The hall was large and well-lit.

Every piece of furniture in it seemed to be white. White carpets, white walls; even the chairs that the audience were sitting on were white.

The only object in the room that wasn’t entirely white was the enormous flag draped across the far wall that we were walking towards as the audience loudly applauded us.

The flag had some white on it--a white aerial map of the globe encircled in a white laurel wreath. But this emblem was printed on a bold periwinkle blue background.

I had seen a flag like that before hanging in a smaller room.

{Are we definitely going to go through with this?} Mute said into my mind as he walked next to me, on my right.

{Come on, Tom, it’s too late to back out now,} thought back Ali, who walked at my side on my left. Like Mute, she wore her black leather Miracle Force uniform.

Nobody in the room could hear our private telepathic conversation but us.

{Yes, we’re going to go through with it,} I thought for them, with confidence. {I’ve made up my mind. It’s the best thing for everyone. For each of us. For our families. For the world. Everyone.}

I kept my eyes fixed on the point we were walking towards: the figure of the Secretary-General of the UN who stood at the top of a podium at the end of the centre aisle that we were walking down.

He was standing behind a lectern--which, of course, was white--wearing a blue suit and his trademark red tie with white dots on it. A slightly chubby, balding, almost elderly man with gentle jowls and white hair; he had a friendly smile which he was beaming down at us as we approached him.

We reached the podium at last and took the steps up to it one after another.

We shook the Secretary-General’s hand one at a time, as we had been told to do, and then took our places standing in a row next to him, looking out at the audience.

I clasped my hands behind my back, standing to attention, as did Ali. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mute fidget with his hands, then put them straight down at his sides awkwardly, then glance to his side before finally assuming the same pose as me and Ali.

I looked out at the audience, still applauding us fervently. At some point while we had been ascending the podium they had got up themselves and were now delivering us a standing ovation, their faces beaming at us like the Secretary-General’s.

I looked for a few faces that I knew. There, right in the front row, on the end of it, stood my Mom. She had the biggest smile I had ever seen on her face and tears were running down her cheeks as she clapped her hands with the others. When I made eye contact with her, somehow her smile grew even bigger, and she radiated pride and happiness at me.

It had been difficult, of course it had been difficult, when she had found out about Dr Black, but she was starting to get over that now. And anyway, we had come to suspect that Abram might have been using some of his mind-control on her all along as well. That didn’t matter now, though. None of that mattered. What mattered was that everything was back the way that it should be: just Mom and me. Although aspects of that would be changing soon, too...

I looked for other faces. There, next to Mom, was the unavoidably recognisable figure of...the President. The President of the United States was sitting next to my Mom! On the other side of him was the First Lady. Then Mute’s parents, from England, whom I had now met once. Then the Prime Minister of the UK. Then the President of Syria. Ali didn’t have any family here.

I looked out beyond the first row. One or two of the other diplomats and world leaders I recognised from watching the news, but mostly they were just a rainbow of miscellaneous faces and clothing. Beyond them, were the press photographers, who lit up the assembly hall with their gigantic cameras and their flash bulbs. Beyond them were the even bigger, black mounted TV cameras, with operators sat in them like drivers of vehicles. That’s right, we were being filmed. What had happened in Australia had been big. This ceremony was being broadcast to the whole world.

Eventually, after what seemed like a whole movie length’s worth of clapping and holding my smile fixed in place as I looked out at this audience, the Secretary-General held up his hands next to us.

Reluctantly, the audience fell silent. A few stray claps lingered on but after a moment they calmed down.

“Please, sit,” said the Secretary General into his microphone in a deep, kindly, Spanish-accented voice.

There was a big shuffling noise as the few hundred people in front of us all sat down at the same time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began the Secretary-General, addressing them. “Representatives of our member nations. Leaders of our member nations’ governments. Family members of those on the podium here with me. People of the world.” As he said this last he looked right at the main TV camera that was filming from the back-centre of the room. “We are here today to honour the work and service of these three remarkable young people, who come from three of our great member nations, Syria, the UK and America respectively. We call them Weakling, Mute and Djinn. As you know, these two young men and this young woman possess extraordinary genetic gifts. We here at the United Nations have been aware of their existence for a long time, as they were recruited willingly for our UN Miracle Force initiative, which works to safeguard international peace and harmony…”

It was very clever, what he had done--what they had done--I thought. Since we had exposed ourselves publicly in Australia, there was no use pretending we didn’t exist any more. Instead, the UN had decided now to openly acknowledge us, effectively to say ‘Look, here they are, we knew who they were all along, and they’re on our side. They’re on your side.’ That was the best way to mitigate panic and ensure that it looked like the UN was in control. However, since the world’s general public had never been aware of Commander Abram and Dr Black in the first place, there was to be no mention of them at all. As far as the population of the Earth knew, if they knew anything about them at all, they were just two crazy, evil men who may also have happened to have some superpowers (there would be endless speculation and conspiracy theories, I was sure), who were a part of the terrorist group Viper and who had been defeated by the three of us heroes in Sydney.

I tuned back in to what the Secretary-General was saying to the audience, to the world. “...therefore, in light of their recent achievements in defeating the Viper terror organisation in service of the UN and in the interests of world peace, I am bestowing on each of these three young people our highest honour: a United Nations Peace Medal.” He held out his hand to us. “Please, step forward”.”

At this, the audience erupted into raucous applause again, rising from their seats once more, some of them even cheering and whooping. I guessed that they were grateful that we had thwarted the threat to international security for them. I guessed that they were grateful that we had chosen to use our powers for the good of humanity, not for the ill of it.

I turned to face the Secretary-General who was gathering up our medals from his lectern.

Mute stepped forward to receive his medal first. Even he managed to follow the instructions we had been given correctly. He bowed his head and allowed the Secretary-General to place the medal by its ribbon over his neck. Then the Secretary-General shook his hand, and he stepped back alongside me and Ali to face the crowd again.

Next was Ali. {This feels a little weird...} she said to us silently over the mind-link as she received her own medal.

{It shouldn’t do,} I thought back to her as I watched her shake the Secretary-General’s hand. {You were on his side for a while, sure, but you still helped us defeat Abram in the end too, Ali. You deserve that medal as much as we do.}

{Yeah,} chipped in Mute, {Gonzalo’s right. You should listen to him, Ali.}

Last was my turn. The medal felt heavy around my neck. But it also felt...right.

After I shook the Secretary General’s hand I turned back to face the crowd with the others, drinking the moments in while they lasted. So much applause. So much approval. So much happiness. I glanced at my Mom. She was still smiling from ear to ear. Good.

The Secretary-General returned to his place behind his lectern and held up his hands for silence again. After a little while he got it.

“As you can imagine, of course Weakling, Mute and Djinn will be continuing to serve us all under the United Nations Miracle Force initiative.”

This is my moment, I thought.

Without thinking about it any further, I stepped up to the lectern and pulled the little grip that the microphone was on the end of myself towards myself.

“Actually,” I said, leaning down to speak into the mic, interrupting what the Secretary-General had just been saying. He looked as if I’d just thrown cat poo all over his nice blue suit, but he stood out of the way all the same to let me speak. I had powers, after all.

I gulped. “Actually,” I said again, “we’ve decided that it isn’t the best thing for us to operate under the authority of the UN any more.” The hall was unmistakably silent now. A tension filled the air so thick I could feel it. I forced myself not to look at my Mom. Instead, I looked straight at the TV camera in front of me, where the Secretary-General had been looking a few moments ago.

“The thing is,” I said, “what we’ve realised is that we can’t really trust the UN to put us to work in the best way any more. What we’ve realised is that we can’t really trust any adults at all. Adults have been in charge of the world for a while now, and to be honest, we don’t think that you’re doing a very good job. So, instead of working for the UN, we’ve decided to make Miracle Force independent.”

A massive gasp went up in the hall. I was sure that it also went up wherever we were being broadcast, and a few moments later wherever we were being translated. But I didn’t care. I had made up my mind. I forced myself not to look at my Mom.

“But Mr Lopez!” said the Secretary-General next to me, inaudible to anyone else not on the podium. His eyes kept flitting to the world leaders in the seats below. “You cannot do this! You need the United Nations to help steer your efforts for peace! We...we gave you a medal!”

I looked back into the camera and spoke into the microphone again. “We don’t need the United Nations at all. From now on, we’ll be operating independently, as our own independent organisation. I can’t tell you where we’ll be based, as that’ll be known only to us, but we’ll be able to make our own arrangements for that. As best we can we’ll try to work undercover, but I imagine you’ll be seeing us from time to time--wherever there is terrorism, wherever there is suffering, wherever, er, wherever there are evil crazy dudes trying to take over the world.” I coughed. Not my strongest moment. “Anyway, don’t worry, that’s what we’ll be doing: Fighting evil and working to keep you all safe. Also, there are others that we need to find. If there’s anyone out there watching this who also has powers, who discovers they have powers, then please rest assured: We’re coming to help you. We’re here to help you. All of you.”

I left it there. People had started to shout at me. Some were approaching the stage, including security personnell.

{Ready?} I said to Ali and Tom over the mind link.

{Ready,} said Ali.

{Let’s do this,} said Tom.

There was a shimmer in the air next to me as Ali teleported away.

I leant forwards as I felt Mute turn and step up behind me, putting his hands under my arms and lifting me up into the air with a little added help from his telekinesis.

As the world leaders bellowed at us, the world media snapped us and the world news cameras rolled on us, we flew through the air together, out of the hall.

On our way over the front row I thought I caught a glimpse of my Mom. She was still smiling, miraculously.

They tried to close the tall doors at the back of the ceremony hall against us but we made it through before they shut completely, the wind whistling past our cheeks.

Up, up we went, out of the UN building and into the New York sky.

I love flying.