It was already late. Thomas had finished his evening with Dominic, and he counted himself lucky that he hadn’t sustained any injuries. He had made his way on another train towards Neonight North Reactor, a power plant dedicated to harvesting geothermal power and distributing it. He was completely alone on the train, as it was technically the time most people would be sleeping. He thought of returning home with Dominic, spending more of the night with him. He didn’t love being alone with his thoughts. Thomas amused himself during the long train ride by looking out the windows that decorated his car, staring out at the caves and buildings that seemed to sprawl endlessly. As the train rode on, he could’ve sworn he heard something riding near the tracks. Something was being driven, but he wasn’t sure where. And then, it ceased shortly afterwards.

Thomas called Helena on his Unit as he got off the train at the end of its line, seeing how the North Reactor was at the far end of the city. “I’m here,” said Thomas, exhaustion clearly showing itself in his voice. “Where’s this Engels guy?”

“I’m glad you realized I was right, Thomas. You made the right choice,” Helena responded.

He felt happy for some gratitude, as Helena rarely said thanks. But he didn’t feel happy that he was being thanked for killing a father of two.

“Robert Engels should be patrolling the entirety of the main building. He’s a security guard, although I don’t believe he has a Civ, which makes him a not very good one as far as you’re concerned. This should be an easy job. Good luck.”

Yeah, real easy killing a father of two kids while he’s completely defenceless, Thomas thought, before hanging up his Unit. “Phantrana, are you there?” Thomas asked the empty walkway leading from the train stop to the Reactor. And the black and dull scenery of an industrial power plant at night faded away to a different darkness. A more comforting one.

“Yes, Thomas? Please tell me you haven’t come here to kill Robert Engels,” Phantrana boomed, the darkness shifting around Thomas as they spoke with concern.

“Of course not. I’m just going to try and scare him a bit, you know? Give him a couple of empty threats. Say I’ll kill his children if he says anything. Try to convince him I’m a nice guy. The usual.”

“I’m glad Thomas, about . . . most of that. And I’m also glad I didn’t need to impersonate any of your dead relatives because it’s honestly less fun for me than it is for you.”

“That’s impossible. We’ll continue this conversation later.”

The scenery of the power plant returned to Thomas’s vision. He walked forward—away from the place where the train used to be—before he was left completely alone, approaching the dark, looming building made of stone and metal, surrounded by piping and massive industrial wires, which carried waste and energy around the city. He broke a hole in the glass double doors, not wanting to trip any alarms, and slunk his way into the pitch-black main foyer. It was a massive room complete with alcoves, multiple front desks, and several hallways and staircases that no doubt sprawled into separate wings, which further subdivided. Finding anybody in this place would be above Thomas’s paygrade. Wait, am I getting paid to do this? Because if so, I’m definitely not killing anyone.

“Unit, disable security cameras and locks,” Thomas asked. Surveillance appeared everywhere, and for a while, it sucked, but anti-surveillance technology became just as advanced. It was almost funny how easy it was to bypass these things. Thomas decided the best way to find Robert was to send a handful of Phantom eyes out scouring the building down its many paths and hallways. Soon, Thomas could see dozens of dark, unlit hallways through his phantom eyes while he sat at the receptionist’s desk, twiddling his thumbs and eating a chocolate bar he found in a desk as he looked for any sign of another person. Thomas was almost entirely blind through his current eyes at this point, as they had sustained damage. Damage that would admittedly heal soon, but enough that they were beginning to lose function. Before him was a clear purple-tinged reactor building, but Thomas himself saw the main foyer as a cloudy haze. He was now focusing on one of the exterior balconies that were overlooking one of Neonight’s subterranean lakes, a water source that most people would suspect was used for liquid cooling, but Thomas didn’t know anything about energy. Cool. They built this place next to a lake so people could go swimming. Fuck am I going to need to hide in there to disguise my breathing again? Thomas thought. Wait, is that Engels over there? Thomas could see through his purple eye a figure in black leather riding gear sitting on a motorcycle. Staring right at Thomas’s phantom eye. No way. Why would Engels be riding a motorcycle? He didn’t seem cool enough for that when I saw him yesterday. So, who is this guy? Thomas couldn’t hear what happened next, but he certainly saw the figure rev up their motorcycle and speed around in the direction of the building’s front. “Fuck.” Thomas whispered.

He got up from his chair as quickly as he could and began hunting for a safe place to go through his little ghost drones. He couldn’t see Engels through any of his eyes, but he did catch a glimpse of a Security Room on the other side of the building. He figured that would be the place where Engels would usually be, and he could wait there to corner him. He could also recall his phantom eyes and the security cameras there to track this mysterious visitor, once he re-enabled them. Thomas began sprinting down the hallway he knew led to the security room, but Thomas quickly found himself face-planting directly into a concrete wall, as he still couldn’t see anything. Thomas knew where he was going, so he didn’t need his phantom eyes anymore, and being able to actually see where he was was far more important than seeing where he wasn’t. Thomas’s eyes filled with energy as his drones returned to the flesh they were born from, and his vision drilled a hole through the darkness, enhancing his perception and giving him the power to continue forward. Then, after about a minute of running with confidence, the energy his phantom eyes had given him had been used up. And Thomas became fully acquainted with what happened when he used a phantom body part too much in succession. Oh God noooo, he thought. Not only did his eyes burn with heat and discomfort that made him think he had poured acid into them, but Thomas was also completely blind.

* * *

Blair Aureo had been riding her motorcycle around Neonight for a few hours now. People would say she was looking for trouble, but really, it was the opposite. Blair Aureo had sped around to the front of the Neonight North Reactor after seeing a sign of a Civ user in the building. No, Blair was looking for someone to save. Being a vigilante never paid the bills; it was a service she performed on her free nights for no money and even less gratitude, but it took her mind off of the dull monotony of her life, and it was the right thing to do anyways. Blair felt for her heat gun in her holster and powered it on, unsure of what she would find. It was entirely possible that it was just a security guard, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Or better to be very, very unsafe by breaking into a government building on a motorcycle than sitting bored at home with her several cats putting on the same movie over and over again. Although that did sound nice, now that she thought of it.

Blair rode up to the front of the building, taking care not to draw too much attention to herself in case she was wrong about a break-in, but what she saw at the front door had assuaged that worry. The glass door had been smashed in from the outside, something that most likely took a lot of strength to accomplish. And it also probably wasn’t the way that regular, legal employees would enter their place of work. Blair stepped through the glass and took a look around. The security cameras darting the corners looked to have already been disabled. Again, not something people would do if they had a right to be somewhere. Blair stepped forward, looking at the front desk. “Was somebody eating chocolate here?” Blair asked. Her voice was a nice middle ground between low- and high-pitched, something that would be nice to hear if she wasn’t currently speaking with disgust in her voice. “Oh my god. They got chocolate over everything. It’s melted onto the desk. It’s in the grooves. That’s disgusting.” Blair stepped away from the desk and prepared to start exploring. “You know, I really should ignore that. It’s bad, but it’s not my job to fix it. You don’t have all night, and you need to get going.” Blair felt proud of herself for denying her impulses to waste time on something pointless, and walked towards one of the hallways with confidence in her step. “Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not going to be able to focus for the rest of the night if I don’t clean that up.” Blair hung her head as she sprinted back over, and swiped her hand through the air above the chocolate. “Superhot.”

User: Blair Aureo

Civ: Superhot

The user can increase the temperature of the user’s skin and body parts by tremendous amounts at no damage to themself. This can be used to melt through objects or enemies or turn water vapour into steam, launching that body part forward with great speed. The user can also light the air on fire, cauterize their own wounds, or leave some of their blood on an object to melt through it while they aren’t touching it. The user can also undo any major heat change of an object, allowing them to heal burns and unmelt things while bringing them to a stable temperature.

Instantly, the chocolate returned to its unmelted state in the form of a small chocolate bar, and Blair threw it up in the air and swiped her hand across it once again, feeling the heat on her palm as she swiped through it, melting it into nothing. Only some sweet-smelling air was left over where the chocolate had been. “I probably would’ve just eaten it anyways. This is for the best,” Blair whispered as she pulled her motorcycle in through the hole in the glass door. She needed to find whoever was doing all this, and honestly, the concept of this person being a slob was almost as infuriating as them being a thief or assassin. They could at least be clean about it. Blair decided she needed to be fast with this and started up her motorcycle and roared down the leftmost hallway—the first of five.