Scene 1 - October 18th

Interior Townhouse, Early Evening

Quinn Kaufman

I didn’t get a chance to visit Dad for a day or two, too busy with schoolwork - my night out as a hero had left me exhausted, and my tiredness had made me slower than usual as I plodded through schoolwork - but before long he had recovered from his most recent relapse and was on the way home. I was making him dinner to welcome him home, but hadn’t had time to shop for anything special. That meant it was Italian food - New Venice was heavily populated by Italian immigrants, and ingredients for their favorite dishes were always in ready supply.

I had timed it well - he stepped in through the door just as I was straining the spaghetti. “Home agin, an' home to stay— / Yes, it's nice to be away. / Plenty things to do an' see, / But the old place seems to me / Jest about the proper thing,” he declared. “Are those meatballs I smell, Quinn?”

“They sure are!” I called back. “Come get something to drink, dinner’s just about ready!”

“Excellent!” My father stepped into the room, beaming at me, and took a glass from the cupboard. “Just water tonight, I think.” As I filled his glass, he said, “Paul Lawrence Dunbar, by the way. One of the first influential black poets in America.”

I went to hug him. “Welcome home, dad.”

He hugged me back, then released me and took a plate. “So how did the power testing go? Defeat any supervillains?”

“Ran into a one and was rescued by Aegis, who offered to give me his power,” I joked.

“Now that doesn’t seem very likely. Are you sure you’re not just offering him the credit for what you did, to stay out of the gang’s eyes?”

“You caught me - it was a giant dragon that I defeated by throwing a spider into his mouth.”

“Not surprised. Dragons notoriously hate spiders. Ancient enemies.”

“I thought spiders hated octopi? 8-legged rivals, you know.”

“Well, sort of. Really the octopusses just wish they were spiders.”

“Well, who wouldn’t want to be a spider?”

We laughed as we served each other - I spooned spaghetti onto two plates while Dad scooped out the meatballs. “But seriously, kiddo, what happened?”

“Well,” I said, taking a bite, “it did actually go pretty well. I went to a junkyard about ten minutes away and played around with my powers - pretty much what we thought they were, ESP and telekinesis. The telekinesis has a weird backlash effect where the same force gets applied to me, but that actually turned out to be pretty useful for moving around. I can walk on walls if I do it right, and jump pretty crazy distances by pushing against the ground.”

“How much force can you exert?” Dad asked. “Is it possible for you to hurt yourself with the backlash? You should be careful.”

“It is,” I said, wincing. “I’ve been super sore for the last two days. It wasn’t as bad the first day, but I tried a moon hop out of costume yesterday and, well, turns out that the PA4 reduces the backlash some. Or maybe makes me physically tougher, I’m not sure. Either way, it’s not something that applies when I’m not wearing it.” I poked at my food for a moment. “Similar thing with the ESP, actually, just a little more low-key. When I can feel too much with it - while I’m outside, really - it starts to build up a headache over time. Again, the suit seems to help reduce that.”

“Maybe you’ll get better at that over time,” Dad offered. “The TK backlash sounds like it’s inherent to the force, but the headache might just be your brain having trouble dealing with so much extra information.”

“I hope so.” I took another bite, then continued. “And then on the way home...” I told Dad about how the night had become the best of my life - how I had met my personal hero, Canaveral, and he had taken me under his wing!

“...and you know, he seemed pretty exasperated with Maxwell, but they also seemed to be pretty... I dunno, intimate with each other? I was getting some kind of relationship vibe there. If they were exes they seemed pretty friendly. Oh, and then we worked out that I can visit the MLED Compound on Sunday, and he’ll introduce me to the other heroes!” I finished, excitedly.

Dad was silent for a moment. “Can we go back to the part where you had a gun pointed at your head, and you completely glossed over it?”

“Oh yeah. That.”

“Yes, that, Quinn!” he snapped. “I told you to be careful, didn’t I? I told you to steer clear of the gangs! And you ran right into danger!”

“I was with Canaveral!” I defended myself. “He wouldn’t let me get hurt! And I have superpowers now, anyway!”

“Oy gavalt, You didn’t have superpowers when that woman was threatening you!” Dad ran his fingers through his hair, a habit we shared when we were angry or stressed. “Why isn’t this phasing you, kid?”

“Because...” I thought back, trying to decipher my feelings. “Well,” I began, “it certainly frightened me at the time. It was only aimed at me for probably 30 seconds at most, but it felt like weeks. But afterward, it seems... I dunno, less important?

“I guess I knew that Canaveral wouldn’t let me be hurt,” I continued. “I mean, he mentioned afterward that if Maxwell hadn’t stepped in he would have let them go, and the police would have grabbed them since the area was surrounded. But even in the moment, his first instinct when I was seriously threatened was to step towards me. I think he probably would have even if the equality had taken away his powers too. He’s a real hero, you know?” I smiled to myself a little. “If I can be half the man he is, I’ll have reason to be proud.”

Dad spent a few minutes digesting this, and I took our finished plates into the kitchen. When I came back, he finally responded. “What would you have done if Canaveral wasn’t there? You won’t always have a partner as a superhero.”

“For one thing, I wouldn’t have gone into that situation without training, if he wasn’t there,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t even know if I want to be a hero yet. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to decide on Sunday.”

He sighed. “I know you’ve always wanted to change the world, Quinn, to make a positive difference. You’re really telling me that you don’t want to be a hero?”

“...yeah, well... childhood dreams aren’t always realistic,” I said, quietly. “I’m just one person, and I know how rare it is for individual people to affect much. If I can contribute a little... that’s why I want to be a metahuman doctor, you know? If I can save the real heroes, the ones who actually can change things...”

“You can change things too, Quinn,” Dad insisted.

“Sure,” I said, not really believing him. “Seems fake, but okay.”

Dad shook his head, seeming a little sad. “I can’t believe that thing holding you back isn’t the gun, it’s that you don’t think you can be a hero.” He looked at me again. “You should take Canaveral up on his invitation,” he said. “Just be careful. And please, whatever they may say, don’t go on patrol or anything without getting training.”

“I won’t, I promise,” I assured him. “And again, I really don’t think I’m going to register as a hero anyway. Being a doctor is already aiming high enough.”