"I have to say, I'm honored to have gained a meeting with Omnicorp's elusive and eccentric founder. I just had to get this interview when I learned he was one of Municiberg's own…and so young…"

"Let me guess—you want to know the secret to my success."

"Among other things. I never caught your name…"

"Syndrome. I never caught your first name, Mrs. Averry."

"Just Ms. Averry. I caught the code name. I need your real name."

"That's not up for discussion…what is this, is this supposed to be a recorder? Or an antique?"

"It is a tape recorder, it's to document everything."

"Have you heard the playback on this thing? It sounds like you're recording interviews on a toaster."

"I like old machines, okay? They're more…reliable."

"…I have never been so offended in my life. Look, I could make you one ten times better, in just three days. You must have vacation days saved up. You can even keep the antique!"

"A tempting offer…you're a businessman, let's make a deal. You tell me your real name, and you focus during this interview…in return I'll let you invent me a new tape recorder. Even if you did just insult the old one."

"Tell me your first name, and I'll consider it."

"You'll consider it…well, I'm game if you're game. It's Naomi, Naomi Averry…Now yours."

"Naomi. All right…"

Crystal—

A sapphire ocean rolled by, miles under the Manta jet. (Blue—I was discovering I liked blue.) I sat cross-legged in the copilot's chair, headphones on, listening to a tape I'd never heard before and watching the sunrise through someone else's eyes. Flying—I liked flying too. The best part of flying is the view, my mentor always thought. The view from the wide front window of the Manta Mark II was pretty cool.

I'd had my mother's tape recorder for years (her new one, the digital one that could translate words into text files—not the dinosaur), but I'd never heard this new tape. It had been hidden from everyone. With good reason. After Naomi died, and the police were looking for any clues, Syndrome had an agent raid the storage container all her stuff was thrown in. There could be no connections. Her old interviews became my toys, and her voice would lull me to sleep at night. Naomi's friend Didi (whom my mentor knew as 'the what-are-you-wearing friend', because that's how she answered my mother's phone once, "this is the Averry residence, what are you wearing?"), she figured out the truth, but there was no evidence left to prove her insane theory.

The tape—I'd listened to it twice since our departure from Nomanisan. I wanted to memorize every word, every inflection. The conversation between the two speakers turned into something like verbal sparring. They both tested each other through this—well, old comic books would call it 'banter'. Syndrome subtly (and foolishly) accused Ms. Averry of being a fake Super fan. Naomi, closet nerd and former vice-president of her elementary's Elastigirl fan club, spent 11 minutes gently correcting him. I always loved listening to recordings because you could shut everything else out and pretend the audio was happening in real time. If you leaned back and shut out all sights, you could pretend both of them were alive, right in front of you. Their conversation got more and more off track. My mind wandered back to the memories I'd ripped from Syndrome's mind…

I was so, so angry in that moment. Nothing else mattered. I didn't even know if I could kill a person. The way my telepathy, my sixth sense, works is through empathy. To really get into someone else's head, I had to let myself feel everything they were feeling. (That's why Syndrome could never use it like I could. People's minds are like computers to him. He puts up too many walls between himself and the mind he's trying to hack.) I hadn't killed anything with my power yet—I hadn't even tried. Using it to murder someone might have torn me apart, too…

It didn't matter. I didn't care.

All that mattered was the person responsible for my mom's murder would be dead.

I was so caught up in hurt and betrayal that in those last few moments, nothing could get to me. I had some vague memory of Jack Parr trying to stop me…oh, the irony! If he could only remember what happened to him, he would've helped me. Something got him out of my way. Then I was standing over my former mentor, and suddenly the ion field keeping me out was gone, and I caught a glimpse of myself, just before the memories hit. I was unrecognizable. My face was a mask of hatred, so far from the little girl I'd once been.

Another world opened up to me. At the speed of thought, I tore through my mentor's brain, looking for one memory in particular. If I stopped and let myself think, I would have noted how off everything was. Neuro-divergence often comes with heightened intelligence…but maybe there was something worse going on. A downside. Syndrome thought he'd gotten away without one. For his own survival, he'd never acknowledge it was there. All his memories were warped—like through a lens. The books I'd printed and hid from him (he doesn't like psychology, or psychologists) put words to what I'd suspected all along. A chemical tendency towards addiction, obsession, and sociopathy. That—plus the traumas he'd lived through—made up the mind I dove into.

(Being mentally ill equals evil, of course…I could punch whoever came up with name 'villain gene'. The lens warping Syndrome's view of the world didn't make him commit those crimes. Five percent of the planet quietly suffers from the same thing. He kept his downside tightly controlled, and made the choices that led both of us to that fight in that clearing.)

I had little control over my own ability. Fragments of memories played out as I looked for that one day.

"Tell me if this sounds familiar—"

"—After what you did to my family? No, Buddy, I'm just disappointed…" (He had no right—no right—I KILLED BUDDY PINE—)

24 hours without sleep, and that guard—he'd been around during the Omnidroid trials too—looks up from the monitors showing nothing but jungle. "We're gonna have another body to throw in the volcano, eh, Boss?" He said, like it was the funniest thing in the world. Another body to throw in the volcano. This one, a child, dead of exposure. Hilarious! The guard made a really satisfying sound as he was thrown through a wall—

"We need to have a talk. Soon. Are you listening to me?" …Fine, she could sulk if she wanted, there was still a lot of work to be done. Blueprints to be drawn up, deals to be made, memories to be modified, et cetera. Chrys would still be there when the work was done. It was all for her, after all—

Ten years, had it really been ten years since the Incredibles took my glory, destroyed my work, and killed me? Ten years to the day—people in Municiberg were celebrating it as the anniversary of the Supers' return. It was all over the TV. The Incredibles were there, of course. The heroes of their own twisted, censored story. Ten years of hiding and waiting…It should be my turn in the sun. Those few seconds of victory are still burned in my mind. Soon enough, the Syndicate's going to reveal itself to the world. It'll be the greatest Superhero team since the Incredibles. And when the time's right, their leader will come forward (for some reason I always picture her with red hair) and tell the world how it really happened. She'd talk, and millions would listen. That was the shining light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Soon enough—

"—Put that game down, it's going to rot your brain." I commanded. The kid spent too much time on that thing. "What am I supposed to do instead?" "I don't know, learn something." Crystal—with a lot of sighing—slowly put down the device. "Fine." Straightening up, she clasped her hands on the work table and innocently asked, "So where do babies come from?" …oh no. Oh no. I am WAY too young to be having this talk—wait…that little sneak. "You win this round. Play your game." She grinned, victorious, and picked up her game again. Kid's getting too smart for her own good. Wonder where she gets that—

A2 was frozen. Frozen in the middle of the workshop. The killing thing he'd botched was still firing electricity, making the zero-point-energy field in front of it crackle and waver. His face was all hate and fear. He really meant to kill me—after all I'd done for him! …In hindsight, of course he'd turn against me. Mr. Incredible, the Omnidroid, the reporter, Mirage…everything does—

"YOU LIAR!" the kid screamed, shouting down from the edge of a half-finished jet wing. (No external turbines on the Manta Mark II—it'd be basically child-proof.) "Elastigirl would NEVER marry Mr. Incredible! He's too—I mean, she's so much better than—" "If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'!" Crystal disappeared, laughing, to flop on what would be the jet's floor. The news turned her whole little world upside down. Alan, the new kid, rolled his eyes.

There was no loud "Eureka!", nothing so dramatic. (There was no one else in the room to be dramatic in front of. No point, really.) The hologram was functional. A real hologram, the stuff of science fiction. It was still primitive, but just a few months and some new software would fix that. Designing tech to replace Crystal's eyes lent a few insights—pun intended—into how light could be manipulated. Sure, holograms weren't destructive, they could barely be weaponized, but…I could think of a few cool uses for them. Like making them look like certain people, using certain people for target practice. Yeah. Chrys would call that 'therapy'—

"You work too much, Dad…" The kid was so out of it on meds, she couldn't know what she was saying. But still. It caught me off guard. I reminded the kid—half asleep in her med wing bed—to call me by my name. 'Dad', now that was a thing I wouldn't touch with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole. She must've picked that word up from some movie. Her dad was dead, I saw to that myself. She drifted off and I kept working on alternative transplant options. Three—count 'em, three—transplants rejected. That surgeon I'd flown in had some questions to answer, that was for damn sure—

Omnicorp was back online. Of course, underground weapons dealers don't have corporation names, but it was my company, and always will be. Without Mirage—that backstabbing snake—things were a lot more difficult. But the work was done. Omnicorp was back—

"Catch me!" If I'd turned around, I'd have seen that stupid, ambitious, suicidal four-year-old climbing up the scaffolding. I had to oversee renovations in what used to be the island's central chamber. (Leave a bunch of men to do it and they'll screw up every half hour, like clockwork. Mirage would be taking care of this, but…oh well, I didn't need her.) There could be no signs of life from the outside of the base, but inside? I still had control. "Catch me!" "Not now, playtime's over." She couldn't see, but that didn't stop her. I wondered if she even knew she was—"Catch me!" "I said no, Gadget—" I turned around and oh God, she was really up high. Four stories and the ZPE wasn't even turned on—"Catch me!" My finger was on the button, and I shouted for her to stop, but did she listen? Nope. She fell in slow motion, each second like a year. I caught her in a ZPE field just above the floor. Naomi's stupid kid was fine, but that little incident took about ten years off my life, Jesus CHRIST. Why do kids think they're immortal?! That was the end of the 'catch me' game we'd invented—

The memories I was getting, they were close, but not what I was looking for.

"Oh no…" Just a second to think about my luck, then a hard impact. The world was full of a roaring noise that shook every bone, it made it impossible to think, the jet turbine was a blur right behind me right behind me RIGHT BEHIND ME—

This one I couldn't stop. It happened sometimes, in my mentor's brain. My books called it a flashback. I'd just caught bits of it as a kid (like when I yanked on my mentor's cape, yelling "Drag me!"). I could feel the noise of the turbine in my own bones…it was terrifying.

Nothing to hold on to—what a way to die—oh God, the cape is going to get caught—I can feel the heat off the engines, I don't want to die—the CAPE—

One quick, painful yank, and I'm sprawling back on some rough surface in the dark. I can still feel the heat from the explosion on my face. Is my shoulder broken? I can't be dead…

Finally, the flashback let up. I knew how that ended. Syndrome took a while to wait out the pain. By the time he'd gotten up, it was full dark. He still remembered where he was. It was an old Super lookout, one of the places die-hard Super fans would wait for a glimpse of their favorite heroes in action. It was abandoned, and there was an Omnicorp building nearby that offered shelter. Syndrome never analyzed that moment too closely, but his injuries should've been way more severe. His hearing was fine in the end. Teleportation isn't Jack Parr's only power, it seems…

That wasn't the memory I was looking for. I aimed for the middle of the real shadowy place in his mind. The months just after his defeat were dark and all blurred together. As soon as the memory started playing out, I knew I'd found the right one. We were going to relive that horror, in stunning high-definition. And then I'd kill him…

She was the last person I'd want to go to for help. The company was in ruins, my most powerful allies were scattered, and I needed her contacts in the criminal underworld to scrape up some workers. Desperate times. Her voice was so cold the last time she picked up the phone, and that was years ago. She probably hates me…not that I care. Cold-hearted fake fan, she probably just got her story and some free stuff, then moved on to the next guy. I'll just make her an offer she can't refuse, and be on my way…..I wonder if she ever regretted what she did…

Focusing, focusing. The plan was to wait for her in her apartment, James Bond villain style. The building had been swept for potential threats already, it should be an easy enough mission. No personal agenda or unresolved issues at all in the planning of the mission, nope, none at all.

The front door of her apartment was locked. That wouldn't be a problem, but there was music coming from inside. Someone was home. Murphy's Law strikes again.

She lived alone, it would be just her in there. I wanted to get this over with. The music inside stopped for a moment and I rang the doorbell.

I heard her walk up to the door. The light coming through the peephole went dark, I know she saw me. She took one step back, then another, and suddenly she was a panicked flurry of action in the apartment.

That went well.

I didn't know what to do. Would breaking the lock and coming inside be too forward, or should I let her calm down? She couldn't call the police, a handy device installed on her landline made sure of that. Next thing I heard was her shouting at someone—shouting through the phone. Not the police, but still, not good.

The memory here gets fuzzy, drifty. Something bad is about to happen.

"Hey—Naomi, there's no need to—"

"I KNOW what you did!"

She'd heard what the Incredibles had to say about me. And she believed it.

I tried to explain. All right, coming up with lies on the fly was never my strong suit, but I had to do something. If she'd just slow down and try to understand—

"Don't lie to me, I know what you did! I should have known when you gave me Gazerbeam's identity! And Gamma Jack's, and Blazestone's!"

Maybe I did give out their identities to impress her. She was a fan of the Golden Age, what can I say? I never thought she'd put two and two together…is that why she dropped contact?

"You KILLED them! Our idols, Buddy, YOUR idols! How could you?!"

Terminated…they were TERMINATED. She used my old name when she was yelling, shouted it through the door. That more than anything clouded my judgement. I tried to talk over her. If she'd just LISTEN—

"I don't want to hear it."

That was all she said. She talked into the phone again, something quick about a ride out of town. She fell quiet and I kept talking anyway, absently working on the lock. She was moving stuff around in the apartment. At least she wasn't climbing out a window. I was getting on a roll—the story I was making up had real merit, an Oscar-worthy performance—when…

It was silent. Way too silent.

The lock was made quick work of. Lying in the middle of the apartment was—

She was—

She could've been sleeping. She might've been, if her honey-brown eyes weren't staring straight up at the ceiling, and there wasn't red seeping from a line on her forehead.

It's impossible to say how long I was stuck in that sickening moment. All I could think was, she's not, she's going to get up any second now, Naomi's—she's going to be really mad about the lock…

Her friend was still babbling on the phone. It was lying a few feet away from Naomi's hand. The tinny voice was shouting, but I couldn't understand what she was saying. There was a click, and just silence. Just silence.

She's going to be so mad about the lock…

A door to the left opened and a toddler—of all things, a toddler—ran across the mad scene. She clumsily put her hands on Naomi's face. It wasn't until she inspected her own blood-covered hand that I was jolted out of that zero-point-energy stasis.

No, no, no, no, someone was saying. I remember pulling the shocked kid away from Naomi. The kid could've hurt her. The kid's hands were still covered in blood, and she looked like she was about to start wailing. No, no, not good. I had to get the kid cleaned up. There was red on my hands too but it never registered. I picked up the kid and found the kitchen sink. Naomi would wake up any second. She was just unconscious, like in the movies. Just like in the movies.

I got the water on and my gloves off, telling the kid everything would be fine, just have to get the red off, everything's going to be okay,

When the world exploded.

It was like an atom bomb went off in my skull. It was all I could do to not drop the baby. Sights, sounds, and a thousand voices, all beamed right into my head. It was worse than an accidental jolt from a live wire. Lasted longer, too. It's a miracle I got the kid into her high chair. I was having some sort of out-of-body experience, and it wasn't fun.

Whatever it was, it wore off a minute later. The comedown was awful, like I'd been on a three day caffeine-and-inventing binge…What was that, some kind of weapon? The building had been swept! I could've sworn I saw…I felt…Naomi, her fading voice. Little bits of her last thoughts.

(The human brain's still active after death, sending out sparks like a short-circuited CPU.)

I'd seen people die before, dozens of times. I'd watched most of their bodies sink into lava without a second thought. But it was never a civilian. It was all wrong. If she was going to die, she should've died in some spectacular way, not alone in some apartment with…

The kid. Why was she there? I scraped together enough brain-power to take a good look at her. Naomi was 'sitting someone else's baby, that had to be it. She was a way better babysitter than Carrie, or whatever her name was—that teenager was either on drugs or needed drugs. (The S stands for social services.) The toddler just stared up at me with icy blue eyes (was there something wrong with her eyes?) and she looked like a little Naomi…

In the living room, Naomi had been throwing baby stuff into a bag. All around the apartment were signs that a toddler lived there. They were both in photos on the walls. That would mean…the reporter had a kid. She did look like her mom. Except for the eyes, and the little freckles across her nose, and the reddish hair…

…oh no.

The emotion here could only be described as…"mental blue screen of death".

In her chair, the kid hiccupped. She still looked like she was going to cry. In my infant care experience, that was not a good thing. I picked her up again (carefully—didn't want a repeat of three minutes ago) and started pacing. Why didn't Naomi say anything? Because she suspected I was behind a few disappearances? Uncool. You don't let someone find out about—what was her name, Chris? Crystal? Named after her grandma, I'd guess—like that. You send 'em a card on Father's Day. Why would Naomi try to hide…?

It was a lot to decipher. A lot of hurt. Naomi, the kid, whatever the hell happened to me earlier, it was a little too much. And the police were probably on their way, right, right.

What to do with the baby? Hard to say where she'd get thrown, if no relative would take her. There was something wrong with her eyes, too, some kind of cataract. The world isn't kind to people who are different in a bad way. I couldn't leave her, not a chance…

I let the memory go there. The rest was history. Through the brain fog and dissociation, Syndrome managed to grab the bag my mom had been packing, and left with little me clinging to him. He didn't even remember moving my mom so she'd look more natural—like she could be sleeping. No one commented when their boss turned up with a kid. He'd come up with some cover story, about Prometheus Corp and genetically modified human weapons, and if his employees didn't buy it, they'd never say it to his face. A few guards figured out the truth when I was three, and planned to sell me to another Supervillain as leverage. They were…dissuaded. After that, he had to change how I looked.

A few months of careful experimentation later, he'd figured out his power, and mine. Nomanisan allowed him to test the ranges of my power…it was like a drug, a rough one. (No one mentioned powers sometimes sucked.) His reasons for keeping me around weren't 100% pure, I know (some of them were narcissism too, that by-proxy "my homeschool student can kick your honor student's butt" narcissistic pride some people have). I watched myself grow up through Syndrome's eyes. Raising me was a great—if exhausting—adventure, he'd admit to himself. Nothing was like I thought it was. I processed it all in just a few seconds, and finally realized the truth…

Naomi Averry was an accident.

My mother came to Syndrome a reporter determined to get some story—determined enough to track down Omnicorp's HQ and get all the way to his second-in-command. Naomi Averry was intelligent and honest (not to mention attractive). They'd shared an old dream, not a weakness. They were both part of the generation that grew up thinking anything was possible—only to get cruelly shut down when the Supers disappeared. They wanted to help people, that's why they started their careers. My mom wanted to find out the truth and bring it to light. And after a few glasses of something called 'cabernet', she said she wanted to be there the moment the Supers came back. I can make that happen, Syndrome smiled at her and thought. She had an uncanny ability to hit right where it hurt, too. One night she was getting a head start on her article (while she was still on vacation—can you say "workaholic"?) and doing that thing I do—where I bite the edge of my thumbnail. Syndrome (jealous of all the attention he wasn't getting) told her to cut it out, that was a gross habit, and she just countered with, "You laugh like a cartoon villain." Right where it hurt.

In confidence, Syndrome probably gave her too many island secrets. He showed off a bit too much. But he never had control over things like that—it was rare someone got under his skin, but when they did, they had all of him, all of his devotion and eagerness to please. When he's mad there's no limit to what he'll do. Same with every other emotion. She got to call him by his old name. Naomi even got to see the workshop…and the Omnidroid.

The seventh Omnidroid was standing dormant in the middle of the huge workshop. She walked right up to it, in awe. She turned around and asked something weird—"What does it dream about, you wonder?". She knew it had an AI but didn't believe it until she saw the thing. Artificial intelligence was still the stuff of comic books. Syndrome just said it's a machine, who cares, and she kept walking towards it like it was some great animal, with her hand stretched out. Then Syndrome noticed the remote on a nearby work table…and got an awful idea. Naomi was inches from the Omnidroid when it hummed to life, stood up a little taller, and looked right at her. She scrambled back like the Devil was after her (to use my paternal grandmother's phrase), and boy, when she saw the remote and pieced together what happened, she was mad. Fake-mad though. Mad, and trying not to laugh, at the same time.

My mind was reeling, still putting together a mental picture of my mother. (The tape recording ended, and I was left with only white noise.) She was a civilian. Totally non-Super. I tried to figure out how it could all be a trick, they could all be fabricated memories, just another way to twist the truth and brainwash me. People can do that—fake memories—right? …No, fake memories wouldn't hurt like that. Everything I saw and felt was real. My mom was just a reporter. She could've been a hero, though, in the way that Syndrome was—with technology. My mom would've made a great Superhero. She would've loved flying. If she'd just listened, and not tripped over…

"…the corner of that damned carpet." I muttered to myself. "It always stuck up. I was always tripping over it."

"Gadget, don't curse." Came a quiet command from the jet's pilot.

"It's a little late to be parenting at me." I replied. Not too cocky, cautious. It was a half-hearted attempt to make jokes about what happened on Nomanisan.

"Reflex." Was the only response. Parenting reflex, right. Not something one can switch on and off at will.

The adrenaline and rage keeping me going the last 12 hours were gone. Exhaustion was hitting me like an Omnidroid. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and listened to the sounds of the jet for a while.

"…are we Supers?" I dared to ask. The question had been tearing me apart for a while. As usual, my mentor had an answer, and he believed every word of it.

"No…Do you honestly feel like one of them? Did you ever? No, we're something different."

We were. There'd always been a gap between me and the Super children. They always left me behind. Too weak to be a Super, too weird to be a civilian. I didn't belong with either group. I belonged on that Manta jet, bound for a foreign land.

"Why didn't you tell me I'd have this power?" It would've saved me a lot of pain.

"…You would've hated every second waiting for it." I didn't pry too much into why he knew that. I got from his mind a bunch of scientific data, stolen from NSA servers, about the half-Super phenomena. Not much was known about it. I could've waited…ten, twenty years to get my powers. There was a chance I'd never get them. I was still mad, about all the secret-keeping, but everything was out in the open at last. That wound was raw, but healing.

"…now you want to ask me something." I started. "You wanna know how I like seeing again. What I think of the aesthetic world. Well, it's not that great. It's busy, confusing, and it gives me a headache…Nice to see people, though. A lot of them look different than I imagined…speaking of which…the hair was a surprise."

"Yeah, well, you were too recognizable. Someone would've—"

"I didn't mean my hair."

Silence.

"You get your sight back, and the first thing you do is critique my hair. Classic Crystal. Have you seen yours lately?"

Maybe things were going to be okay between us, after all. I didn't correct him on the sight thing—I was blind, always will be—I just kept pushing it.

"Not just your hair. I have a great memory now. Remember—remember the time I was saying, like, "Elastigirl was a Golden Age feminist icon"? And you said, "Feminist? In that outfit?" And now, look what you strut around in."

"Watch it."

"Superheroes—well, I like to think they're all equal, on the sluttiness scale."

"…You get this from your mother, Crystal."

"Enigma…it's not Crystal, it's Enigma." I said, before he could blow up at the 'slut' thing.

That's what my name would be. Enigma. I repeated it to myself, out in the forest. It was something the other Syndicate kids called me. Gadget was a little kid's nickname, I couldn't use it forever. Enigma just seemed…right. Dissociative identity disorder was a great coping method—I found that out digging around in my mentor's brain. It's how you compartmentalize away all the trauma and the doubt. Those bad things that happened? They happened to someone else. They can't touch you if they happened to someone else. Crystal Averry died bit by bit, starting when her mother was killed in front of her. She was weak, and she got her friends and her home taken away. She was dying from the moment she got her powers. The fire and the chaos of just a few hours ago finished her off for good. I stepped in to take her place—something stronger, wiser, ruthless and untouchable. It's what the other kids thought I was. An enigma. That's what I'll be.

"Enigma." My mentor tested out the sound, liking it and committing it to memory. "Well then, Enigma…you say "Superheroes" and "them" like you aren't gonna be one."

My heart jumped a little bit. I was still going to be a hero. I was still his sidekick.

"Now, don't get me wrong, you're still grounded. Oh, yes—you're a whole new LEVEL of grounded. You're so grounded, they're going to have to invent a new WORD for how grounded you are."

Aaand my heart sank—what I did to his plans and the Syndicate wasn't forgotten.

"…but first, we need to get you a suit. Something more modest, you're still a shrimp."

A suit. My own suit! My own armor, the thing that'll really turn me into Enigma…I couldn't wait to wear the mask.

"I'm sending you in on a mission alone. Edna's a bit…totally off her rocker, so you'll be wearing a comm device. I'll help with the negotiations, but other than that, you're on your own. Think you can handle it?"

"I can do it." I said, with absolute certainty.

"Pass on a message for me—tell that old bat her cape suggestion didn't work out."

I nodded and yawned. My battered body was telling me it was time for sleep. The only noise was the jet's engines as we lapsed into a comfortable silence. For all I'd destroyed, Phase 1 of the project was still in effect. We could salvage it. We could complete it ourselves. And I knew just where to start.

I wanted Jack Parr.