The glass doors of Mercy Heights Renal Center exploded inward at 10:17 on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday morning, showering the reception area with safety glass and one extremely startled ficus. Through the sparkling debris strode Beacon Blaze, newest licensed protector of Metrovale, cape snapping dramatically behind him despite the complete absence of wind. His polished silver boots struck the tile with tremendous purpose as he pointed one glowing gauntlet toward the man in the white coat standing beside the nurses’ station.

“Your reign of terror ends today, Doctor Nefarious!” Beacon declared, his voice amplified enough to make three patients flinch and someone in the waiting room drop a crossword puzzle. “I tracked your secret laboratory, bypassed your outer defenses, and found you hiding behind the pathetic disguise of a medical professional. Surrender peacefully, and I may allow you to retain whatever dignity a monster like you has left.”

The man in the white coat stared at him for several long seconds, still holding a paper cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. His badge read DR. ELIAS NEFF, NEPHROLOGY, although Beacon appeared to regard badges as exactly the sort of deceitful technology villains would employ. “I’m Dr. Neff,” he said slowly, lowering the coffee. “I’m a nephrologist.”

Beacon narrowed his eyes until his golden visor produced a dramatic electronic whine. “Oh, very clever, Doctor Nefarious. Shorten the name, change one letter, hide among the innocent. Unfortunately for you, justice possesses excellent pattern recognition.”

“No,” Dr. Neff said, looking briefly toward the receptionist as though checking whether this was somehow her fault. “Nephrologist. I treat kidneys. People come here because their kidneys aren’t working correctly, and I help manage things like kidney disease, electrolyte problems, high blood pressure, dialysis—”

“Dialysis!” Beacon shouted, throwing one arm dramatically toward the ceiling. “At last, the confession begins.”

Dr. Neff closed his eyes for a moment, and the fluorescent lights hummed overhead with the weary sympathy of an entire building accustomed to paperwork. “Dialysis is a medical treatment,” he explained, speaking with the deliberate patience normally reserved for frightened patients and malfunctioning printers. “When someone’s kidneys can’t adequately filter their blood, dialysis helps remove waste products and excess fluid. Kidneys are basically extremely sophisticated filters.”

Beacon froze. Somewhere behind Dr. Neff, one of the nurses very carefully covered her mouth with both hands. “So,” Beacon said, his voice dropping into the grave register of a man who believed he had just uncovered something dreadful, “you admit that you take contaminated blood, remove certain substances from it, process those substances separately, and return the altered blood to the victim.”

“The patient,” Dr. Neff corrected. “And that is an aggressively sinister way to describe dialysis.”

Beacon’s gauntlets began to glow.

Before Dr. Neff could explain anything else, a harsh electronic chirp came from the communicator mounted on Beacon’s shoulder. Static crackled through the room, followed by a deep, theatrical laugh so villainous that even Dr. Neff had to admit it was excessive. “Beacon Blaze!” boomed a voice. “At last you will witness the genius of Doctor Nefarious!”

Beacon pointed triumphantly at Dr. Neff. “A ventriloquism trick. Pathetic.”

Dr. Neff stared at him. “That voice is coming from your shoulder.”

“Exactly where you want me to think it’s coming from, Doctor Nefarious.”

The communicator crackled again, and the actual Doctor Nefarious continued without apparent awareness that his nemesis had apprehended a completely unrelated physician. “Beneath the Metrovale Reservoir, my Purity Inverter is already drawing contaminated water into its filtration chambers. Soon I shall separate every impurity, concentrate the extracted compounds, and recombine them into a toxic super-sludge capable of poisoning the entire city!”

Dr. Neff’s eyebrows slowly climbed. “Okay,” he admitted, “that is disturbingly adjacent to what we were just discussing.”

Beacon whirled toward him. “You see!”

“No, I absolutely do not see.”

Doctor Nefarious continued gleefully through the communicator. “While the purified water is harmlessly returned to circulation, the concentrated waste will become the foundation of my new biochemical weapon! Even now, thousands of gallons are passing through semipermeable membranes where—”

Dr. Neff blinked. “He’s using semipermeable membranes?”

Beacon jabbed a glowing finger toward him. “Stop criticizing your own methodology!”

“I am not Doctor Nefarious!” Dr. Neff snapped, finally losing the calm bedside manner that had survived medical school, residency, insurance companies, and twelve years of patients asking whether cranberry juice could replace prescribed medication. “I am Elias Neff. I am a kidney doctor. Your villain is apparently underneath the reservoir performing evil dialysis on municipal water.”

The room became very quiet.

Beacon looked at Dr. Neff, then at the communicator, then back at Dr. Neff. “An impressive attempt to confuse me, Doctor Nefarious,” he said at last. “But you made one critical mistake.”

Dr. Neff’s shoulders sagged. “What?”

Beacon raised his fist toward the ceiling as his cape billowed inexplicably once again. “You just told me exactly where your secret laboratory is.”

Dr. Neff watched him blast upward through a ceiling tile and disappear in a shower of insulation.

After several seconds, the receptionist leaned around her desk. “Should we call somebody?”

Dr. Neff looked at the shattered doors, the ruined ceiling, and the untouched coffee still sitting beside him. Then he picked up his cup, took a long drink, and sighed.

“Yes,” he said. “Facilities.”