Maysah never thought she’d be wearing this stupid mask again. Even before she had stuffed it in the back of her closet to mildew inside of a box, buried beneath digital photo albums and handwritten letters, she had always found it uncomfortable. Sometimes, the mask would just get too hot. Other times, it would pinch her hair back just tight enough to punch her a one-way ticket to board the Migraine Express. On the worst of days, a gross film of moisture would form on the material nearest her lips and she would be able to smell her afternoon Americano all evening. Tonight, it was a poorly mixed cocktail of all three. Back in her day, back before, well, just back before, the mask had been necessary. It protected her, it protected her friends and family, and, most importantly, it served as a constant reminder of the weight of the responsibility she had. There was nothing about being a hero that should’ve made her feel comfortable.

“Good thing I’m not a hero anymore,” she muttered to no one as she ripped the mask off of her face and shoved it into a jacket pocket.

Two things hit her at once. The first thing was how, from this view now unadulterated by dark mesh, Cedar Fort looked absolutely beautiful at night. It was a big, bright, neon behemoth of modern engineering and old school hubris, and from where she was sitting up on top of the boom of an old crane she could hardly make out the dirty corruption and polished shit that had built the city. For a moment she felt like how the fat cats in those big towers must feel. That is to say, she felt curious about what would happen if she spat on someone who was walking below her. Would it dissipate in the wind? The poor riff raff wouldn’t even notice a slight had been hawked their way, or at most think maybe it would rain? Or, if she got a good bit of phlegm or maybe a few sunflower seeds, would it pick up enough velocity to bore a hole through their skull and kill them outright? Maysah wasn’t so sure, and the idea of spitting to figure it out simply disgusted her. It was barbarically bourgeoisie and, besides, there was nobody below her. 

The second thing that hit her was the thought of how completely idiotic it had been for her to scale a crane on such a cool night, or any night for that matter. Just utterly bonkers. Maysah grimaced as a bit of wind tousled her hair and sent a chill through her bones. Here she was, one of the world’s strongest supes, about to get the sniffles because she thought she was in her twenties again. What was her plan? Wait for a group of people to arrive so she could light herself up like a stupid neon asshole, swan dive from the top of the crane in classic Stardust bravado, and then land with a roll and a flourish? Shields or not, there was no way she’d try that at her age. She’d break a hip. Feeling almost ashamed of herself, she cautiously climbed down the boom. 

“How’d you ever become a physicist when you’re this stupid?” she quietly cursed as closed the door to the operator’s cab and wrapped herself in her jacket. She sat next to a bag of her stuff she had squirreled away in there earlier. It was still a decent vantage point, and it had the added advantage of not giving her pneumonia plus the sweet, sweet aroma of stale cigarettes and cave-aged construction worker sweat.  “Jesus Christ, Maysah, what are you even doing here?”

What she was doing here was meeting with Special Agent Addison Reynolds. That was simple. Why she was doing it was a bit more complicated. Maysah was pretty sure she didn’t know the answer to that question. If she had to come up with a hypothesis to explain the why, then it probably had something to do with the same reason she had been sitting on top of a goddamn crane at the age of fifty-two: she became an idiot whenever she put on the Stardust suit. It was pretty tight. Perhaps it was cutting off the circulation of blood to her brain. Yet, she had decided to wear it. Maysah didn’t want to burn one of her last glamour pills on what could very likely be a trap, and if it was a trap then she would rather wash blood out of old spandex than new cashmere. 

However, if it was a trap then it had been a poorly laid one. So far, nobody had taken the bait. Maysah had arrived earlier that afternoon to set up her post on top of that crane, back when the sun was up and hours of quiet contemplation seemed like a great idea. Yet, so far, as she had shifted on the uncomfortable crane, munched on a lunch and dinner protein bars and really bad kombucha, and kept trying (and failing) to convince herself that Hex wouldn’t want her here, just one person had arrived: Addison Reynolds. At least, Maysah assumed it was Addison Reynolds. In her brilliant plan to arrive first she had forgotten to bring a pair of optics mostly because she did not own a pair of optics because what middle aged used  bookseller from Canada owned optics? By the time she’d pulled out her phone to try and snap a photo on the unnecessarily overpowered camera with an even more unnecessarily overpowered zoom feature, the woman was already inside of the red warehouse. 

Maysah looked at her phone. It was two in the fucking morning. A bark of laughter echoed throughout the operator’s cab. Had she lost her mind? Maysah had wasted her entire day. She could’ve at least brought a book with her to kill the time. She leaned forward onto the dormant control panel and massaged her temples. She was in Cedar Fort. She could have searched for Victoria. Her old boss was a woman that never could stay out of the public eye for too long. Maysah had watched the interviews she had given after her release from prison. She had watched as her former friend had just lied through her teeth about Stardust. It’d be easy to find her. It’d be even easier to—no. Thinking like that would truly mean that she had lost her mind.

“Wow, Harrison, I always knew you were a bit of a loser, but this is just too brutal to bear. I’m sorry. Nobody’s coming.”

She stepped out of the cab to get some fresh air; it was way too claustrophobic in there. The truth was, she was scared. She wasn’t really afraid of it being a trap. She could easily fight her way out of a trap. Maysah didn’t want to pick up the mantle again, not really, but more than that she didn’t want to get seen by any former peers. It’d be like going to a high school reunion and she was the one that’d never moved out of her hometown, gotten a real job, or married someone rich, attractive, and/or interesting. What would she tell them? [i]Hey, I was framed, but instead of proving my innocence I just gave up. It’s cool, really, I enjoy being a coward.[/i] Yeah, right. Maysah couldn’t do it. She leaned against the railing. This had been a dumb idea. Time to go home.

And then she saw the car. The heavily decked out SUV rolled slowly through the stretch of warehouses before it settled in front of the meeting site. The lights were killed, and Maysah frowned as a big fellow in some high-tech body armor stepped out. Their getup just screamed corporate or military, and for the first time that night Maysah found herself concerned about someone other than herself. Addison Reynolds had seemingly blasted a message out at random to anybody with ties to Hex, but not everybody with ties to Hex would be happy with the idea of someone trying to pull his old bruising buddies out of their hiding places. Maybe the man in black was someone who finally decided to answer the call. Maybe he had been sent by some interested party to put both Addison and her phone on silent. Maysah didn’t know. She just knew she wouldn’t be able to live with a maybe.

From the warehouse, it’d appear as if a purple blast of St. Elmo’s fire had manifested itself from atop the rusty crane before it quickly streaked to the ground. Within a matter of heartbeats the neon purple streak had crossed the rather long distance from the crane to the warehouse, its form manifesting into a woman as it grew closer. Maysah skirted to a stop in front of ET, her jacket billowing open to reveal the Stardust outfit below. She was thankful for her decision to wear the stupid thing; imagine doing this in mom jeans. For a moment she hummed with energy like an overcharged transformer before she allowed her “plasma tank”  to completely drain. The glow faded and her hair dropped around a face that anybody who played their little game of dress-up would recognize, although it looked much more worn than the one presented in the APB from twelve years ago. The annoyed look she gave ET was, to put it mildly, withering.

“Yeah, you don’t move from that car,” she said with a finger wag. She stepped back and took him in. This guy may have known Hex, but she didn’t know him. She let out a low whistle. “Wow, get a look at you. Fell for that shitty trend back in the 2020’s, did you?” She gestured at ET’s face tattoos. She wasn’t even trying to hide her patronizing tone. “Kind of ironic, considering how hindsight is. Now stay right there, buddy. I don’t wanna have to ruin that fancy suit of yours.”

Maysah took a few steps back into the warehouse, one eye on ET while the other on the dying embers. Why couldn’t they have met somewhere nice? Like private lounge, or Hex’s apartment, or a rooftop? Nothing good ever happened in an abandoned warehouse. She took a second to make sure she wasn’t stepping onto any plastic sheets, and then announced herself.

“Hey, [i]Special Agent[/i] Reynolds,” said Maysah. She shot a quick look back at ET. She had really stuck the landing when it came to stressing the special agent part—Reynolds wasn’t just some officer, and she wanted to make sure that he knew that. She also wanted to make sure he wasn’t doing anything stupid. “It’s May, uh, Stardust.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s Maysah. You found my friend’s dead body? Left me a message? Sorry I didn’t callback. Hey I got a question: d'you call this guy or should I melt the tin man?"