look, remember I said we were the ones building this stuff." After Leo's steady gaze bores into him a bit more, he waves his hands in token of surrender. "Fine, fine, it was theft. Who cares? I needed a starting point. They owed me, kid."
"So who should get in our way but Moleculon himself! Didn't think I rated that much attention, go figure. Well, some of these toys, they're pretty handy. We obviously tried to run for it - no way was I ready to tackle Moleculon then, nowadays is another story - anyway. We're almost safe, an' he does something, still not sure what. Kaguya takes the hit for me. I remember her face..."
Judson goes silent. Leo remains wordless. Pneuma's hard stare never wavers. The diminutive inventor resumes the thread of narrative at last. His voice quavers now, each word chipping away a bit more at the dam holding back his feelings. "She didn't deserve that. We got away. But... somethin' about what that bastard did had damaged her. Made her powers go wonky. She was dyin', that was clear. An' that was the time when she'd already conceived you, kiddo. So there was two lives at risk."
"She told me she never wanted to steal from Touchstone, but she thought she'd lose me if I went off on my own. She told me she loved me and wanted me to be happy. She asked me to .. well, not in so many words, but basically she wanted me to fess up, cop to the theft, turn myself in to the fuzz. I knew what she wanted. The mother wasn't going to last, so the father had to be there."
The paramedics finally arrive, coming through the police cordon. Leo waves them off without even looking. Pneuma, after agonizing moments of consideration, forcibly ushers them away and returns to listening without a word. Judson goes on.
"Well that was it! Your old man was officially a criminal. So Kaguya went to the hospital and I went on the lam. A few months later, they deliver you without difficulty. A few months after that, she passed. Never did get to see her. Tried getting close, of course - the cops chased me off. Being my height makes it hard to sneak anywhere."
Judson sighs. "Kaguya was the perfect woman. Beautiful, smart, interestin'. She loved me so much. She loved my inventions. She really got who I was. After her, kid, there was never gonna be another woman good enough. But that didn't stop me from tryin'. And tryin', and tryin'. Never was satisfied with whoever I was with. Like a man who's hungry and can never eat enough."
Leo finally breaks his silence. "So my brain damage was caused by that incident?"
"Yeah." Judson taps the side of his head. "Whatever hit your mom screwed up your nervous system but good. You'd have been dead by age six. I hit the books, learned biology, neurology, surgery. I built a chip - well, what am I tellin' you this for? You know the rest o' that. 'Cept that I'd keep breaking out and coming for you to check up on your progress, make sure the damage wasn't recurring. Finally, though, I figured you were okay. I decided you'd had enough of your old man, and I kinda had enough of the cops busting in on us. So I left you alone and went about my business... until Tanner Bane came calling."
"None of us read the fine print on our Touchstone contracts. Turns out that everyone with real powers - her an' me included - donated their bodies to the company upon death. Those heartless bastards didn't even wait until she was cold until they took off with her. Somehow or another, her body and brain were converting themselves into digital information. That's what was killing her in the end. A fatal mutation of her powers, y'know?"
"Well, Tanner Bane knows all this, 'cause he's the Man now. He saw my file in Touchstone's work records, knew who I'd become, decided I was the right man for his job. 'How'd you like to make more money than God, and avenge the death of your wife into the bargain?' he asks. Coming back to Touchstone was a hard sell but that offer was solid gold to me. He says he'll get the truth of what happened to us out there, make people appreciate just what an influence people like Kaguya and me had been on the company. Name recognition. The real thing, what I deserved all along. 'Once my plans come to fruition, you'll never fear being ignored', he promised."
"He needs me for the expertise on the equipment he's building. He brings in another guy, Hannibal Lectric. Scary villain, bad news. But whip-smart, let me tell you. And these two tell me that Kaguya's remains had been incorporated into something called 'Project Tesla', some kind of bio-information transmission system. The scientists who were working on it weren't at my level. All they got it to do was superconduct. Big whoop. But this tech got poured into some punk kid who broke in, apparently, and it gave her super-powers. Hannibal knows he could power himself up with this stuff, so he needs the thief back. Sure, it'll kill her to achieve his goal, but at the time I was mostly okay with that."
Finally Judson stops, and Leo watches him rub his eyes. The elder Snow's fingers come away wet with tears, and Leo looks at him with a start.
"Yeah, your old man's been known to cry. That thief who got the power? That's apparently your friend there, Electric Slide or whatever her name is. She got her powers from big-company scientists carving up your mother. So when I saw you take that electric bolt for me tonight? Somethin' just clicked. I feel different. Bane betrayin' me doesn't surprise me at all. That's not what I was thinking about at all. All I could see was you, divin' into the path of that hit, like she did. And all I could think was, 'not again'. But you didn't go down. You beat him. You won. The gods were giving me a second chance."
"I'll never be a good guy, son. I'll be the same crappy father I've always been. I'm always going to build what I feel like, and expect to get well paid by anyone who wants it. But I guess you could say... for now, I'm willing to try it Kaguya's way."
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