“Can I get a picture with you?” Someone asked me.

I glanced across the way to see Zephyr standing with intent, glaring at the crowd moving past. No one had approached her, given the aura of hostility the hero was giving off. I, on the other hand had been accosted three times since I started standing here. Not because my costume looked any less menacing than Zephyrs, but because I wasn’t actively giving people the evil eye.

“Of course.” I told the man, shifting so I was standing more presentably and holding my staff upright, rather than leaning it against me like I had been doing.

He was older than me, his age landing somewhere in his mid twenties. His clothes were fashionable, but the care he took in picking his clothes hadn’t reached how he looked after himself. There was scruff growing on his cheeks and chin, and even extending down his neck. It was all captured in high definition as he stood next to me and took a selfie.

My costume was captured as well, in all it’s black and green glory- No. Glory was too strong a word for it. Presence was better, but it didn’t quite work in that sentence. He took a picture of him and me and I was in my costume. I didn’t doubt this was another picture of me that would end up on someone’s social media within minutes.

Scratch that. He did it right away with the caption ‘met the baby hero’, then turned around as if I couldn’t read, and gave a friendly pat on my shoulder.

“Thanks for that…” He trailed off. He wasn’t the first to forget my name.

“Lock.” I reminded him, brushing the arm off as politely as I could. “Have a safe day.”

He nodded with a grin. “Lock, got it. See you.” He walked off and I tried not to let it get to me.

The man vanished into the constant stream of people that were walking in and out of the mall. I glanced up as Slingshot did another pass overhead. She was keeping an eye for anyone running around making a mess, or anyone matching the description of any of the local villains. Zephyr had wanted to be the one in the air, but Slingshot still wasn’t totally comfortable in front of the public and her version of flight didn’t give off a sound like that of a jet engine.

All sorts of people walked by, and I attempted to keep my eye on each of them. Maybe keep didn’t fit. I was looking for people who looked out of sorts, be that overly tired, obviously hiding wounds, or staring back at me with a cold glare. Once I evaluated someone, I let my eyes slide past to the next person. There were a lot of that third type, I’d found. People who looked at me like I’d kicked a puppy. All of whom I had never even seen before.

They came in groups of two, mostly. Sometimes three or more, and occasionally there was someone who walked past obviously by themselves. Those by themselves pointedly ignored me and Zephyr, they knew they shouldn’t have been out by themselves. The Regulation had put out word through every outlet regarding the matter with Clothesline and the increase of activity from the Racketeers.

That was the news, social media sites, and other sites that were less social and more media, followed by constant reminders. The message was a warning not to go out alone, and in the SRT that notion was doubled down to the point that if you went out in costume, you had to be part of a group of three. At least, that’s how it was for the Sentrys.

The Racketeers, on their part, had kept the pressure up in the wake of Clothesline. They were on a witch hunt for whoever killed their teammate, and no one was safe. Over the past three days they’d hit Impulse from the Courtesans, Gizumo from the Rising Sun, Fear and Method from the Gray Apostles, and double dipped in the Heroes of Yesterday when they attacked Forsaken. That was just the stuff that was loud enough to be noticed.

They were hitting their targets almost on a schedule by this point. They were due to make another move if they kept to the pattern, and the heroes were getting antsy. At least, Zephyr was. It was why she was glaring at the general populace. She knew what was coming, and they knew what was coming, but they didn’t care.

Because it was the weekend and these prices won’t stay low forever, or something along those lines.

A contributing factor was that we didn’t have any way of predicting where the Racketeers were going to appear next. I had thrown around the idea of asking Risk where the two most likely locations were and was told that one, that’s not how his power works, and two, don’t you think he’d have thought of that already?

Zephyr had been the one to vocalise point two.

Another group of people accosted me for photos, a group of girls this time. There were three of them and they were about my age. I did my best to treat them the same way as I had the man from before. At least one of them remembered my name.

“Lock, could you ask Slingshot down here?” One of them asked, she was brunette.

There was another brunette with a darker brown, and the other had her hair dyed red.

“May I ask why?” May was a good word to use, I’d found over three days of sidekick duty. If I had asked ‘what for?’ or simply ‘why?’, it would have made me come off as cold. Alternatively, I could have said ‘could you tell me why?’, which was better, but made me out to be more of a machine following the law than a man. ‘May I...’ extended a request to the other person, and rolled off the tongue in a way that gave the fuzzies. It made them feel good and they got to take a larger part in the conversation.

People liked interacting with heroes. At least, they liked the idea of it.

“We want to get a picture with you and her together.” The light brunette told me.

“One moment.” I put a finger to my ear, or I was wearing a hood so I pressed where my ear was, and pushed a button that opened the local channel.

After my debut I had finally been given the standard issue equipment that Slingshot seemed to have received well before hers. That included a set of handcuffs which I’d placed in my costume’s pockets, some first aid material, mostly band aids, also in the pockets, and a radio.

The radio came in two pieces. One was large, roughly the size of my palm, and did the actual transmitting and receiving. The other piece went in my ear and was equipped with a speaker and a microphone that picked up sound as far away as my mouth. Being wireless, the thing ran out of charge relatively quickly, so there were three replacements attached to the transceiver part of the device. It was, again, in a pocket.

“Slingshot, this is Lock. I have some fans asking for a picture. Can you make it?” I said into the channel.

Slingshot may have been the name I said, but the words were really for Zephyr, who I turned to see the reaction of. She was already looking in my direction and sizing up my situation. Her hand went up to her ear.

“Slingshot, this is Zephyr. What does the situation look like from above?” Zephyr’s voice came through the radio. She wasn’t referring to me and the prospective photographers, she was talking about the bigger picture.

“Uh. I see a whole lot of people milling about.” Slingshot’s voice came through. “I haven’t seen anyone running or anything through the glass roof or in the surrounding streets. ”

Zephyr paused for a moment. I turned my head to look at the three girls, but kept my hand in place to let them know I was still waiting for a reply.

“Take a picture, Slingshot.” Zephyr told her. I perked my head up to imply the good news.

“I’m on my way.” Slingshot’s voice was muffled a bit by rushing wind.

“That’s great to hear.” I said without pressing the transmitter. I lowered my hand and addressed the girls. “She’ll be right down.”

The three of them started arguing about who was going to take the photo. Half a minute later Slingshot descended next to me, earning looks as she dove down until the very last moment, then stopping on a dime and ending the maneuver gracefully upright.

She wasn’t comfortable, I knew that. After three days of being in the public eye, Slingshot still hadn’t found it within herself to brush off the opinions of random passerbys. To be fair, I hadn’t either, but it was much more visible in the perpetually flying heroine. The diving maneuver was how she stopped people looking up her skirt on the way down.

I over acted surprised when she came to a stop, earning a laugh from the girls. Slingshot gave me a nod hello before addressing the ones who had asked for her.

“Are you girls the ones who wanted a photo?” She asked. Her voice was different from how it had been during Greenflame’s welcoming party. Then, she had been scared and it showed in how she spoke. Now her voice was putting on a quality I’d heard Kathrine use when she was trying to entice the girls into doing something.

“Yes.” The brunette answered as she practically shoved her phone into the darker brunette’s hands. “So, just, like, here?”

I closed my eyes and gave a soft laugh before stepping so that I was next to Slingshot and the brunette was between me and the darker brunette. On her part, Slingshot was still quite a ways off the ground, so she drifted downwards until our heads were level. Her arm brushed against the staff that seemed to be mine now, and I swapped the hand I was using to hold it. The redhead found a spot next to Slingshot, and the brunette relocated to match. I appreciated the awareness.

The dark haired brunette stepped back, looked at the phone, then stepped back again, before including all of us “Say cheese!”

“Cheese.” We obliged. There was a snap of the camera.

“Scatter!” The dark brunette followed up and the two girls darted off to the side, away from Slingshot and me. There was a snap as I was moving my free hand to the staff and I started evaluating how much of a threat the dark brunette was.

Not much of a threat, it seemed. She was openly laughing and showing the brunette her phone. The fake redhead was rushing to look and was gushing about how cute we looked together.

“W-what?” Slingshot seemed lost.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you Slingshot.” Then I pulled back my hand, flicking my fingers upwards on the way back. Fly away.

She got the message and blasted off.

“Thank you!” The brunette called after Slingshot as she started getting smaller.

“Aw, I wanted a picture with her as well.” The dark brunette pouted.

“Then you should have been honest from the start.” I told them. “No one likes being used.”

You’re right. Her body language told me. “Still...” Her mouth said.

“Zephyr is still right there.” I pointed over her shoulder. “There’s a strong character if ever I saw one.” I neglected to mention her inherent animosity towards me.

“I’ll try and get a picture with… her… then.” The dark haired brunette faltered when her friends weren’t paying attention.

I could have left her like that. It was tempting, given the trick she had just pulled. But I was a hero and I had PR to build. I swapped the staff again and tapped it.

“Or a selfie with me. Or both. Your choice.”

She brightened and pulled her phone out. When she asked me to do the peace sign, I acquiesced despite having being warned against doing such things back at the SRT. Then the gaggle of girls left me alone to continue standing.

The next time a gaggle of girls asked for Slingshot I put my hand to my ear.

“Slingshot, this is Lock. Are you free to take a picture?” But I wasn’t pressing the transmitter.

I waited a few moments for ‘Slingshot’ to respond.

“Sorry, she’s got to keep an eye out.” I told the disappointed civilians.

~~~

The times when we were on the move were better than the times we had to stand around. It took me away from the crowds where the constant hustle quickly became grating, and let me exercise my power as I made my way through the streets as quickly as I could.

It wasn’t all good. My fastest speed was slower than Zephyr and Slingshot’s cruising speeds, and they had to stop and wait for me several times every patrol. It didn’t help that they had the freedom to fly as the crow did, while I was left to navigate the streets. Zephyr had a habit of getting impatient and flying ahead, leaving Slingshot in charge of keeping both me and her in sight. Given the recent activity of the Racketeers that scared the shit out of me, but Zephyr wasn’t stopping.

“Intersection of King street and T road.” Zephyr’s voice came through the radio. The next stop on our patrol, which didn’t make me happy. King street was the commercial base of Downtown Graceland, meaning it would be crowded. I couldn’t move as quickly through crowds, meaning I was going to get further behind, meaning Zephyr would have an excuse to get mad at me.

“Lock, this is Slingshot.” The flying superheroine spoke through the same channel. “Take the second right.”

I wasn’t moving as fast as a car, but I was far faster than anyone walking. So much so that I kept off the sidewalk when possible. I made use of bike lanes, whose primary occupants I also tended to outpace, but those were few and far between. When we were further from the bustling areas of Graceland, I could step onto the road and slide along provided there weren’t any cars. Where I was right now was not one of those places. It became slow going.

Slingshot was acting as my map app, giving me directions to where I needed to go. I couldn’t use my actual app because sliding on my phone would end up the same way as anyone who drove while on their phone.

I didn’t reply, I just took the indicated turn and waited for the next instruction.

“Straight until it forks.” Slingshot told me. “Then go left.”

There was a gap in oncoming traffic that I used to get halfway across the road and started sliding along the median strip. I prefered sliding on the road to sliding along the pavement. When on the road, my power perceived the entire road as one thing, so I could get some speed and not have to worry until I needed to turn. The footpath, however was divided into chunks that were only so long. Each time a new slab of concrete started, I needed to reapply my power. So I ended up going slower and putting more effort into maintaining a reduced speed.

The mental gymnastics were nice to focus on. The problem was that it started wearing on me somewhere between the first time I really slid and now.

“That right.” Slingshot’s direction came a little late and I had to backtrack. More lost time.

“This is Zephyr. Where’s Lock?” The Sentinel demanded.

“I’m nearly at the intersection.” I responded.

She didn’t transmit it, but I could hear Zephyr clicking her tongue in annoyance.

“The next checkpoint is the corner of sundance and-” A sudden lightning strike interrupted Zephyr’s instruction. She followed up without missing a beat, even more urgency in her voice. “Redirect to lightning strike. Confirmed beastmaster presence. Assume Racketeer involvement. Move.”

If Zephyr was enjoying the sudden development, it didn’t show in her voice. The sudden increase in speed, however, was telling. I heard the sound of her ability intensify despite still being two blocks away.

“Lock, you want to go, um, three streets before taking a right.” Slingshot informed me, still acting as my eye in the sky. “Then go left and basically you want to zig zag until you get to the monument. I’ll direct you from there.”

I waited patiently for her to finish her directions. Interrupting her wouldn’t have worked because two lines couldn’t speak at the same time on radio.

“Slingshot, I saw the lightning strike.” I told her. “Go and assist Zephyr.”

She remained hanging in the sky, indecisiveness visible to all.

“Let the Regulation know, and go!” That got her moving, fiddling with her transceiver to communicate on a different channel.

I quickly made it to the monument Slingshot had mentioned. In the time it took me to get there, there were three more lightning strikes that told me where I needed to be. I was lucky, the strikes were getting closer. That meant I wouldn’t be horribly late to the show.

The lightning strikes were because of the power of a Beastmaster called Channel. The Beastmasters were a group that all seemed to have become Altered during their manifestations. It showed in Channel, who had ridges of metal growing out of her body, poking out of her head, and presumably making it real hard for the girl to get a wardrobe. She had the ability to make lightning strike at any time. Even now, as she had just demonstrated four times in a row, despite the fact that it was a sunny day with barely any clouds.

Catch was, the lightning only struck her.

Not that it was a problem, of course. Thanks to the metal in her skin and general power fuckery, Channel was a living lightning rod. She took the lightning, stored it, then discharged it at will. I had no intention of touching her to see if I could manipulate the metal.

As I maneuvered closer to the action I cycled through what I knew of the Beastmasters. They were lead by Jackal, who could transform into a large beast that could diffuse itself at will. When Jackal was diffused he affected things less, but it worked the other way too. I also remembered something about him lulling people to sleep at the worst times.

Then there was Wayvern, who had the name because they had wings and a stinging tail, not unlike a wyvern. But Wyvern was taken, so they went with something wyvern adjacent for the villain. I didn’t recall much about them, so I assumed enforcer abilities.

After that was Retch, who was a very subpar displacer. They had super speed, but probably wouldn’t be able to match the speed I was sliding. That is, at first. Retch had a ‘slow start’ power, so they got faster over time.

Also in there was Bad Valentine, who Voidling had told us about in the meeting with the Heroes of Yesterday. I didn’t know anything more about him, but I was keeping my eye out for glass. And I was sure I was forgetting someone, but I didn’t have any time to scrape my memory to remember. I had crossed the paths of the Beastmasters and Racketeers.

I was given advanced warning by seeing a fifth lightning strike somewhere around the next corner. The blast lit the pavement strongly enough that I could see a shadows that weren’t normally there. Not wanting to run into anyone coming the other way, I reactivated friction in my shoes and came to a running stop before checking the corner.

Boy, was I glad I did that.

Far down the street Zephyr was on a fighting approach with Junk Mail, but it was a bad matchup for the heroine. She was trying to get close enough to grab him, but Junk Mail kept summoning wide sheets of paper in midair that got sucked into the turbines that were Zephyr’s legs. It wouldn’t have been a concern if the wide sheets of paper didn’t also get caught on Zephyr’s solid bits. Since Zephyr delivered blunt blows exclusively, she was having trouble getting the paper off. When she finally did, Junk mail had three more sheets waiting for her.

Slingshot was further up, and was running interference for Zephyr, so only one of the sheets could impede her. The two heroes working together were gaining, but it was slow progress.

Halfway between the Sentinel and me were three more of the Racketeers. Waterlad, Zipline, and Prism, the one with a disco ball for a helmet. Zipline was trying to lead the charge but was weighed down by her metal, which she was multitasking with. There were several wires extending from her ringmail costume forwards in an attempt to capture the fleeing Beastmasters.

Those wires looked alive. They bent from some unseen force and seemed to be attempting to pull Zipline along. As the villain in question took some unreasonably long strides, she reached out with one hand and touched the door of a car. It immediately warped and melted into her costume, leaving behind a fine blue dust that used to be the car’s paint job.

Waterlad didn’t have a power that let him do much in the situation. He was hanging around the middle of the group and keeping an eye out. He noticed me when I peeked around the corner. We were acting like we didn’t know each other, so he didn’t wave, and I noted his presence before letting my eyes slide past him.

Prism’s focus was divided. He was alternating between looking behind and pointing, with his hand glowing in a multicoloured light and causing Zephyr to slide sideways into the building, the looking forward and shooting a beam at the running Beastmasters. He wasn’t the best shot, it seemed. The beam went very wide.

Speaking of fleeing Beastmasters, there were two of them. Channel and the one I hadn’t remembered the name of. They were right around the corner.

Channel raced past before I could react, the jagged metal ridges on her arms were crackling with electricity and I didn’t want to touch her anyway. However, the other guy was running just a little slower and was well within my reach. I reached out and grabbed his arm, redirecting him using myself as a pivot while Channel kept running in another direction.

“Get back here!” Prism bellowed, somehow sounding closer than I thought. Then I remembered that’s exactly what his power did.

“No bad intentions.” I told the guy I grabbed. The guy was clearly Altered. His hair and skin reminded me of a rainbow because that’s exactly what it looked like. Patches of each were scattered around his visible skin, all shining prismatically in the light. He also had gills on his neck. Who knew if they were functional.

Zipline sent some more wire after Channel, who was crossing the road. Enough commotion had happened that some people had stopped their cars and left them behind that Channel was able to dodge the one still moving car on her way across. I couldn’t blame the drivers when there was a villain with the very loud ability to call lightning strikes on the loose. A few broke off and snaked around the corner, driving themselves into the pavement around us.

“Fuck!” The Beastmaster was trying to pull his arm free. “Let me go.”

“Hey.” I used my power to increase the force I was putting into my grip. It was fortunate this guy was wearing long sleeves. “I can run faster than you. Hold on, and I’ll get you away from the other supervillains that are trying to gut you.”

He was breathing hard and clearly wasn’t buying what I was selling. Then another one of Zipline’s wires hit the pavement and made his decision for him.

“Get me the fuck out of here.” He told me.

I obliged, releasing his arm and picking him up by with an arm wrapped around his waist. One the way up I made the job easier for myself by countering the effect of his weight on my costume. The guy made a surprised sound as I easily lifted him. Because of how I was using my power, picking him up wasn’t impeding any of my movement. Which was good, because Zipline had just made it around the corner and was glaring at me through her solid metal mask.

“You.” She pointed at me. Several errant wires also pointed at me. Said wires started moving towards me.

Well shit.

I started running, using my power to reduce friction, then put it back to take another step and attempt to increase my speed further. Once I had decent sliding speed, I intended to use my power to push my velocity beyond that, but a wire snaked around my leg before I could get around to it. Zipline hadn’t fixed me in place yet for some reason. It gave me time to react.

“Hold.” I told the Beastmaster, thrusting the staff into his hands. When he was holding the piece of metal I reached down and gripped the wire, startling when the complex matrix of tiny forces entered my senses. I had forgotten about that quirk of her power.

Originally I was intending to reduce friction on the wire and just push it off. It would have been a fine improvement over what happened in the SRT, which left my leg bruised for a week. But ‘seeing’ the matrix again gave me an idea, and it wasn’t all I ‘saw’. Last time Zipline had affixed her wires to the floor before I’d gotten my hands on them for the most part. She hadn’t gotten around to that yet so I could sense her entire costume, as well as all the other wires that were attached to it.

That gave me another idea, but I decided to just go with the former idea this time. I cancelled a force in the wire just next to where I was holding it, causing the wire to break and shutting off my connection to the rest of Zipline. Then I got rid of its friction and slid it off anyway. Then I got back to speeding up.

When I looked back in front of me, the sidewalk turned in a sharp 90 degree angle, with a barrier right in front of me and a car parked just beyond that. I swore and started slowing to turn, but when I turned the corner I found myself running into a wall. The change was so sudden that I didn’t have time to stop and pancaked into it.

“The hell did you do that for?” The beastmaster demanded. He was on the side that hadn’t been driven into a wall, and I had twisted at the last moment to try and hit the wall with my back. I had been partially successful.

I didn’t answer him and looked back. The building I was now leaning against turned a sudden ninety degrees right next to me and walled off where we had just come from. There was another me with the same Beastmaster on his other shoulder against that wall. When I looked at him, it was like looking in a mirror. This was Prism’s doing, it was exactly looking in a mirror.

“Ghost.” I said to myself, fitting him into the power classification I had recently learned, then got back to running. There was no way of seeing how close the villains were.

“You’re next, Lock!” Prism’s voice shouted from the other side of the illusion. “We’re keeping this up until we get the one that offed her! And we’re getting that staff back!”

To punctuate his point, several wires pierced the illusion and stabbed into the pavement. Some of them nearly reached me.

“It wasn’t me!” I yelled back at them. “I met her once!”

“And you broke her leg!” This time it was Zipline shouting. She said more, but I turned a corner and couldn’t hear the follow up.

Yeah, given a chance to choose between sticking around for banter and getting away, I was going to get away every time. I didn’t just stop there. I went several blocks before putting down the Beastmaster I was handily carrying. My free hand was searching the gear in my pocket, and quickly found what it was looking for.

“Thanks for the assist, Lock.” He said thankfully and held up my staff. “Do you want this back?”

“Yes.” I snapped a handcuff on the arm holding the staff with one hand before taking the metal pole with the other. “Other hand, please.”

“Drat.” He pouted and held his other arm out, which I also cuffed. I considered handcuffing him with his hands behind his back, but he seemed cooperative, and honestly, not all that capable. He looked up with a confident grin. “So what now, Mr Sentry?”

“To the SRT with you.” I told him. “You’re one of the Beastmasters, what did you think would happen?”

“That we would stop for cookies and ice cream first? I know a great place, it’s-”

“Too bad.” I cut him off and pushed on his shoulder to get him to start walking.

He clicked his tongue and visibly pouted. “You know, despite that, I think you’re a nice hero. Most of the ones in Graceland would have just arrested me on the spot, to hell with the consequences. Do me a favour and don’t do what Orcus did to Junkie.” The Beastmaster said conversationally.

I nodded, taking the complement stiffly because he was a villain and I was a hero.

He sighed. “We were having such a nice day as well, Channel and me. We were just having fun at the arcade, you know, shooting the shit. Channel had her hoodie on and no one knew the better.”

I started ignoring him and tried to recall what I knew about this Beastmaster. The prismatic hair and skin had given a kick start to my memory at some point, and when I reached for the information his name was readily available: Rainbowfish.

Ah. Because of the rainbow hair and the gills.

Rainbowfish was still talking. “So we finished up, went outside onto King street, and there they were. The Racketeers! Zipline, Prism, and Junk Mail. We only managed to get away from them because Channel was such a badass. She’s one of the only people that counters Zipline in Graceland. Only reason we were able to run.”

His power was harder to grasp at, because it wasn’t as clear cut as powers like mine were. As far as powers went, Rainbowfish’s was abstract. It involved belief, and could impact the world in ways that were hard to track. First, he had to tell a lie. Then, in layman’s terms, when the lie was revealed it would become true.

I didn’t know the limits, but it was scary now that I was recalling it.

Rainbowfish hadn’t stopped talking, despite the fact that I clearly wasn’t taking part in the conversation. “We took a few twists and turns. Then you caught me, and now here we are.” He let out a big breath. “Good thing I didn’t get caught by anything metal.”

I was scrambling with my transceiver to change the channel to one that hooked me into the SRT. “This is Lock. What are the containment protocols for Rainbowfish?”

It took a few moments for me to get a response. “Lock? This is Francis. Can you repeat?”

“What are the containment protocols for Rainbowfish?” I repeated through clenched teeth.

“Please hold.” Francis told me.

Another lightning strike happened several blocks away.

‘You know, Lock.” Rainbowfish turned and faced me. “I haven’t been very honest with you and I want to make amends.” I dropped my attempt at getting the protocols and lunged at him, trying to stop him from talking. “I was never at the arcade. Why would two supervillains go to the arcade?”

It was a dumb question, but it shone a new light on all the things Rainbowfish had told me. He was never at the arcade, sure. That was fine. But the incident hadn’t happened on King street, we were three streets over from there. He’d only listed three Racketeers, missing Waterlad, and they hadn’t gotten away at all. The chase was still ongoing, at least for Channel. He’d given me the information, and I’d just taken it in. I fell for his power harder than when I got caught in Spinnerette’s web back in the SRT.

Rainbowfish pulsed in iridescent light and vanished from my grasp. The handcuffs fell to the ground with nothing to hold them up.

Good thing I didn’t get caught by anything metal.

Francis’ voice crackled in my ear. “Lock? Rainbowfish protocols involve stopping him from speaking by any means necessary. Try to avoid knocking him out, in the interest of not killing him or doing permanent damage. Covering his mouth while finding something to gag him with is advisable. Don’t let him write anything down either, it counts.”

I gripped my staff hard enough to whiten the fingers. “Thanks Francis.” Then I breathed, trying to calm myself before pressing the transmitter again. “Unfortunately that was a bit late. Tell me. Can I requisition duct tape through you?”

There was a moment of quiet. “I see. You’ll want to talk to Rosie about that.” Francis told me. I didn’t call back and switched the channel back to the one Zephyr, Slingshot, and I were using.

“-s just vanished.” Zephyr was saying. “What. Happened?”

“I don’t know.” Slingshot immediately confessed.

I waited until there had been a full second of radio silence. “Rainbowfish.” I said simply.

Zephyr was quick to respond. “Lock. I didn’t see you show up. Report.”

“I ambushed Rainbowfish and got him away from the conflict. He was cooperative and I cuffed him, but he used his power to get away before I could get the containment protocols.”

There it was. Even with several buildings between me and the superheroine I could feel it. The judging.

“Whatever he did took Channel away from the conflict.” When Zephyr’s hurricane voice came through the radio it was remarkably controlled. “The Racketeers also vanished at the same time. I don’t have any indication of where they went. Slingshot, go up and see if you can find anything.”

“Yip. I mean, copy.” Slingshot hesitantly replied. I imagined her complaining about the cold as she obeyed.

“Lock. Start heading back to the SRT. You have a detailed report to write.” and for me to tear apart. She didn’t say that last part, but it was implied.

“Copy.” I responded shortly and started picked up the handcuffs when something across the street caught my eye.

He had lost the black glass trident at some point, but no one else walked around with swimming goggles on. Waterlad was leaning against a wall across the street and he was very obviously staring at me. I thought back to when the Racketeers were chasing the Beastmasters. Waterlad seemed to be one of the calmer members of the group, he was probably along to make sure the others weren’t getting too crazy.

Sure, he was reckless, and he threw me down that elevator shaft which I still wasn’t over. I wasn’t sure I ever would be. But he also focused on the things that mattered. It was why he approached us during Greenflame’s welcoming party in the first place. Plus, we had established a shaky rapport. From how he was just watching me, he probably didn’t think I killed Clothesline.

Or he did, and he was waiting for the perfect chance to get me, like Prism had said they would.

Still. I was interested in what he had to say. I lifted a hand to my ear in the universal symbol for a phone.

“Talk?”

Waterlad shook his head. He pointed at himself, repeated my gesture, and then pointed at me before turning to leave.

“No. I’ll call you.”