“Theodore, I’ve been thinking,” Milly said while she used him as a pillow on the fire escape. Her hands still deftly worked on the lock. “What do you suppose it means that I can activate my power during Milly-time? I thought Milly-time was my power.”

Theodore was entirely smothered.

“Two powers? I’m not sure if that’s an option.” Milly let go of the lock, leaving it to just hang in the air above her while she took out her phone and hit the app for Span-Dex.

It would take a little while, but the Supers Public Affairs Network and Index was sure to have some useful articles and discussions on the topic. If she was lucky, maybe even actual conclusions.

“The Welder never mentioned anyone with multiple powers, but maybe he just hadn’t met one. He was the only notable super around where I lived.” Milly picked up where she left off with the lock in the meantime. “Oh! I got it!”

The lock popped open! Well, less of a pop and more of a sink, as the metal bar retracted into the lock when she turned the pins.

“Hah! Take that!” Milly jumped to her feet and spiked the lock like a football in the end zone. “No more of your smug disso—Ohhh.”

Milly watched wide-eyed as the heavy metal projectile punched through the fire escape on the second and first floors in an instant. It hit the asphalt below and drilled down another foot before it came to a stop in its newly created crater.

“...I shouldn’t have done that.”

It was a good thing that Milly had made sure to take her break away from people or that could’ve gotten ugly. She could see pieces of shrapnel and asphalt that still crept through the air, and if she could notice them they had to be going fast.

The damage to the structures had already been done, but Milly jumped down and ran around to grab all the flying pieces. Fortunately, none had gotten too far away yet, and the cleanup was relatively simple. That just left the holes.

“What do I do?” Milly paced small circles around the crater. She had no idea how to fix any of this. She might be able to bring over a bucket of sand to fill the hole or something, but the crash must’ve made a lot of noise. It wouldn’t take much detective work to figure out the trajectory of whatever smashed through the fire escape.

The idea of someone digging up the lock and getting her fingerprints didn’t sound great. She had to get rid of that first and then maybe leave an I.O.U. or write a note to herself to remind her to come and fix it later when she figured out how.

Milly reached down and pulled the busted-up lock out of the ground. She looked around, trying to figure out what to do with it. Maybe throw it into space? Was that a thing she could do? She’d better not try that on a whim, but now she was curious.

“Maybe I could ask Principal Arkwright? She must’ve dealt with lots of students wanting to test their powers before. Yeah.” Milly looked at the damage she’d caused. “I wonder if I’d get in trouble for this? Still, she might also know how to fix it.”

After a bit of hemming and hawing, Milly finally sent a text to Principal Arkwright about the whole thing. Honesty had to be the best policy.

One thing was for sure, Milly wasn’t sticking around. She bolted down the street.

“Wait, why am I running?” Milly slowed down to a casual stroll at Mach one. “As if it’s going to make a difference.”

She reached back to give Theodore a pat on the head.

“You’re right. Let’s do a little bit of patrolling while I’m trying out Span-Dex.”

To Milly’s delight, the webpage on her phone had fully loaded already. All in all, each search she tried afterward took up to a minute to enter, and another four to load.

Some pieces of information she was already familiar with. A tenth of people had some kind of power, but only one in a thousand were actually useful. That much Milly already knew.

Others were new to her.

“Huh… it says here that every power ever recorded is unique. That’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? There’s gotta be millions of them!” Milly painstakingly scrolled down the page while she walked horizontally along the storefront signs. It felt a little odd, but it was a nice way to make sure she would not bump into anyone on the street while looking at her phone. “I mean, obviously only a small fraction of those end up being superheroes or villains, but that’s a lot!”

Theodore remained stoic in the face of that mind-boggling fact.

“Yeah, I reckon I’ve seen duplicates too, but these Corvus Dynamics guys apparently found that even though powers might express in a similar way, the mechanism is always different if you look closer.”

Milly did a double-take on the name. “Ain’t those the same guys that turned Vanna into Meatcrawl? I mean, I guess Doctor von Vector was technically fired at the time, but still! Looks like they are expanding their research. Stella mentioned we might work with Vanna next time.”

The article had a YouSupe video to accompany it, but Milly obviously couldn’t play it. The thumbnail showed three people each lifting a car over their heads and some icons Milly couldn’t make out.

She squinted. “I think these are about different methods? The only one I can make out has muscles like steel cables, I guess that other one might be using a gravity thing? Makes sense. Remember when I got my power, and I thought I had super strength for a while? I reckon a lot of folks might have a similar issue.”

“Alley-oop.” Milly absentmindedly hopped across the gap between two stores, ignoring the dizzying ‘depth’ of the alleyway. However, a glint of light in the darkness ‘below’ caught her attention. “What was that?”

With a skid, stop and a jump, Milly landed on the street and walked into the alleyway. At first glance, there was nothing noteworthy. Just some bins and a chain-link fence further in with some cardboard stacked against it that completely obscured the rest of the alley.

Nothing that could’ve given off the light.

“Maybe I imagined it.” Milly shrugged and set one foot on the wall to resume her walk. It was going to be a pain to get back to her previous height, but with enough distance, she could slowly climb up diagonally. “Height!”

Milly hopped on top of the nearest bin and stood on the tips of her toes to peer over the fence. She could just about make out the top of someone’s head. “Gotcha, now. How do I get over there?”

Climbing the fence was out; the barbed wire at the top looked nasty. Her power would easily give her enough height to jump straight over, but she had no idea what or who might be in her landing zone.

“I reckon I could just walk around the block,” Milly said while she eyed the walls of the alley. Eight floors on either side. “Or… I could try running up the wall again.”

Just saying it aloud sent a shiver down her spine.

Milly took the long way around.

On her way, she noticed a text from Niki.

All of the Minutemen are still incarcerated?

Perhaps they failed to capitalize on the chance.

Another attack may occur where you found them.

Good work, Milly. I will let ACE know to be ready.

P.S.

Paige has noticed Celine might pass for an adult.

She is trying to convince her to buy cigarettes ‘as a test’.

I hypothesize that it will not work. What about you?

P.P.S

Still terrible, but better.

A+ for creativity. 💋

Milly blushed. “I guess she liked it.”

While leaving the TRACE case unresolved for the time being left a bad taste in her mouth, Milly supposed the leads they had were dead ends at the moment. If only she hadn’t crashed last night, maybe she could have picked up some clues while calmly surveying the fire. For all Milly knew, the arsonist’s power required a line of sight. She for sure would have eventually noticed someone just standing around with an evil sneer.

“I could try a stake-out on all three stations…” Milly immediately shook the foolish notion out of her head. “Nope! I’m willing to do a lot, but I’d be stuck for months. Somebody else can take care of that job. I’m sure they’ll throw me a text whenever something is going down.”

That left her in her usual position, with lots of time on her hands.

She scrolled through the next page while she turned the corner. “Oh! I found your answer, Theodore! It’s only one power per person, after all. I guess that means I don’t have Superspeed and kangaroo power. That’s kind of good news, I guess? I only need to learn how to control one power.”

Theodore didn’t seem surprised.

Apparently, this was a recent discovery. Since several prominent supers displayed what had always looked like multiple different powers. It turned out every examined case ultimately concluded the powers were part of a misunderstood singular power, or multiple supers worked together to enhance one another. In particular, the most powerful superteam of all: The Wardens of The World. All of them had flight and invincibility, besides several other powers.

Milly had heard of the Wardens before, but it was a little like having heard of the United Nations. She had a rough idea that they were an extremely powerful group with a lot of political power, but she couldn’t name a single member of either organization or tell you what they did.

Milly was pretty sure one of their members had a fancy doorman’s uniform, though.

She was much more familiar with the superteam of her home state of Texas: VORTEX.

Or at least, she had been.

Now that she'd moved to New York state to attend Arkwright Academy, she probably should make an effort to learn more about their state team: NYMPH. Especially since she’d already met one of their members in person, Abigail. That technically already made her more familiar with NYMPH than VORTEX, who she’d never spoken to, let alone worked alongside.

Unfortunately, neither state team was mentioned in the article, but there was a hyperlink that took her to a page about The Wardens of The World. Under their leader, Maggie ‘Maglev’ Levine, they’d spent the past two decades enforcing international treaties between nations. Particularly regarding the treatment of supers. A bit of a step up from fighting petty crime. Strangely, it never actually mentioned when exactly all these nations agreed to the treaties.

While Milly read the rest of the webpage, her thoughts were preoccupied with a troubling fact. If all powers were unique and each person only had one, that meant there was nobody quite like her. Even another speedster would only be an approximation at best, but the mechanics of their powers would be different.

Calamity was the only other speedster Milly was aware of, but her superspeed might be based around enhanced legs and reactions. Then again, Calamity knew enough to hand Milly a guide on ‘Meditation and Mindfulness’, so her power had to share the sense of time dilation that Milly had, even if it was arrived at differently.

“Huh… There’s a thought. I keep reading about powers that seem similar but have different mechanisms to get there… If my power is Superspeed, then what is my mechanism?”

Once she’d arrived at the question, it felt like such an obvious thing to ask. Until now, she’d just assumed that she was fast because she had superspeed, but if every speedster arrived at superspeed differently, how did she get there?

“I’m not sure how I’d even begin to answer that. Compare notes with other speedsters and figure out a difference?”

It was too bad that Corvus Dynamics was evil, or she might have been able to ask them for some pointers. They’d been the ones who had figured this stuff out. Hopefully, their methods were available online somewhere.

If not, well… ACE was already interested in uncovering some of their trade secrets. What harm could it do to add a side objective? All Milly had to do was solve the current arson case with TRACE so Terra had an excuse to include them.

“As if I needed any extra motivation.” Milly turned the last corner and found herself back in the alleyway. Now that she was on the other side of the fence, it was obvious the alley had a T-shaped layout.

That meant her destination was conveniently out of sight from the street.

A fact that was clearly no secret to the masked-up young man who currently had his crowbar jammed into a metal-set door. The glint Milly had seen came from a small flashlight in his mouth.

“Oh, nice!” Milly plucked the crowbar from his hands. “I’ve been meaning to get a new one! Thanks for saving me the trouble.”

Theodore helpfully held onto it for Milly when she passed it over her shoulder.

Milly folded her arms while she pondered over what to do with the crook. She could take him to jail, but transporting a person that far was exhausting. She could tie him up and leave him for the cops. That had been her go-to move thus far.

“Or maybe…” Milly pulled out her notepad and jotted down a quick message.

Hey there, champ!

This is your written warning.

Go home and be good.

-00:00.001

“That’ll do.” She taped it to the door at his eye level. With any luck, he’d be scared straight. “Consider this my thank you for saving me a trip to the hardware store, but don’t let me catch you out here again!”

Milly resumed her patrol, but this time she included the alleyways. The difference was stark. On the street, she prevented two minor accidents, returned one snatched purse, and caught a pickpocket red-handed.

The alleyways were actually quieter, but the lack of witnesses also meant the crimes were more serious. Milly made short work of a mugger with a gun who menaced a wealthy couple and their son.

As exciting as that all might sound put together, the incidents were actually pretty few and far between. Thankfully, Milly was an expert at entertaining herself thus far. Animals were still at the top of her list, but she also made a habit of borrowing a comic each time she walked past a kiosk on a street corner. Other times, she took a little break to draw new panels in her comic journal, so she’d remember what she actually did today.

Meanwhile, Span-Dex kept giving her valuable information. The forums and news articles were one thing, but the database of known heroes, villains, and publicly powered civilians had captivated Milly’s attention.

For one thing, Speedsters were common enough to get their very own tag, which made finding more of them a breeze. Milly quickly discovered that the category was broadly defined, though. From someone who could run twice as fast, to someone who could travel through phone lines. (Who was also tagged as a teleporter.)

None of them matched Milly’s specific problem. One even had the opposite issue in that he could move faster than he could think and would crash constantly.

“Well, that’s a bust.” Milly grumbled as she read through the final profile. “I guess that’s not information that would be public knowledge, anyway. Crashguy’s problem over there is pretty obvious, but nobody would know about mine unless I told them.”

She dismissed the thought of going public herself. At least for now. The idea of everyone knowing her issue was spooky. To be fair, that’s probably how everybody felt. Maybe all Speedsters had her exact problem and just didn’t like to talk about it, except Crashguy.

Span-Dex was useful but only had information that Super-enthusiasts had gotten their hands on through interviews, observations, arrests, and the like. Milly knew for a fact that the database wasn’t complete because Calamity wasn’t on there despite being a speedster.

Funny enough, The Millisecond was on there. It was only a stub page, but that was still more than Milly expected, given that she’d barely been active for a day. All it had thus far was her name and the username that had created the page: True3Fan4Life.

“Welp, that was the last one. Any suggestions on what power to check out next, Theodore?”

Theodore did nothing.

“You mean power negators? Good idea!”

These too had their own tag under ‘Negation’, but Milly quickly noticed a problem: each of them negated a specific thing. The most prominent Negator was a powered firefighter named Hough Douse. Nothing could burn in his presence, not even other supers with fire-based powers.

They were also the most likely group of people to believe they had no power at all, which made the pool even smaller.

“If I’m gonna find someone who can negate speed, maybe I should be looking for powered crossing guards? Heh!” Milly snapped her fingers. “Hold on a second, what about Dad?”

That was worth a shot. His power kind of made things stand still. Plus, he’d been sort of right about controlling her power too, so they were at least a little bit similar. Although, she’d be much more thrilled about that if it let her control the part she actually worried about.

“We could also try how our powers interact while I’m there.” Milly sprang to her feet and snatched her belongings. “Alright. Up and at’em, Theodore!”

On the way there, she took out another lock to mess with in between checking her phone for loaded pages.

Dad’s hotel room was a little on the small side.

A bed, nightstand, chair, television, closet, and bathroom. All squished together as if it was meant to fit inside a parking space.

Milly got the impression it was a place to sleep more than a place to stay.

It was somewhat of a surprise then that her dad was there, watching the television with a glazed-over look.

Milly noticed a note in his hand with her name on it. She folded it open.

Recharging. 10 seconds.

Turn off the TV if you need me.

“I reckon he ain’t talking about taking a nap.” Milly unplugged the television before writing her own message on the note. “This might take a while if he’s storing time by freezing himself in ten-second increments. I could be here for up to forty Milly-minutes.”

Ah, well.

Milly dropped Theodore off on the bed next to her dad, then sat down in the chair. She pulled out her phone to continue her research while she waited.