Alice and Marie were playing a dangerous game when I reached home. The two girls were on the trampoline, bouncing around and having a great time also playing football with a ball that I knew for sure was very hard. I knew because I’d been the one to inflate it as well as the first to take it in the gut. Alice wanted it as full as possible. They were outside because it was still daytime, a fact that had taken me off guard when I left the SRT.

Today I had already watched a movie, had a heart to heart with a younger foster sister, been shot with a love beam and subsequently introduced to two new people that I could not get out of my mind. Then I’d been caught in the middle of an assault on the SRT, and been wounded fighting off two villains before getting caught in a web. A web where I’d been electrocuted to unconsciousness by a taser spider, and then woken in a hospital bed an indeterminate amount of time later.

After all that I’d stumbled outside to find it was still only half past three in the afternoon. Jagmikh fulfilled his self appointed duty of breaking the sound barrier while I was walking home. The amount of stuff that had happened today was staggering. The girls barely registered my return as I walked past them into the house. The sounds of music pumped up to drown out other noise was soothing.

All was well, there was no alarm like I’d been expecting. I wandered into the living room/kitchen to find Sofiya on the couch facing away from me, her attention fully on a game I didn’t recognize. Kathrine was there as well, sitting at the dining table with an assortment of paperwork in front of her. She looked pale, and had her phone was lying nearly out of reach. Her fingers tapped out an inscrutable pattern next to it and it didn’t look like she was getting anything done. That told me she was worried.

She looked up before I could open my mouth. “Michael, you’re back!” Kathrine was up and out of her chair in an instant and wrapped me in a hug the moment she reached me.

“Ghe-” Whatever I was going to say was lost in the hug. I blushed furiously, and awkwardly returned the gesture. I gave Kathrine a single pat on the back, being careful to avoid more skin to skin contact. The hug dragged on longer than I was comfortable with, and I started studying the corners of the room.

Kathrine eventually released me and I immediately started erasing the mental images from my mind.

“I got a message from a- a Rosie, I think.” Kathrine started explaining. “She claimed to be a part of the Regulation. All she said was the Sentinel Tower was compromised and that you were involved, but didn’t explain anything!”

“I can fill in the gaps.” I sat down at the table and pulled a sleeve up a fraction. “I wasn’t unscathed.”

“Oh, you need to see-”

“I’ve been treated already.” I continued. “Medically, I mean. The body’s all fine. And I handled myself better than, you know...”

“Are you willing to talk about what happened?” Kathrine pressed.

“I-” Excuses died in my throat. “Well…” I ended up giving her a more succinct version of events than what I gave to Blinker, leaving out the stuff that felt like a conspiracy. Kathrine had a few questions which I answered to the best of my civilian ability. Then a matter heavy in my mind took the stage.

“Tasing spiders...” Kathrine mulled the thought of it, then shivered. “I’d be bringing out more than just bug spray if any of those ever showed up here. Who even thought that up?”

“Kathrine, there’s something else I’m not sure how to deal with.” I started. Kathrine gave me her full attention and waited. “Earlier, before the movie, I mean, I had a talk with Sofiya. She overheard us talking about the sentry or something. I don’t know. The point is: she knew about me joining the Sentry and I wanted to talk to her about it before things went too far and she blew my cover or something.”

“And how did that go?”

“Fine. I think.” I answered honestly, glancing at the nine year old oblivious to my presence. “Thing is, I made a promise to not look for fights until I got some training.” I gave Kathrine a deadpan stare. “It didn’t take me three hours to break that promise.”

Kathrine gave the problem some thought. “Were you given an option?”

“No, I was trapped in the spider’s web. But do you think Sofiya’s going to see it that way? She’s nine.” I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. I took subtle relief in feeling it as it scraped across the floor. “I don’t like promises.”

“You should apologise.” Kathrine decided.

I didn’t respond. Sofiya had turned around and met my eyes. She gave a wave, so I gave one in return. It was from across the room, but I still felt Sofiya’s eyes sharpen on the barely visible bandage that creeped out onto the back of my hand.

“Oh boy.” I muttered as Sofiya threw her game controller to the side and moved around the couch towards me. She stalked up and pulled my hand towards her. I could have resisted the strength of a nine year old, but decided against it.

Sofiya looked at the bandage. She pushed my long sleeve up my arm, revealing how far the bandage traveled. Kathrine gasped when she saw the full extent of it. Sofiya met my eyes, her expression hard and telling me nothing.

I told her. “You’re sharp.”

She told me. “You promised.” And dropped my hand and left.

“I could explain…” I trailed off, already resigned to Sofiya’s ire.

The music dipped in volume. “Sofiya, Michael has something to tell you.” Kathrine spoke commandingly, using her mother voice. It made Sofiya stop, but that was all it did. Kathrine gave me a nudge.

I spoke honestly. “Oh. Right. Sofiya, I’m sorry.”

I then kicked myself as hard as Icould without actually moving. That didn’t even convince me.

Sofiya didn’t respond to that. I wasn’t looking at Kathrine. The tension rose as music that was popular thirty years ago played in the background. When no one said anything Sofiya left, the sound of her footsteps drowned out by the speakers.

“Well that could have gone better Michael.” Kathrine commented.

“I’m getting a drink.” I replied. I didn’t want to think about this.

“That better not mean what I think it means.” Kathrine mirthfully chided me.

“...” I busied myself getting a glass of juice. “How are you like that already?”

“Like what?”

I struggled to find the right word. “Normal.”

Kathrine gave a sharp laugh. “Just because I’m fostering three little ones doesn’t mean I don’t know how to deal with teenagers. I’ve been doing this a while.”

“Uh huh.” I wasn’t impressed by the non-answer she gave me.

“I’ll put it another way. I’m the mother hen of three girls who constantly need something, are always fighting and growing and changing. This is normal. If anything you’re the weird one.”

“Huh.” I mused the thought as I took a sip. “I know why.”

Kathrine waited but I didn’t elaborate.

“Should I try again?” I eventually asked.

“Again?” Kathrine questioned.

“With Sofiya. Apologising.” I said like it was a new concept for me.

“Yes, but don’t lead with ‘I’m sorry’. It’ll make you look like a poser.”

“That doesn’t help me.”

“You have common ground, start with that. Or dazzle her with your power or something. She’s still a nine year old” Kathrine was so blase about it that I couldn’t help but frown. Was I putting too much thought into this?

“I’ll be upstairs.” I told her and took my drink with me.

~~~

The matter with Sofiya wasn’t something I was about to forget about, so I was comfortable benching that for later. Once I was in my room I improvised a lock on my door by putting something very heavy in front of it, like a desk. My power made doing that a cinch, and quickly left me with a degree of privacy as I opened my laptop and navigated to my emails.

The Regulation had set up an email for me: [email protected], which I checked first. There were two emails. One was from Orcus detailing a training regiment I was expected to follow, and the other was from Blinker, who introduced himself as my trainer for said regiment.

The training had blocks called tactics, communication, power training, surveillance, first aid, and more like that. I was relieved to see that there weren’t any blocks dedicated to patrol. It seemed they weren’t about to send me into the field in my current state, though the thought crossed my mind that they were still going ahead with this despite me being able to hold my own against a villain and part of me felt ready.

I filed the new information away and moved over to my personal emails. After a moment’s hesitation I slid the cursor over the search bar and typed in four letters: “jmcm”.

There was one result.

It had no subject, no attachments, and had been sent by a J McMaster. I leaned back and looked at the email heading. This was proof that there was something happening behind the scenes. Something linked this “J. McMaster” to Spinnerette, who somehow knew enough about my power to deliver a message in such a way that it could only be for me in the middle of an assault on the SRT. But that begged the question, why was this email so important?

When I hovered the mouse over the email, the preview showed the beginning of a link that lead back to Maine Ladder high, but stopped before reaching the end of the link. So the email was in line with the email fiasco that had happened while I was away from school. This would theoretically log me onto someone else’s account. Nathan had said that the emails had been sent from the account that the links let them log on to, so this would get me onto this J’s account.

I opened the email and found it contained the link and underneath it was a series of letters and numbers. A password. I clicked the link and waited for the web page to load. It took me to a login screen and filled in J’s email. I copied the password over and hit enter, and was taken to J’s inbox. Most of the stuff on the first page was weekly emails from teachers and subscriptions.

Scrolling down I found a whole lot more of the same. There was a lot of correspondence with a person called Nick. The subjects of emails from him were all along the lines of lunches and hangouts, so I assumed they were friends. I opened a few, and learned that the owner of this inbox was called Jess, making her the one that had hacked into everyone’s emails and sent the login details around. The thing was contents weren’t interesting, just lunch and hangout coordination, so I started skipping over them.

It was weird. If this was the Jess, the one responsible for the whole thing, why had she given away her details? It didn’t make sense.

There were more emails from various names that I recognised from hearing about them at school. I opened a few like I had with Nick, and found it was mostly conversation about homework and gossip about people I didn’t know. A few recent emails asked where Jess had gone, but they hadn’t been responded to, and there was some hate mail threatening retribution for the mass hacking that I skimmed over.

It was strange, reading hate mail meant for someone else. But it wasn’t informative and didn’t tell me anything new. There was one that I recognised was from the head boy asking Jess to find some way to undo what had happened to him. The emails from teachers were exactly the same as what I got, but were intended for a different student and weren’t really tell me anything new. Finally, I found the email that informed Jess she was expelled.

Jess was the one that sent the school into chaos, so why was her inbox so entirely normal. There wasn’t any scandal beyond what had already transpired and that didn’t make sense. Why would I be directed here in such a contrived way if there was nothing for me to know about?

I clicked over to the sent box and found the email that had been sent to me amongst a sea of emails that was Jess’ side of things. After clicking around a few of the emails I found nothing new. Then I noticed Jess had exactly 101 saved drafts, and clicked over to that page.

Each draft had no subject and clicking on one lead me to a blank email. I clicked down a few times and found that the next five emails were the same. Scrolling down showed me a hundred similar emails until I reached the bottom, where there was a draft email with the subject “Hurtling Through Space”. Against my better judgement I clicked.

It read.

I was blissfully unaware of how insignificant I was until you showed up. I didn’t want to know exactly how fast we’re moving, how heavy I am, and how fast the parts of me are moving around through this cosmic void. But hey, you’re here now and I’m getting myself expelled. One school just isn’t big enough for two transhumans.

I’m joining a club instead. We meet weekly on Wednesday at 7.00pm in room 1205 of 26 Airedale Ave. It’s the apartment building shaped like a hexagon. We get in through the backdoor and use the code 14836# to enter.

It’s an exclusive club. Only people like you and me allowed in. We come in, talk a bunch, discuss how best to improve our lives and stuff. Kind of like group therapy without the therapist. There’s this one guy who helped me out. Out of school, I mean. And other things too. Mostly the other things. You should know that he’s interested in helping you too.

I only put that here because he said doing so “would bring weal.” or something. I don’t know, he’s not exactly my type. But when this guy says things will bring weal, you trust him on that and take his advice. That being said he has no advice for you.

Hope to see you there. I’ll know when you’re coming.

JMcM

P.S. I actually genuinely hope we never meet again, not that we’ve actually met yet. I just don’t want to experience clinging to a gargantuan ball and hurtling through the cosmic void again, thanks. Don’t come.

P.P.S. Turns out the weal guy does have something for you, he made me put this here: Dg4s09kl&#teEdK

I read the draft three times to make sure I hadn’t misread anything. Then I copied the email onto a word app and closed the email along with the laptop. A hollow feeling was settling in my stomach, Jess had known about my power. How?

At school I’d been careful to not use my power for anything. I could recall that each time I’d had the urge to, I had quelled it. I knew that for sure because I didn’t have the guilt that came from breaking a rule I set for myself.

Hold on. Calm. I needed to be calm. For the next minute I focused on my breathing and tried to ignore the intrusive thoughts and the suddenly painful beating of my heart. When I stopped panicking, I looked at it from another perspective.

Jess clearly had a power. What it was, I couldn’t say, but it gave her access to information she shouldn’t conceivably be able to know. With that assumption, her sudden hacking skills that lead to her expulsion were no longer surprising. What scared me was the fact that her power had apparently hijacked mine, or something along those lines.

My power, or the information part of my power showed me the systems of all forces of objects that I touched. All forces as in every. Single. Force. That included the one that came from the earth, along with everything on it as it hurtled through space at a speed that can only be described as astronomical. When I manifested, it had taken me a few days to be able to walk straight again. It was also something I hadn’t told anyone about, further supporting my theory of Jess hijacking my power.

Did that also mean that she could hijack my telekinesis as well? That was a terrifying thought.

Then there was “The Weal Guy”. Jess had described him as helpful and interested in me, which immediately set off my mental alarm. He was part of the “Club”, which was suspicious as all hell. This was all suspicious. Why in the world were these people I hadn’t met before reaching out to me? I hadn’t accomplished anything yet. The only thing I’d done was fight Cloud, zap him twice, and put Zipline in the ceiling after receiving severe physical trauma.

My thoughts were becoming cyclic, so I went to the shower and set the temperature way down. Cooling off helped, but there was a sense of unease building. I’d taken one step into the world of heroes and villains, and they’d taken a mile from me. It wasn’t something I could solve right now.

Also, the hexagon shaped building sounded familiar. There was a chance that it wasn’t the hexagon shaped skyscraper that I couldn’t help looking at everytime I tried to get to sleep with the blinds open. There was also a chance that nothing here was a coincidence, it was all planned and whoever they were chose the location specifically because of its proximity to me.

That realisation gave a chill that was different from the prospect of Jess stealing my power. This time it was as if someone had stood on my grave, and the cold water flowing over me did nothing to shift the feeling. Just how deep in was I? I needed a distraction, and I needed to actually accomplish something.

I found myself standing outside Sofiya’s door.

When I knocked on Sofiya’s door, I was properly dressed, and there wasn’t much of a response. I felt movement from the room through my feet, and then what felt like a door sliding. Open or closed, I couldn’t tell, but I could guess. Regardless, I was here to fix what I could. I grimly kept that resolve in focus as I turned the handle.

I called out, “Sofiya, I’m coming in.” and opened the door.

Sofiya’s room was a little more decorated than mine. She had blue sheets where I had grey, and a bookcase with a few novels stacked on it next to dozens of picture books. There wasn’t anyone inside when I walked in. I recalled the movements I felt and looked to the wardrobe. Sofiya had a walk in wardrobe built into the wall, not too dissimilar to mine. The door was closed, but a corner of fabric stuck through the gap. It shifted.

I moved over and sat next to the wardrobe door, leaning my head back against the wall until it thumped lightly. For a while I just sat there unsure of what to do. Apologise? Absolutely. How? That was a better question. Make an excuse?

“I didn’t break the promise.” I immediately regretted going with the rule of three. There was no response from the other side of the door.

“There’s a twelve year old hero in the Sentry.” I kept talking. If I stopped now then I’d never start again. “She’s called Lucidity. I’m sure you already know, but she surprised me today. Got one heck of a cool power as well. Basically has access to every macguffin you could think of.”

I paused and waited. Nothing.

“She made us hoverboards and gave me a phaser set to stun. That was all she had time to prepare before we had to make a break for it. ‘Course, she was preparing herself a hell of a lot more than me. We got ambushed though. Two villains crept up on us: Cloud and Zipline. We fought, and I did better than the time I got put in hospital. I actually knocked out Cloud while Lucidity soloed the other one. Then when Zipline tried pulling a fast one on me I put her in the ceiling. She’s remarkable, well adjusted, and strong as heck, and twelve.

“I’m a little surprised to find that I want to be more like her.” I admitted. “It’s one hell of an example to follow.”

A lull got interrupted by the door sliding partially open. Sofiya looked at me with one eye through the small crack. It was noticeably puffy.

Her voice cracked when she spoke. “How did you get the bandages?”

“Remember the hoverboards? We were going down an elevator shaft to safety, but Spinnerette put a huge web in there and we got caught in it.” I explained, embellishing like one might a bedtime story. “Then one of her spiders gave me a shock of a lifetime. Knocked me out for a bit and burned me where I was in contact with the web.”

“You were trying to run?”

“That’s right.” I confirmed, but Sofiya still looked troubled. The conversation had halted. What was I supposed to do now? Apologise? Flex my power? Bedazzle her?

I tapped the door and used my power to make it slide open. Now there was nothing between Sofiya and myself, I noticed her ruffled hair was sticking to the clothes hanging around her. Though, that didn’t give me any indication as to what to do next.

“Can I…” Sofiya mumbled. “-g, -ou?”

I had no idea what she just asked. “Sure.”

Without standing, Sofiya emerged from her wardrobe and wrapped her arms around my waist. I carefully maneuvered an arm to rest around her and avoided touching her skin. We stayed like that for a while.

Sofiya wasn’t crying anymore, but she wasn’t done. “Make the promise again.” her words were muffled because she was speaking them directly into my side. “Please.”

“I can’t.” I responded, maybe too quickly. I felt Sofiya tense. “I’m sorry, but the way things are, I just can’t do that.”

“But-”

“I won’t die.” I assured her. “Besides, most of the villainy in Graceland is practically PG-13. Worst thing that can happen to me is I get knocked out and kidnapped. When that happens, I’ll use my power to lift my cell out of the ground and fly back here.”

Sofiya’s arms tightened around me. There was probably something better to say there, but it was too late now.

“I don’t want you to vanish.” She barely spoke.

“I’m not going to vanish.” I stated, and for now that seemed to be enough.

With Sofiya hanging on and tethering me to one place, my mind began to wander. It went back over the crazy email I’d received, and the fights I’d taken part. It went back further. To when the sun descended and the destruction that came with it.

A dark thought crossed my mind. Not for another four months, anyway.