The doorbell was an inch from Cecil's finger when the door opened.
He stood there for a moment. Hand raised. Nobody on the other side — just the interior of the cabin, the smell of butter and eggs, and something sizzling.
He lowered his hand. Walked in.
The kitchen was to the left. Rico was at the stove wearing an apron that said THE PERFECT COOK in large block letters across the front. A pan was floating six inches above the burner. A spatula was moving through the eggs on its own, slowly, with the focused imprecision of something being operated by someone concentrating harder than the task should require.
The eggs shifted left. The spatula overcorrected. A small amount of egg left the pan and landed on the stovetop.
— Telekinesis — Rico said, not looking up. — Harder than I thought. Needs work.
Cecil looked at the floating pan.
He thought about Ceres.
He thought: *if someone told me tomorrow that he can destroy planets with one finger I would not be surprised.* He thought it with the specific flatness of a man updating a reference point and moving on.
— You seem to be settling in — he said.
— Meh. — The spatula guided the eggs onto a plate. The pan settled back onto the burner. — Furniture could be sturdier.
— I'll have it addressed.
Rico looked at him over his shoulder.
— Eggs?
— I'm not hungry.
— Your loss.
He sat at the kitchen table. The plate in front of him contained a quantity of scrambled eggs appropriate for a small family gathering. Cecil sat across from him and watched him eat.
Twelve seconds.
Plate clean.
Cecil sat with that for a moment. Not commenting. Just — recalibrating. The thing that had punched through a dwarf planet last night was now sitting across from him in an apron, finishing scrambled eggs in twelve seconds, and looking at him with the pleasant patience of someone who had nowhere to be.
— So — Rico said.
— So — Cecil said. — I'm here to formalize what we discussed at the coffee shop.
— Manda.
— The GDA would like to offer you a position with the Guardians of the Globe.
— Hard pass — Rico said. No deliberation. No pause. Immediate.
Cecil had expected this.
— Not trying to speak badly about your Justice League from Temu — Rico continued. — But there's a gap there that makes the arrangement impractical. For them more than me.
— I anticipated that — Cecil said. — Which is why I have an alternative.
Rico waited.
— Omni-Man doesn't hold a formal position with the Guardians — Cecil said. — He operates independently. The GDA requests his assistance when the situation warrants it. No roster, no chain of command, no mandatory availability. A working relationship rather than a formal one.
Rico looked at him. Tilted his head slightly.
— That's it?
— That's the offer.
Rico leaned back. The chair registered a structural complaint. He ignored it.
— I don't have a problem with that — he said. Slowly. Like he was checking the statement against something internal as he said it. — Helping people. Doing good. What's the downside, right?
He said it casually. Then sat with it for a second.
— Actually that's not a rhetorical question — he said. — I'm asking genuinely. What's the downside.
Cecil looked at him.
— Clarify.
— Power attracts challenge — Rico said. — That's a universal constant. A team like the Guardians isn't just a response unit. It's a symbol. And symbols say things. They say who's protected and who's doing the protecting and where the line is drawn. The hero of one story is the villain of another. You know that better than most people in this Country, I'd imagine.
He looked at Cecil's lapel.
— The GDA works under the United Nations. Correct?
— Correct.
— But the director is American — Rico said. — And I'm going to assume the headquarters is American soil. And the Guardians' base too.
— You'd assume correctly.
— So here's my thing — Rico said.
He wasn't performing it. No buildup, no rhetoric. Just talking, following the thread of it, and Cecil had the sense of watching someone arrive at what they actually believed in real time rather than reciting something prepared.
— I don't recognize borders as a factor in whether someone gets help. I'm not saying that to be difficult. I'm saying it because if there's a kid in danger on the other side of a line that politicians drew on a map, the line is not relevant information to me. If I have to go through North Korean airspace to reach them, I'm going through North Korean airspace, and probably their Military.
Silence.
— I don't say that as a threat — Rico added. — Just as information. Going in.
Cecil held his expression.
Then the corner of his mouth moved. Just slightly.
— Good to know my read was accurate.
Rico pointed at him.
— That's why you structured it as independent rather than formally subordinate.
— I structured it as independent because that's what we have available.
— Sure.
— It happened to align with your preferences.
— Mm-hm.
— Coincidentally.
— Obviously — Rico said, completely straight-faced.
Cecil allowed himself something that was almost a smile and wasn't quite.
They sat with that for a moment. The mountain through the window. The empty plate between them. The apron.
Then Rico looked at his hands.
Just briefly. The pale, articulated, biomechanical hands of something engineered for a purpose that had nothing to do with scrambled eggs or this conversation.
— One more thing — he said.
His voice didn't drop exactly. Just settled. Like a different register of the same person.
— I don't believe in taking lives if there's another option. I think most people deserve a second chance. I think the line between villain and victim is blurrier than it looks from the outside and I think people who've done bad things are often still capable of something better.
He looked up from his hands.
— But I'm not naive about it. There are people in the world who have made choices that can't be walked back and won't stop making them. And if I'm ever standing between one of those people and a room full of people who don't deserve what's coming — I'm not going to hesitate. I wanted you to know that before we shake on anything.
Cecil looked at him for a long moment.
Not evaluating. He'd already evaluated. This was something else — the particular quality of attention you give something when you want to remember it accurately.
— That's a more coherent ethical framework — he said finally — than half the people I employ.
— I've had some time to think recently — Rico said.
Cecil stood. Straightened his suit. Put his hands in his pockets.
— There's one more thing — he said.
— Another thing.
— The Guardians would like to meet with you properly. After Washington they have questions. It's better handled somewhere controlled than on a White House lawn.
Rico looked at him.
— A formal introduction.
— An informal one. Given the circumstances.
Rico stood. Untied the apron. Folded it — carefully, more carefully than Cecil expected — and set it on the counter.
— Lead the way — he said.
Cecil turned toward the door.
Stopped.
Looked back at the apron.
Where did he get the apron.
He looked at Rico.
Rico looked back at him with the expression of someone who was not going to answer that question unless directly asked.
Cecil made a decision.
Walked out the door.
Some questions, he had learned over forty years, were better approached sideways. Or not at all.
The door closed behind them.
The apron sat on the counter.
THE PERFECT COOK.