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Asylum 8:
Shelter from the Storm

1:45 PM, New Orleans.

"Stop fiddling with it, Van."

Elizabeth turned her husband away from the mirror and surveyed him critically. "I swear, but those people sure want to make sure you stand out in a crowd." Van's hand crept up to his collar, dark brows lowered over green eyes. "It's too tight, Mamma."

"It is not," she replied, batting his hand away gently. "It'd be just fine if you'd just stop messing with it." She sighed in mock exasperation. "Now, step over here into the light so I can get a good look at you. There's no member of this house going out and being on the television unless I say so. And that means you too, mister PRIMUS Field Agent."

She tugged her reluctant husband away from their dresser and over to the open French doors of the bedroom balcony. She positioned him to her satisfaction and then stepped back so she could survey her work.

He smiled at her and her heart did a double thump: Damn but he was a handsome man. The gray had all gone from his hair, leaving it as coal black as it was when they'd first met twenty years ago. The sunlight was almost sparkling at the edges of that damnable glow. So many little changes since he'd come home that night. So many little things they didn't really talk about because… well… it wouldn't do any good.

"You'll do, for an old man," she finally said, hands on hips, full lips turned up in a smile.

"Ain't no older'n you, sorcierere," he said.

Her eyebrows raised and her smile changed to one of mock outrage. "Hag, am I? Well, we'll just see about that, you delabere old fart…" They both laughed, enjoying the moment, wanting it to last forever.

He took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair, the amber aura that surrounded him folding over her as well. "I love you so much," he whispered. "I'm just tryin' to do da right thing." She held him tightly, murmuring softly that she knew, and that she loved him and that she understood.

"You understand what we want you to do, Agent Varrett?"

Van nodded. "Yessir, I think I got it." He'd rarely felt so out of place. They were at 30,000 feet, in a small jet decorated like a tiny hotel room. There was a couple couches, a desk with a computer, a big TV screen on the wall, and a dozen leather chairs. Sinclair, the Silver Avenger of New Orleans, sat across from him, a coffee table between them.

Van looked down at the documents on the table and nodded. "Got to get them peoples out, got to find our agents, got to stop them moths from any more mischief and got to stop that Stranger fella if I can. But the peoples is the main thing."

"Yes, they are," Sinclair replied. "Stranger is extremely unbalanced, to say the least. There's no telling what he's doing in there. The last thing we need is for bodies to come sailing out of the sky. This is what PRIMUS is for, Agent Varrett. To protect the world from people who would remake it in their own image, just because they can."

Van nodded again.

"I don't have to tell you that PRIMUS has suffered some pretty rough setbacks over the last couple years," Sinclair continued. "You can help change that."

Van nodded. He did that a lot around Sinclair. The man just seemed, well, not jealous exactly, just exasperated. After all, Sinclair was highly educated, young and handsome. Van was getting well into middle-age and had barely made it through high school. Yet they'd both ended up in the same place. Both of them working for PRIMUS, both of them with extraordinary abilities. The only difference was that while Van had gotten his by chance, Sinclair, like most of the Silver Avengers, had gotten his from a drug.

Van suspected Sinclair thought him a hick.

Not that it mattered. Van was what he was, and he'd made peace with it. Palmersdale had helped so very much with that, as had Laura Pender. It was Laura who'd brought him into PRIMUS, and introduced him to Sinclair as an "MWA," a "Meta With Applications."

The subject of Laura Pender had been hanging between Van and Sinclair since her termination early last year. Van didn't know why she'd done what she did. But he knew that Laura was a good person, and that her reasons must have been sound. She'd talked a little bit about what had happened, mainly because her own new-found powers were so similar to his. But he hadn't pushed, and she hadn't offered. Van suspected that Elizabeth knew more, but she wasn't saying anything either. And that was just fine. Laura would talk to him or she wouldn't. It wasn't his place to pry.

"I understand," Van replied. "I'll do my best."

Sinclair smiled warmly. "I know you will, Van. I just wish we'd had more time to train you before sending you out like this. Nobody really knows what's going on out there, and you just happen to be our best shot at finding out." He leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Thorin is there already. Is that going to be a problem? I know you and the Talon are friends…" He left it hanging, a slight smile on his lips.

For some reason, Sinclair was amused. Did he think it funny that a hick could be friends with powerful people like Maggie Thorin and Mawbry Palmersdale? Well, it surprised Van too, when he thought about it.

Van shook his head. "I ain't got nothing against that girl. She's sweet as can be. Just cause she and Mawbry ain't close no more… Well, they made they own choices, and it really ain't none of my business anyway."

The door to the cabin opened, and a young pilot in PRIMUS blues stepped in. "We're about to land sir."

"Thank you, Agent Vogel," Sinclair said. He tapped a small stack of photos. "Thorin, Bolt, and Crossfire—at least we think it's Crossfire, there aren't that many archers around with his kind of skill—are already there. We know of one other meta flying in—Morningstar. We've worked with him before. There are probably more on the way. They're all showing up to answer Ultraviolet's call. Which was brilliant, don't you think?"

Van nodded. They'd watched the President and Ultraviolet's speeches on the big TV sometime after takeoff. Van liked Ultraviolet a great deal, even though they'd never met. Mawbry had also liked her, and it made Van proud to think that a local girl from the Crescent City could have made it so far. Her costume probably made her daddy blush, but like so many things, that wasn't his business.

"She's something else, that's for sure."

"That she is," Sinclair replied. "Now, Stranger has a definite dislike of PRIMUS," he said. "I don't see any reason why he needs to know that we've sent you. Which also means that you won't be able to take your uniform, armor, or communications equipment inside. We want you to be under his radar, just another hero there to help."

"When we land, a car will take you downtown, but then you'll be on your own. Contact the CPD. They'll get you to Thorin and Ultraviolet. We've let Thorin know that you're coming. She'll be told you're working for us, but I don't think there's any need for anyone else to know. Not yet, at any rate. No need to agitate Stranger any more than need be."

"I understand, sir," Van replied.

Sinclair gathered the folders on the table into a neat stack. "How are Elizabeth and the children taking this? Everything all right there?"

"Yessir," Van replied, nodding. "They behind it one hunnert percent."

"Good, good," Sinclair said. He extended his hand. "I wish you the best of luck, Agent Varrett. Get those people out of there and stop August if you can."

Van took the Avenger's hand. "Yessir," he said with a smile. "I'll do my best."

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