Chapter 7-Nyx

To the world, Lilly Evanston did not exist. To the superhuman community, from which it was impossible to conceal her completely, she was an invalid. She was constrained to her bed with terrible, trauma-induced headaches, and she took no visitors. No one outside her family had seen her for six years. 

The real Lilly was a bright, athletic, and healthy girl of eleven, who remained blissfully unaware of any trauma of her past. She was as beautiful as her mother, willowy and blonde with blue eyes like ice, and as genius as her father. 

Her parents had two reasons for the concealment of their daughter’s true nature: one simple, one not quite so. The first was that the less people who knew about Lilly’s existence, the better. They didn’t want any supervillain’s wrath that they’d incurred to transfer onto her. So part of the lie was there to protect her. The other part, though, was to protect her brother.

There were people, hero and villain both, who, if they found Luke, would not hesitate to kill him. No one could know where he was, no one could no but Anthony and Elizabeth Evanston, and Matthew. No one could be trusted. Matthew only knew because he’d guessed it from the day they brought him home--damn telepaths!--but he proved essential in the deception. After all, Lilly was the greatest liability. It doesn’t matter how smart they are, kids will talk. So Matthew had blocked her memories, and the Evanstons spread the word of how she was bedridden and hated company, so that she wouldn’t accidentally tell some superhuman about the twin brother they knew didn’t exist over dinner. 

Luke and Lilly were hidden away in the Infinity Tower. Neither had remembered the first five years of their lives, despite their equally genius minds that never forgot so much as a detail of anything else. They were raised as twins and trained to be superheroes. They studied astrophysics and imaginary numbers and practiced hacking by breaking into the files of the CIA. Twins of the mind, and of the heart, if not the body. Twins in everything that mattered.

The ruse died the day Luke remembered, even if Lilly didn’t realize it yet.

~

Infinity Tower was not the tallest building in Chicago, but many argued it was the grandest. It was a shining monument of steel to the successes of Anthony and Elizabeth Evanston. They had started PROJECT:Infinity fifteen years ago, when they met in college. Anthony was a genius, considered by most to be the smartest man alive, who by that point had already dazzled the world with his inventions. He’d fallen hard for Elizabeth the first time he laid eyes on her, and even harder when he talked to her for the first time. She was smart--not a genius, not like Anthony--but smart, and a business savvy finance whiz. She’d turned Anthony’s inventions into a business of unprecedented growth. Within a year, they were married and millionaires. The next year, PROJECT:Infinity purchased the tower as both a residence and office. Soon after, one of Anthony’s experiments went wrong. The resultant explosion should have killed them both. Instead, they woke up superheroes.

Nyx wasn’t thinking about any of this as she stared up at Infinity Tower. She was only thinking about how she could get to Anthony. 

She pushed her way into the crowded lobby. Most of the other people there were tourists, she judged, from the way they gazed at all the signs on the wall. They came from all over to to see the home of Vanish and Infinity, superhero duo extraordinaire. She had done the same, Nyx supposed, just for different reasons. She sat down on a couch in the lobby and waited.

~

“I don’t understand it. I thought she had his memories. You told me she had them!”

Anthony sighed. “Do you think I would have broken the ring if I had known?”

“You shouldn’t have broken it in the first place. At Psychic’s request, no less.”

“He was threatening to expose Luke.”

“And this is better? He hates us.”

“Once again, I didn’t know this would happen.”

“I hate seeing him like this,” Elizabeth said. “I love him, you know? Like my own son. I wish he could see that.”

“I know. Matthew will help him, though. Block his memories like he did with Lilly. He’ll be back to normal.”

“It doesn’t feel right. We’re erasing him so he’ll love us again.”

Anthony didn’t reply. The rest of the elevator ride was spent in silence. 

~

Nyx was watching the elevator doors when they opened. Infinity and Vanish. Anthony and Elizabeth. Her betrayer and his wife.

Rage flared up at the sight of them. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to punish Anthony for what he had done to her, for returning to her this state. He’d unleashed this monster, and now it was coming for him.

She walked up to him and, before he could react, punched him in the face.

~

It was not often that a single punch leveled Infinity. He laid on the ground, dazed and uncomprehending.

Anthony tried to push himself up, but he felt weak, as if the punch had sapped him of his superhuman strength. He stared up at his assailant, a young woman in civilian clothes. Already, Elizabeth had restrained her arms behind her back. She was screaming at him, he realized dimly.

“I trusted you!” Her face was one of pure rage. “I trusted you, you promised, you betrayed me!”

“Wha--,”  said Anthony, trying to figure out what he had done to offend this stranger.

“I trusted you and you betrayed me! You broke the ring!”

And suddenly Anthony recognized her, and he realized why he felt so weak. 

“Elizabeth, let go of her! It’s--”

“Too late,” said Nyx. She broke out of Elizabeth’s grip with ease and shoved her, hard. She slammed against the wall, and raised her hands to retaliate. Nothing happened. Then Elizabeth recognized Nyx too, and her jaw went slack as she collapsed, weak, against the wall.

Nyx turned to the civilians who had been watching the exchange, excited and terrified. “GET OUT!” she screamed, driving them out, into the street, with force fields and fear.

She took a few deep breathes, calming herself, shifting her anger from a hot, hysterical force of distraction into a cold, effective tool. She then turned back to the newly de-powered  PROJECT:Infinity, now huddled together on the floor.  

“You,” she said, looking at Anthony, “will make me a new ring. Now.” Her voice chilled him to the bone. “And if you don’t, I swear to God I’ll kill you both.”