The silver-gray Aston Martin shimmered in the harsh overhead lighting, reflecting off the shiny black marble tiles on the floor. The television screen hanging on the wall behind the car displayed scenes from an old action movie where the car had been part of the filming.

Stan grimaced and scratched the back of his head.

“Well, this is just rubbish.”

Not that he didn’t enjoy an action movie every once in a while, but this one apparently featured a car with an ejection seat. That of course was about as likely as a superhero in an elemental samurai armor.

He rolled his eyes.

Perhaps ejection seats would catch on after all.

“No, dude, listen to what I’m asking.”

Stan stiffened and glanced over his shoulder to where Karl had cornered a museum employee. At least, the young man was dressed in the black vest and trousers of the museum, so the assumption made sense.

“The real spy stuff.” Karl grinned broadly, his dark blue eyes twinkling. “That’s what I want to see. Like you got the Aston Martin here, cool. But where’s the one with the real ejection seat?”

“Sir?” The employee’s expression was something between boredom and concern.

“You know.” Karl rocked back on his heels. “Like the shoe-phones you can actually call people on. Or the laser pointer you can insert in people’s legs that shine top-secret serial numbers. The super-duper high-tech gadgety stuff that for-real spies use to trace calls and Internet signals. Where’s that stuff?”

Stan sighed.

Karl had been adamant that the International Spy Museum had to be the place to go for information on real espionage tactics. He seemed to think the museum would have everything on display for the world to see, so even though he’d been properly impressed by the snazzy spy cars and the special spy glasses they got on purchase of their entry tickets, he wasn’t satisfied with displays.

“That stuff is only in the movies,” the museum employee drawled. “What are you? Stupid?”

Karl’s jaw dropped. “What’d you say to me?”

Stan grabbed his arm. “Pretty nifty place, right?” Stan pounded his back. “Time to go now, though. Don’t want to wear ourselves out in once place.”

Stan pulled him away from the employee.

“Did you hear that guy, Fish Face? He called me stupid.”

“No, he asked you if you were stupid.” Stan ushered Karl out the door of the spy car exhibit, toward the exit at the other end of the lobby. “It was quite rude, actually.”

“You think?” Karl huffed as Stan guided him to the door. “I should have knocked his block off. Where are we going?”

“I’m hungry.” Stan flashed a grin.

Karl responded with an equally bright expression. “Finally. I’ve been hungry forever.”

“You’re never not hungry, mate.”

“What should we have?” Karl dug in his backpack for the map Mia had left with them. “What sounds good? I’m starving.” He glanced over the index. “Chinese. Pizza. Italian. German. Cajun. Thai. Japanese. Mexican.”

“I’m up for anything.”

“Hey, look.” Karl shoved the map in Stan’s face. “Moby Dick’s House of Kebabs.”

Stan pushed the map away from his nose. “What is that? Greek?”

“How should I know? It’s just funny.” He scanned the list again. “Dude! The Burger Palace!” He pointed excitedly to the map with a beaming expression.

Stan leaned over his elbow to see. “Have you been there before?”

“No. It’s a palace. With burgers!”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Right. Burgers then?”

“Burgers!” Karl threw both his fists in the air.

“Lovely.” Stan grabbed the map out of his hands and slid it free, looking over it. “Looks like we’ll take the station here to—let’s see—oh, buttons.”

“What?” Karl leaned over his shoulder.

Stan shut his eyes and sighed. This is going to become a thing, and I’ll never hear the end of it. “Foggy Bottom Station.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I wish I were, but I’m not.” Stan pointed to the map. “It’s right there. Foggy Bottom.”

Karl snickered. “Foggy Bottom.”

“Yes. Commence with the jokes.”

“Better than soggy bottom, right?”

There it is. “Quite.” He folded the map. “Shall we?”

“Is it like a swamp?” Karl chuckled, scratching his chin. “Or is there fog in the subway down there? Is that why they named it like that?”

Stan hooked his arm in Karl’s elbow and dragged him toward the L’Enfant Plaza Station doors, up the stairs and down the red tile corridor.

“Maybe there will be someone we can ask.” Stan pulled Karl along and tucked Mia’s map back into his messenger bag.

They reached the turnstiles and scanned their metro cards, and Stan offered a smile to the scowling attendant inside the service booth. The woman didn’t return the smile.

“If it’s got a foggy bottom, does it have a foggy top?” Karl fell into step beside him.

Stan laughed to himself. Karl would be puzzling about this for the rest of the evening, and he’d probably still be talking about it when they got back to San Francisco. Once his mind got onto something, he could rarely let it go.

Stan led the way down to the platform, and Karl followed without question.

As they stood on the platform waiting for the Silver Line carriages to arrive, Stan glanced at the DC Underground subway map on the wall again, just verifying that he’d pointed them in the right direction. The DC map wasn’t as difficult to understand as London’s. The London Underground was a maze of subway tunnels older than America. But DC had it’s own special routes and short cuts, and it probably took a native to tell which ones were the most efficient.

At least DC’s metro was easier to navigate than New York’s subways.

Talk about a rat’s nest. And the trains didn’t even announce what stations they were stopping at half the time, so it was up to you to pay attention to where you were. So no shut eye on the New York subways.

Karl glanced up and down the platform. “Geez, Fish Face, I’m glad you know where you’re going. All these places look exactly the same.”

“Oh, you could figure it out if you tried.” Stan elbowed him.

“Dude, my whole town could fit inside this station.” Karl wrinkled his nose. “Not really, but almost.” He smirked. “Downtown Enid could fit.”

Stan grinned. “You know, I’d like to visit your hometown one day.”

Karl shrugged. “Isn’t much to see.”

“No, but I’ve never been to Oklahoma. I’d like to see what it’s like.”

“Hot.” Karl tilted his head and squinted his eyes as though searching for the best way to describe the land of his birth. “It’s super hot, until it’s cold. And then it’s really cold. Like freeze your soggy bottom to a chair cold.”

Stan laughed. “I knew that wasn’t going away.”

“And it ain’t gonna. It’s brilliant.” Karl grinned. “You really want to visit Enid?”

Stan looked up at him. “Why not?”

“It’s just—Enid. I mean, it’s nothing special.”

“You grew up there.” Stan adjusted the strap of his messenger bag. “So it’s got to be special in some way.”

Karl rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about, Fish Face. I ain’t grown up yet.”

“Well, that’s true.”

With a quiet whine at the other end of the tunnel, the lights from the Silver Line’s lead carriage came into view. The train rumbled to a stop, and the doors opened. A few dozen people off loaded, and Stan led the way on board.

Stan sank into one of the plastic seats, but Karl stayed standing, holding onto a pole. The doors slid shut, and the train took off.

Karl fell silent, chewing his bottom lip.

He’d been oddly pensive for the entire trip, something Stan had never seen in two years of knowing him. Even on the flight, he’d only harassed the poor flight attendant within an inch of her sanity, rather than going all the way. Perhaps it was memories of his grandparents that caused him to be so unusually quiet.

Other than the name of Karl’s hometown in Oklahoma, Stan knew little about his best friend’s past. Karl hadn’t really shared much, although that seemed to be the rule among their little family of superheroes.

Stan cringed.

I can’t talk. I haven’t told them anything. His heart twisted. I don’t want to.

Digging up such painful memories wouldn’t really accomplish much anyway. For him personally, it would only hurt, dragging all that into the spotlight. It would hurt him to remember, and it would hurt the others because they would probably feel guilty that they hadn’t known.

Ryan would feel guilty anyway. And his near-constant mother hen behavior would reach an all-time high.

No, it’d do no one any good.

He’d hold on to his past as long as possible. Ronnie had finally broken down and shared part of his story with them a few weeks earlier. Shocking, to say the least. But while Ronnie had survived the terrorist attacks of September 11, he hadn’t seen what Stan had seen. He hadn’t lost what Stan had lost.

Very likely none of them had.

Talking about it wouldn’t change the past, and it would only color their perception of him. They all saw him as too young to begin with.

Not that I disagree. I am awfully young to be stabbing soldiers with a trident. He smiled. But I’m bloody good at it.

At fourteen, he was the youngest of the Reishosan by far, but in only two years, he’d practically mastered the use of his armor. Even Ryan and Sam, who’d wielded their own armor for nearly ten years, didn’t have nearly the control Stan had. So accordingly, they’d granted him some level of respect.

But the instant they find out the truth, I’ll be back to the twelve-year-old lad who showed up on their doorstep looking for a cup of tea. He blew breath out his nose.

Some days it might have been nice to have someone who knew what had happened in Covent Garden all those years ago. It might have been nice to be able the share the photograph that lived beneath his pillow with someone who understood what it meant, but even he was barely able to look at it without crying. And crying wouldn’t exactly reinforce the strength he was trying to portray to his house mates.

The train hissed as it slid to a stop at the Metro Center Station. The doors opened, and a squalid-looking fellow in ragged clothing stumbled onto the car. He collapsed in a seat and reset his crooked cap, wheezing loud breath out of jagged yellow teeth.

The businessman on the bench beside him stood and took his place at a pole on the other side of the train, and several women checked their purses.

As the train rocked along the rails, Karl took a step forward and sat down next to the homeless man. Karl flashed a bright grin at the man, and the man returned it.

Amazing.

Karl’s animated gestures drew the man into conversation, but the rumbling of the train was too loud to make any of it out.

Karl Goodson had never met a stranger. He could talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything. He had a common grace about him that made everyone feel comfortable with him.

Well, almost everyone. Sam usually runs away from him. And Ronnie too. Stan shrugged. Maybe it’s just generally foul-tempered people who don’t like him.

The train made two more stops before Stan stood up. He grabbed the rail and caught Karl’s eye as the carriage pulled out of Farragut West Station and headed for Foggy Bottom at George Washington University. Karl nodded briefly and said something under his breath to his new friend. The man laughed with him, and Karl stood up just as the train stopped again.

Karl followed Stan out the doors, and the train sped off again.

“Made a friend, did you?” Stan smiled.

“Peter. He’s from Virgina.” Karl grinned. “And he doesn’t know why they call it Foggy Bottom either, but he said there’s an awesome park with a gigantic statue thing in Dupont Circle that we should check out. And also that Moby Dick’s House of Kebabs is the best thing since sliced bread.”

Stan laughed. “Good to know.” He led the way to the escalators. “We’re still going to the burger place right?”

“Burger Palace!”

“Burger Palace.” Stan reached for the map in his bag and froze as a chill washed over him.

His stomach clenched as a wave of nausea shivered across his skin.

Was it just him, or did the lights in the station turn dim? Bile crawled up the back of his throat, and his brain buzzed like a bumblebee. Kagami hissed a warning in his mind.

Danger. Threat. Eyes. Watching. So many.

“Stan?”

Stan jerked as Karl grabbed his elbow.

He gasped and found his lungs empty, his head aching and spinning. What was that?

“Ground control to Major Tom.” Karl poked the side of Stan’s head. “Are you in there, space cadet?”

“Aye. Sorry.” Stan took a deep breath and let it out. “That was—”

“A seizure? You had a seizure, right?”

“No, Karl, I didn’t have a seizure.”

“You looked like you were having a seizure.”

Stan frowned at him. “Have you ever seen someone have a seizure?”

“No.”

“Then how would you know what one looks like?”

“YouTube.”

Stan groaned and pulled away from him, stepping on the escalator. “I’m fine. It was—” He glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “It was Kagami.”

Following him onto the escalator, Karl’s eyebrows drew together. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know.” Stan shook the feeling away. “He was properly upset about something though.”

Kagami didn’t use words to communicate. The armor transmitted feelings, emotions, images—but they often came in such confusing swells of information that Stan couldn’t understand what it was trying to say.

“Are you feeling anything from Shiren?”

Karl scowled at him and paused until they reached the top of the escalator.

“No. Not getting anything,” Karl said.

“Maybe you’re not letting him speak.” Stan raised his eyebrows.

“Or maybe Shiren isn’t as chatty as Kagami.” Karl poked him in the ribs. “Sounds like Kagami doesn’t ever shut up.”

Karl grabbed Stan’s elbow again and stopped him. “Was it a soldier?”

Stan met his friend’s worried gaze.

It was a good question. Was Kagami sensing one of Thallia’s soldiers?

“I don’t know,” Stan said. “I’d never felt this from Kagami before. Definitely like something is wrong, but I couldn’t tell what it was.”

“So not a soldier.”

“I don’t think so.”

“A warlord?”

Stan gulped. They’d had a few run-ins with Thallia’s warlord Jinsoku, and only the most recent one could be called a victory, thanks to one of Ronnie’s well-placed arrows. But if they were to fight a warlord in Washington, DC, they’d be at a tremendous disadvantage. Ryan and Ronnie were both still in San Francisco. They couldn’t get to DC in time, and all five Reishosan had to fight together if they stood a chance against Jinsoku.

Kagami, mate, what are you trying to tell me?

The anxious roiling in his mind had calmed slightly, but the twist of nausea still clutched at his stomach. It was the sensation after being sick, when you still felt like you might throw up but you needed to eat something anyway.

“Whatever it is,” Stan muttered, “it’s not Jinsoku. It’s a different feeling.”

“So, not a soldier. Not a warlord.” Karl watched the other passengers from the train as they filtered through the turnstiles. “Are you sure it was something at all?”

Stan sighed. “No, I don’t really know what it was.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the map. “Let’s just see if it comes back. If it does, we can look into it. If it doesn’t—”

“Maybe it was something you ate.”

“Aye.”

“Burger Palace, then.”

“Aye. Burger Palace.”

Karl nodded and led the way through the gates, and Stan followed him.

The closer to the surface they walked, the calmer his stomach grew, and the quieter Kagami fell at the back of his mind. But the buzzing didn’t go away, and the crawling on his skin remained. The sensation hung around him like a glass splinter in the hard skin of his violin-calloused fingertips.

Not particularly painful, but definitely there.

And not going away by itself.