“Research log seven,” Niki spoke aloud into the speech-to-text app on her phone. The text showed up without issue for now, but she’d have to keep an eye on it. “Superspeed human trial.”

In her periphery, Niki saw brief flashes of Milly entertaining herself around the dorm room. While it was nearly impossible to detect Milly while she was in motion, she was visible when she hung around in the same spot for what must have felt like ages to her.

One moment, Milly was reading something in bed, then she was just gone. Next, Milly was over at the desk with her feet up and a snack. Once or twice, Niki noticed Milly appear in front of her but she was always gone the moment Niki lifted her eyes from the screen.

Even a brief flash like that still meant Milly had to have been staring for a while. Was that because Milly was waiting for her to finish? Or was there an ulterior motive?

Sneaky.

A sly smile crept up on Niki. Should she pretend she wasn’t seeing it? It was kinda cute. Then again, Milly might unwittingly expose herself to someone if she let this slide. Niki typed out a note to inform Milly she wasn’t being as subtle as she thought she was.

The glimpses stopped after that.

Niki wished she could have seen Milly’s face. After all, Milly’s reactions were always so fun, trying to play it cool while utterly clueless how easily she blushed. Her freckles were cute already, but the way they blended while she blushed, as if they were trying to hide was just adorable.

Focus! Niki admonished herself. She stepped into the middle of the room, facing the bunk bed.

“Test one. Standing, to lying down.” Niki spoke aloud, letting the app take her research notes. She held her phone at an angle so they could both easily see the text. “Okay, ready. How will I know when—”

The ground blinked out from under her feet. She fell backwards. Fast. Into an infinite white void! Niki screamed and flailed, desperate to grab onto something, anything! Her hands caught a wall and a wooden railing. She realized in the next moment where she was. In bed. The white void came into focus and gained texture. It was just the ceiling.

Her heart raced like crazy. “—Never mind!”

Milly was visible and pale as a ghost. Her head poked out over the railing, probably standing on her bed since she wasn’t that tall.

Niki locked eyes with her for a second, before the penny dropped. “Oh! I’m okay! Nothing to worry about.” She gave Milly a thumbs up.

Milly hung around just long enough for Niki to spot a relieved smile, then she was gone again. Items appeared instead, like the phone Niki had lost in her mad flailing. Niki hadn’t even realized it was missing. She also now had a glass of water.

[How did it feel?] Milly sat at the foot end of the bed with a propped up sign. While waiting for an answer, she leafed through a book. The cover indicated it was a medical text: ‘Concussions and you’.

Niki looked down to her phone. The speech-to-text was still working, though it garbled a few words when she’d screamed. Embarrassed, Niki quietly deleted those. “Well, it felt like falling! You know how sometimes you doze off then feel as if you fell out of bed and you flinch, but it’s actually fine? That. Definitely that.”

They ran through the experience. The void. The fall. It all was much more dramatic than what the pets seemed to have gone through; Milly didn’t recall any of them flailing around.

“Thinking about it, perhaps the change in orientation is the problem. Maybe it hits all at once, making it feel like a fall.” Niki clambered out of bed and hopped down to the floor. “Try moving me again, but just two steps forward.”

The room blurred. A sense of pressure. A rush of air.

Niki found herself in a different spot. As if the world had changed around her. She couldn’t help but laugh. “This feels so weird! Not dizzy or falling this time. My vision lost focus, but I think that’s because the stuff I was looking at moved and my eyes were adjusting. This wasn’t too bad. The strangest thing is… I’m not sure how to describe it… It’s as if I moved without starting or stopping.”

[That’s a relief. Are you up for trying this some more, or do you want to rest?] Milly asked via sticky note on a bucket. Wherever the bucket had come from.

“Let’s!”

They spent the next ten minutes experimenting. Small distances within the room in any direction were fine, if a little disorienting just from the sudden change of location. Niki didn’t get dizzy or experience vertigo when Milly rotated her along a vertical axis. Curiously, any time they tried a horizontal axis, Niki felt like she was falling or somersaulting.

“Nope,” Niki croaked out while she held her head after the last trip. “I think it might be something with the inner ear. Lying down, to standing wasn’t any better. Worse, actually. If I didn’t know what was coming, I’d have fallen over.”

[Don’t worry. I totally have caught you if you fell for me. ^.~ ] A drawing of a flexing girl in a cape accompanied Milly’s note. Apparently, she had time for that.

Niki smirked as she read the note. “Oh, that confident? Well, then I suppose you will not mind if we move on to the next phase. Time to try a longer trip. You should have no problem taking me down to the park?” Niki spread her arms as though she expected to get picked up by a giant and braced.

The world blurred around Niki. Like before, it took her a second to adjust to her new perspective. Unlike before, the world didn’t come back into focus. Only Milly did.

Milly had Niki in a bridal carry while gray blue and white flashed overhead. A look of strain and concentration contorted Milly’s face. She didn’t seem aware that Niki could see her.

Strong winds whipped Niki’s face, yet another entirely new sensation. She squinted to look around. She saw green rushing towards them. They were outside? That had to mean the trip took so long in Milly-time that Niki got to be aware of it. Carrying someone to the park had to be about five minutes.

If that was true, then this couldn’t take much more than a second or two.

No sooner had that thought crossed Niki’s mind or her surroundings came back into focus. She hadn’t even noticed that they’d stopped! They were definitely in the park. A few rows deep and out of sight.

Nearby, Milly stood bent over with her butt to a tree and her hands on her knees, having a breather by the looks of it.

“Impressive! I didn’t actually—hold on,” Niki fumbled for her phone and held the screen toward Milly. “I didn’t actually think we’d make it down the stairs! Nice work. Are you okay, though?”

Niki’s vision became a yellow blur. After a second, it had gotten no better. She reached up to rub her eyes and found the true culprit: Two sticky notes stuck to her glasses.

[No more] ...... [Trips today]

Niki shot Milly a grin. “That is fair. I think we have enough data for now. Oh, listen so during that last trip…”

——————————

The change of scenery was nice. Niki wasn’t a big nature buff, but still felt nice to get some fresh air.

As expected, it surprised Milly she was visible to Niki during the longer trip. It had led them down a long overdue road…

“Adding a cape to your costume seems like it’s asking for trouble. What if you trip over it while you are running at the speed of sound?” Niki pointed out while she tapped a finger on the drawing Milly had helpfully provided. “On that note, we don’t know how durable you are, so maybe something that’s a little more protective than body tights with lightning print? No matter how cool that is.”

[Yes, mom.]

The design warped on the page. Gone was the cape. Instead, a motor helmet, bulletproof vest, metal gauntlets, elbow and knee pads, and an old lady’s walker appeared on the model.

Niki rolled her eyes. “Well, excuse me for caring.”

[The Milly-Signal! Be right back.]

“Good luck,” Niki said into the empty air. She knew Milly was gone already. There was nothing left to do but to settle in until she got back. For whatever reason, Ruth hadn’t shut down the firehose of unverified alarms yet. Niki suspected it was entirely just to annoy her, even if that made little sense.

Mercifully, Niki had seen neither hide nor hair of her ever since that day in the subway. Thank goodness for minor miracles.

Irritated, Niki sat against a tree and knocked her head back against the bark. If only it was that easy to knock loose those bothersome thoughts. Rationally, she knew Ruth couldn’t possibly be doing this on purpose, but she still blamed her.

“Milly’s eager for any opportunity to use her power for good, so I can’t say anything but…”

Even with superspeed, any time Milly responded to an alarm, she would be gone for up to two minutes. While it was insane to think how fast Milly must be to comb through the city in that time, that wasn’t how Milly perceived it. Several hour-long walks through the city didn’t sound like it was any fun, let alone after the hundredth time.

Wasn’t there anything she could do?

Well, one thing came to mind.

Niki flicked through her phone till she found the Arkwright Academy contact page and wrote an email to Miss Arkwright.

They were supposed to have a meeting tomorrow, but to Milly, that might as well be three months from now. Maybe it could be moved up if she asked nicely?

Niki hit send before she could linger too long on the ridiculous nature of asking for a Disciplinary Hearing to come sooner. That was surely a first. Would Miss Arkwright think they were trying to just get it over with and accept their suspension? It had to look weird that they were being disciplined for rushing into danger, and here they were trying to rush the punishment, too.

Not that any penalty was much of a concern anymore. They could eat a couple of weeks' suspension if it meant getting a private conversation with Miss Arkwright. Niki wasn’t sure what Milly wanted to do, but unless she was going back to the ranch, it would involve getting Miss Arkwright to accommodate her unique situation. The sooner the better.

While Niki waited for a response, she noticed Milly’s costume sketch and picked it back up. Even if the original was impractical, it was still a nice drawing. “Too bad Milly doodled over it… Huh?” When she looked closer, the doodles were done with pencil, but the original was drawn with a pen. Milly must have just used whatever was closest to hand.

Maybe this was salvageable.

Niki got up and dusted herself off. There had to be an eraser somewhere on campus. Actually, in all the commotion, she’d left her bag in the biology classroom. She definitely had one in there and she needed to pick it up, anyway.

It was a little awkward, but since the classes were in session, Niki didn’t run into anyone while she entered the school and roamed the empty halls. Once she reached her biology classroom, she quickly explained then left with her bag. Easy.

Since she’d not be coming back to school today, Niki swung by her locker. She already had everything she needed for tomorrow’s homework assignments, but she might just skip tomorrow too. She couldn’t leave Milly to her own devices all day. Not before they’d worked something out.

While Niki was busy, a trio of footsteps came down the hallway. Maybe one of the classes was out early. She’d better hurry.

Shutting the locker, Niki turned to head toward the front doors, but stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted Ruth, flanked by the twins: Terra and Stella. They were coming down the very path she meant to take. Upon spotting her, they stopped as well.

Of course, ACE were the only ones that could come in from outside this late!

Niki froze up, unsure how to proceed.

Ruth looked Niki up and down, then tilted her head, as if waiting for Niki to make a move. Stella and Terra shared a look with each other.

Niki briefly considered whether she could pretend she hadn’t seen them, but she already locked eyes with Ruth, who scowled at her. Great. If she made a one-eighty now, it would be entirely obvious that she was avoiding them. Showing weakness like that was always a bad idea. She could act casual and just pass them. Their last few encounters had been fine, but the way Ruth was looking at her made her feel it might not be fine this time.

Seeing the indecision, Ruth rolled her eyes. She turned and grabbed Stella by the wrist. Stella just managed a quick smile and a wave before she was pulled away. They walked back the way they came. Ruth kicked open the front doors and they left.

While Niki was still processing that, Terra passed her by and gave her a pat on the shoulder. The sound and feeling were wrong, like someone dropped a sandbag on her shoulder rather than a hand. Which wasn’t far from the truth. Terra always looked covered head-to-toe in a coarse coating of sand, clothes excepted. She also always looked annoyed. Niki had a theory that those two things were related. Who wouldn’t be annoyed if they always felt as if they just got back from the beach?

“Uhm, Terra, right?” Niki asked the tall girl, who paused. “What was that about?”

Terra let out a drawn out ‘ugh’ sound. Whether that was aimed at Niki or just life in general was hard to tell. “Look, don’t worry about it. She’s just mad that she forgot she has to work overtime and can’t come to her own party. It was a dumb idea to begin with. But hey, now people might actually show up.”

“Oh, I suppose I’d be mad too if I couldn’t go to a party,” Niki lied through her teeth while Terra walked away. “Wait! Before you go, I was wondering. Does the school make any allowances for your power?”

“That’s a weird question.” Terra turned and crossed her arms over her chest while she gave Niki her full attention. Terra squinted at her, or maybe that was how she always looked with all that sand in her eyes.

“I just mean, having a Power can’t be awesome all the time, right?” Niki smiled nervously. “Sorry. There’s so many students with Powers around here, you know? I guess I’ve been having a bit of a hankering for sour grapes?”

“I see.” Terra’s stony facade finally cracked a smile. “I’m exempt from swimming, if that’s what you mean. Before you get any ideas, no, I don’t dissolve in water. It’s not a weakness, it just sucks because I sink like a brick now.”

“That’s perfect. Thanks. I better get going.” Niki gave Terra a nod, then ran off.

Terra pulled out her phone and just as Niki passed through the exit doors she saw Ruth and Stella teleport in beside her before the door swung shut.

——————————

After reuniting with Milly, Niki’s phone buzzed with an email alert.

They could move the meeting up! Of course, nothing was ever easy. The only available time was eight in the evening, smack dab in the middle of their planned date time.

Niki stared incredulously at the phone for a minute. “So, wanna just get this over with?”

[Might as well.]