“Summer,” Ashton called out as soon as she returned to the private room, “Before you leave I need to speak with you.”

  To his surprise, Ned willingly left the room to give them some semblance of privacy. Kayla and the remaining guard followed soon after, leaving him alone in the room with Summer. Well, alone with the bugs they had planted and his latest addition of listening ears direct from MysteriousMaskz himself. He had best warn her about that before she said anything vital.

  “I managed to plant a bug on Maskz, but he caught me,” Ashton confessed, “He was willing to make a deal, so I accepted.”

  “What did you give him?” Summer questioned warily.

  “I let him place a listening device on me in return,” Ashton explained, “but I am able to turn it off whenever I truly don’t want him listening in, and he is free to do the same with ours. He even told him if I don’t trust him I am free to dispose of it, but he will get rid of my bug as well.”

  “Should I tell you about what I did or not?” she asked.

  “Don’t, just in case,” Ashton decided, “Just because he may already know, doesn’t mean he does.”

  Summer nodded. “In that case, what did you need to talk to me about?” she asked.

  “I went ahead and scheduled your appointment with the psychologist,” Ashton explained, “If everything goes well you can come back to work immediately after.”

  As he spoke he produced a card with all of the information she would need to attend the appointment. He had waited to schedule it until the meeting with Maskz had been arranged. It would be a problem if the appointments conflicted. Now that it was over, it was time he worked on getting Summer and Kayla back to the team. He refused to take any missions with Derrick until they returned.

  “What about Kayla?” Summer asked.

  “I will be giving her the information for her appointments as well,” Ashton assured, “Even if she isn’t quite ready to return to work, she should return to the apartments with you. I am sure everything will be fine, though.”

  “Alright. Any cases I should know about before I hop right back in?” Summer checked.

  “We have been working on testing Untouchable for the most part,” Ashton replied, “The rest of the time has been spent training with our new recruit.”

  “New recruit?” Summer demanded, a bit shocked.

  “He came in from Heroix to help with the testing,” Ashton explained, “Since we already knew each other he asked me to help him switch jobs. You might know him as RepliKtion.”

  “What is he like?” Summer asked after a moment to ponder the new information.

  That was a good question. How exactly should Ashton describe Derrick? Ambitious? Hungry for revenge? He was certainly talented, but he didn’t want Summer to worry. Ashton knew she had low self esteem when it came to her place on the team and he already felt guilty enough. Still, she would meet him soon enough so he should be honest.

  “Motivated,” Ashton replied after thinking it through, “He probably has just as much reason to go after MysteriousMaskz as we do. He is actually the one who made the bugs we used tonight. He hasn’t got into any trouble so far but I still need to keep an eye on him.”

  “Do I need to be careful around him?” Summer asked, “You know, with being an old hero and all?”

  “You shouldn’t,” Ashton assured, “Though he has already figured out your identity and that we are dating. He is the one who warned me to be extra careful about our information. Apparently everyone is hunting for news about Shadow Phoenix and Golden Reign. Many of them seem to believe we may be the ones who leaked the other information and took down SI.”

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  “I guess I will find out when I get back to work,” Summer decided after giving a small shudder at the mention of the false accusations, “Shall we head out?”

  It was about time they got going so Ashton agreed. He caught Kayla in the parking lot and gave her the information she needed for her appointments. Unlike Summer, she needed a physical checkup as well as a psychological one. She seemed perfectly healthy now so Ashton could only hope that both girls would pass their tests with flying colors. Once that was done, it was time to head back to check in on the results with RepliKtion.

  Derrick was eagerly waiting for him when Ashton returned. He was definitely excited to be able to use his powers for something useful after his stint on TV. He led Ashton right into the spare apartment they had been using as a base of operations and showed him the setup he had changed here and there to get everything working properly.

  “Honestly, I was worried they wouldn’t work,” he admitted, “I called them listening devices, but it's not like I have access to high tier spyware. They are just remote mics anyone could buy if they wanted to. Everything seems to be working well so far, though. Especially since you activated that test mic early so I could practice.”

  Ashton tried not to show much reaction to the mention of the test mic. Before he had arranged all of the bugs for the meeting with Maskz, he had placed one somewhere else. It seemed like Derrick had mistaken it for a test bug, and Ashton had no intention to correct him. If what he had done was revealed, Ashton was prepared to take the fall alone.

  The first mic had been carefully hidden in Harper’s office while she was out. Ashton had placed it there in hopes of learning information none of them were willing to tell him to his face. It would have been ideal to listen in to the conversations of Amber Gale herself, but Ashton knew better than to try to sneak into the CEO’s office undetected. He wasn’t even confident he had succeeded in fooling Harper.

  “So long as you got everything working,” Ashton told Derrick, “Did you succeed in setting up a recording system for the audio that comes through?”

  “I was just about to test if that worked,” Derrick reported, “I set it up with all of them, but I haven’t had a chance to try to play back any recordings yet. I was just about to try it with the test mic’s recording.”

  “Alright,” Ashton agreed, “Let’s give it a go.”

  If anything important played, it would expose his scheme immediately. If not, Derrick might just think of him as a terrible prankster for trying to spy on his superior. Ashton tried his best to stay calm as the recorded audio played complete silence. If he couldn’t manage to actually stay calm, he should at the very least look like it on the surface.

  “Hold on,” Derrick said, maximizing the tab he was using for playback on his computer, “I can skip ahead to the parts where sound was recorded.”

  He clicked the mouse a couple times and did just as he said. The first thing Ashton noticed was that the mic quality was pretty bad. He could still understand the words being spoken, and the fact that Harper was speaking, but there was an odd staticky background and it peaked easily. Not to mention the fact that his bad placement meant that the background noise was louder than her voice.

  “Everything with his team is going well right now. He is planning on bringing the girls back,” Harper reported to someone.

  It seemed like she was on the phone and she was talking about Ashton. Derrick had already noticed that something was off, but Ashton held up his hand and continued to listen carefully to the recording. There was a pause before Harper continued speaking.

  “No. It is still too soon to reveal yourself,” Harper argued, “Ashton needs to figure out the true mission of Gale Research on his own. I don’t understand why you let the new team member in if you thought he was going to pose a threat.”

  Now this was about both him and Derrick. Derrick obediently continued playing the recording, turning the volume up a bit so they could hear better. Ashton already didn’t like what he heard. Gale Research had a hidden purpose, one they thought Derrick might stand in the way of. One they were confident he would be able to figure out. The biggest problem was that Ashton already had a guess as to what it might be.

  “There won’t be many people that remember that Untouchable used to be a person, not a serum,” Harper continued, “Even Ashton might not be able to figure this one out. Especially since he never figured out that he has been lied to about his past his whole life.”

  Ashton reached over and stopped the recording. He didn’t want to hear anything more. “Deactivate that bug,” he ordered, “We won’t find out anything else from there.”

  “You figured it out, didn’t you?” Derrick demanded, immediately calling him out, “Who was Untouchable?”

  Ashton sighed. “I can’t tell you. It isn’t something I am even supposed to know. There are some things that put you in more danger from knowing them.”

  There was that, and the fact that he knew that MysteriousMaskz had also heard every word. As if on cue, Ashton received a message from an unknown number.

  “I know who Untouchable is, and I know who you are,” it read, “If you need me help, all you have to do is ask.”