After twenty minutes of much-needed ‘catching up’, peace returned to the newly minted TRACE headquarters.

Milly rested on her back with her head in Niki’s lap, just watching a video on her phone while Niki sat and tinkered with a box of electronics. Although Milly had found ten sets of wireless earbuds among all the things they’d lugged up here, she only used one earbud so that she could listen to the quiet rattling of parts and screws. It made for soothing background noise. Much better than the oppressive silence of Milly-time.

Current time: 16:06.

That left forty minutes before Milly-time kicked back in at 16:46.

Not nearly enough time, but Milly was content to spend most of it like this. While they were occupied, Milly had a missed text from Celine. Luckily, it was only an update to say they were following a lead from the elementary school. At least that was going well.

That wasn’t the only reply she’d gotten either.

@Dad

Milly:

“Mom = Catapult?”

Dad:

Howdy Milly,

There ain’t no easy way to say this, you figured right. That’d be the other half of why I don’t want you telling nobody. By now, I reckon you’ve already dug up some old history, but there’s more to it, I promise. You gotta have a truckload of questions, so what say we meet up next when you’re back in the regular timezone? You tell me when and where.

Love, Dad.

Milly:

Okay. 16:41 at the library across from the main gate. I’ll have five minutes left.

Some ancient law dictated that all old people had to write texts as if they were letters.

Milly assumed that whatever her dad was going to tell her would be inside his ‘Holden Room’ to ensure they wouldn’t be overheard, so five minutes was more like an hour. A single minute would be enough from that perspective, but any delay in actually meeting up would risk another round of Milly-time before they could talk.

Meanwhile, she kept busy by digging up some more ‘ancient history’. Milly had already read everything on Catapult’s Span-Dex page, but there were also some videos that she only now was able to look through.

One video in particular gave Milly the chills. It showed Catapult steering a fire truck with a large paint roller on the front. She sang an offkey song about painting the town red with a manic enthusiasm. She obviously had already been at it a while because all the streets behind her were completely covered in paint, wiping out the road markings, bus lanes, and crosswalks. It must’ve also taken out the parking spaces because people’s cars were haphazardly parked at the edges just off the road.

Milly recognized her mom’s singing voice from when they’d sung silly little nursery rhymes together. The song in the video felt so similar yet so surreal.

In the middle of her verse, a pair of police cars drove up and barred her way. Catapult hopped out of the truck then ran over and slapped the hood of the nearest car which instantly launched sideways off the street and smashed into a lamppost. The officers in the second car opened fire, but the bullets ricocheted off Catapult straight into the sky before she slapped their car as well, with similar results except it met the wall of a building.

Seeing that, Milly realized that the strangely parked cars she’d seen before must've been in her way as well.

Later on in the footage, there was also a clash between Catapult and the local heroes who ultimately chased her off and checked on the vehicles. That should’ve by all rights been more impressive, but Milly couldn’t stop thinking about the first part. The sheer callousness with which her mom just threw cars around without so much as a thought for the consequences, and how easy it was for her.

Milly wondered if maybe the easier something was, the less thought had to be put into it. That certainly matched her own experience so far. She’d thought nothing of breaking into the police station because the act was so trivial to her, but it wasn’t good.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

It dawned on Milly that she should probably write these thoughts down. She’d practically forgotten about that boring self-help book that Calamity had instructed her to read, but it had mentioned something about keeping a journal to reflect upon. That suddenly made a lot of sense. By tomorrow, her chat with Terra would be a distant memory next week, and she wanted to hang on to that change in perspective.

Luckily, Theodore had her sketchbook and he was next to her on the floor. Milly set her phone in the air above her so she could keep watching the screen while she dug through her bag.

To Milly’s surprise, her phone fell straight onto her face rather than hovering suspended in mid-air.

“Gah!” Milly groaned more out of shock than pain when it bounced off her nose and clattered to the floor.

“Butterfingers.” Niki chuckled and picked the phone up for her while she gave Milly a reassuring pat on the head. “Are you okay?”

“Hush! I’m fine!” Milly covered her aching nose with her hands and turned away from Niki in embarrassment. She’d almost been able to ignore the light burns on her face so far, but this made them flare up all over again. “Uugh, I don’t suppose you have any of that gel on you?”

“Welder Grease? You would not like it so close to your eyes. It burns.” Niki said while she glanced at the video and hit pause.

“No, that burn ointment stuff.”

“Milly…” Niki narrowed her eyes with an expression as though she’d found a typo in a dictionary. “Did you still not take Celine’s healing potion?”

“Oh, shoot! I mean, nooo. I totally didn’t forget!” Milly put on a thin facade. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing down at Theodore who hid the creepy blood injector. Calling that a ‘potion’ was generous sugarcoating, but maybe she could make up an excuse to leave and use it. “I think I hear Penelope calling my name. I’ll be right back!”

Niki set down a hand on Milly’s shoulder to prevent her from getting up. She made about as genuine an effort to restrain her as Milly had made to deceive Niki, which was to say none at all.

“We already established that the room is soundproof.” Niki rolled her eyes and ducked down to dig through Theodore then handed the syringe to Milly. “There is no need to sneak off, and I like having you here with me. Also, I admit I wish to observe how it works.”

“I’m just a lab rat, huh? You’re lucky you’re cute.” Milly grinned and spun the glass syringe in her fingers. While she wasn’t exactly afraid of needles, she wasn’t a fan either. She stared at the pointy bit of metal, unsure of where exactly to put it. In her veins seemed to make sense.

Examining her wrist revealed a couple of visible veins.

She hesitantly raised the needle up to them.

“Uh, Milly?” Niki gave Milly’s shoulder a squeeze to give her pause. “It occurs to me that I really should have inquired about this earlier, have you ever injected yourself before? Or anyone for that matter?”

“Does pricking my finger while cross-stitching with Granny Second count?”

“No.” Niki giggled into her hand, trying to take this seriously.

“Then no.”

“Okay, new plan. Sit up.” Niki looked reluctant but nudged Milly out of her lap then took the first aid kit from Theodore. “I will do it for you this time. Expose your bicep and pay attention.”

“That’ll be easy. I’ve got plenty of practice since I’m always paying attention to you.” Milly winked while she shrugged off her jacket and pushed up her sleeve. She was mostly joking out of nervousness but, to her delight, she could see Niki blush. “Good thing the school uniform has short sleeves, huh? Or I’d have to take the shirt off too.”

“Distract me more, see what happens.” Niki grinned and held the syringe between her teeth while she tied a piece of rubber tubing around Milly’s arm and pulled it tight. She let her fingers trail along Milly’s skin and glanced up at her. Their eyes met for a quiet moment before Niki gave a little tap to indicate the veins that were slowly showing themselves. “That is called a tourniquet. It will create a traffic jam in your veins so they swell up, making them easier to see and work with.”

While Milly enjoyed having Niki’s attention on her like this, the longer this went on the more she questioned this unexpected skillset. “Easier. Mhm, great. Hey, on a random note that’s totally unrelated to anything, do you hang out with junkies a lot?”

“Not that often anymore but I picked up a couple of tricks.” Niki nodded and tied off the tube then held up the needle, giving it a flick before she took notice of Milly’s look of utter horror. As smug as the cat that got the cream she added, “My mother was a paramedic, you cretin. Not to mention that I’ve had to help her study to become a pediatrician since I was four years old.”

“Don’t scare me like that, geez!” Milly grumbled but she didn’t dare push Niki for her insolence while Niki was still holding the needle. Not that she could really blame Niki for messing with her after jumping to such an uncharitable assumption, even in jest. “I’m sorry, alright. Did you really help your mom to be a doctor? That’s super impressive.”

It was also a far cry from her own mom. Milly wasn’t even sure what Catapult did for a living when she wasn’t heisting parking meters. As long as Milly could remember, both her parents just worked at the ranch, but they obviously had lives before then. A weird thought for any kid, but doubly so now that she knew they were both involved in the super scene.

Niki blushed. “Well, as tempted as I am to leave you thoroughly impressed with my genius… I must admit my contributions were primarily limited to sitting still while she applied a bandage or learned to use a tongue depressor. I eventually graduated to reading questions from flashcards to prepare for her exams, though. Now it is your turn to sit still, but we can chat all you like if it’ll help.” She held the needle at an angle to Milly’s arm.

“Hehehe, yeah. I think I will!” Milly chuckled nervously as the sharp end came closer. Oh, how badly she wanted to look away. If this were any other shot, she would have, but the whole point was to see how it was done. “S-so, uhm, you mentioned before that your mom’s deaf, right? That must’ve made working as a paramedic challenging. She sounds awesome.”

A detail like that might’ve slipped Milly’s mind by now if she wasn’t trying to learn sign language. It made her feel oddly proud to remember something like that she’d been told only yesterday.

“Right, but she wasn’t at the time. So, it went fine right up until she lost her hearing and had to quit. Too bad because rushing to people’s rescue was a big thing for her. Kinda like someone else I know.” Niki smiled at Milly right as she pricked her with the needle. “I am grateful you had more luck than she did when encountering a villain.”

The sting of the needle went entirely unnoticed. Milly’s blood ran cold before the injection even happened. Niki’s mom got hurt because of someone like her mom. The scene of crashed cars in Catapult’s wake loomed large in Milly’s mind. “What happened?”

“Have you heard of Decibella? Sixteen years ago, she tried to take control of Mumbai, India. Turns out that sonic powers and glass cities do not mix; a lot of people got hurt.” Niki talked about it as though it was just ancient history, but Milly could see the strain on her face. Niki pulled back and capped off the syringe then placed a little bandage on Milly’s arm. “It was a tragedy, but my parents met while picking up the pieces, so I have some mixed feelings about it. You know?”

“Like you wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t happened, but you can’t really be glad about it?” Milly rubbed her shoulder absentmindedly. It felt close to home. Seeing Niki nod, Milly asked, “how do you cope?”

“I talked to my mom about it. She told me that even the darkest storm could never taint the sunshine that follows, only brighten it. It sounds pretty, but I never quite understood it before...” Niki took Milly’s hand in hers and squeezed. “...But, I am starting to.”

Milly returned the squeeze. Was it weird that she felt a little better just knowing Niki had thoughts like that too? Milly wasn’t sure, but she was sure of something else. “I’m glad you’re here too.”

“So, what are you doing, anyway?” Milly asked while she sat behind Niki with her arms around her. Resting her chin on Niki’s shoulder, Milly watched the computer screen. Supposedly, this was the NASA computer that Principal Arkwright had promised them, but it looked and functioned like any other desktop. A black box with a screen full of weird text. Milly would’ve expected more flashing lights and buttons. “It’s a coding thing, right?”

“Right! It is nearly ready.” Niki’s chest thrummed hard enough that even Milly could easily track her heart rate. At least the dull box was fun for Niki. “I got the idea when ACE sent you that stream of alarm notifications in the area so you could find the Minutemen. While not a bad idea, it was terribly inefficient and more noise than substance. Not to belabor the point, but the same could be said about ACE itself.”

“Dang, tell me how you really feel!” Milly chuckled and hugged Niki tighter. She’d have to remember to thank Celine later because her burns didn’t hurt anymore. They sure were itchy, though.

“A bit harsh, perhaps, but not untrue.” Niki continued working without taking a hand off the keyboard, but she gave Milly a nuzzle instead which was just as good. “I suppose it is not exactly their fault. The transitory nature of a school group is always going to lead to fluctuations that are difficult to address.”

“Nerd.” Milly affectionately teased.

“Shut up.” Niki laughed. “The issue is that graduated students leave gaps in the hero roster. A suitable replacement might not exist in the school. Adult superhero teams mitigate this by having far lower turnover and a much bigger pool of recruits, many of whom are the very students school teams lose. Their powers and roles are already known.”

“I see. Abigail graduated to become Big Picture, but since she was the only detective ACE had, they are now trying to fill that gap with TRACE.” Milly nodded. “If they had lost Stella instead, their problem would be transportation, I guess.”

“Right. There are various roles within a superteam. We are currently playing with half a deck. I spoke with Terra about this too before while you were resting. Abigail wasn’t the only member who left. Clover was another; as a telepath, her role was communications. Phones are great, but Terra nearly died because she couldn’t signal she was in trouble before you bailed her out.”

“So, that’s why we have all these earbuds. I knew they weren’t on the original list!” Milly snapped her fingers. “I assumed you went to class, but you talked to Principal Arkwright instead, huh?”

Niki nodded. “Setting up TRACE demonstrated that she recognized the problem too, so I came with some ideas. She had actually already ordered the earbuds, but those are a stopgap solution. They will suffice while I figure out something better. After all, they are actually worse than a text message for you. As for what I am working on now, I figured we need eyes on the city. Like so…” Niki closed the text window she’d been working on and started up the application.

Milly recognized the interface immediately. “This is just YouSupe! I hate to tell you, but that already exists. We watched tons of videos here.” She scanned past the various video thumbnails and noticed something off about them. All the titles were a series of numbers and letters.

40°41′21″N 74°2′40″W

40°46′56″N 73°57′55″W

40°44′54″N 73°59′07″W

Those were coordinates from around Bulwark Bay. All of them were.

Next, many of the thumbnails animated and started playing while closed captions were generated at the bottom of each one. Each one is relatively mundane. Just people talking into the camera, a picture of food, A dance video in the middle of a crowded walkway, a news channel, and more.

“So, what do you think?” Niki asked eagerly. “It is a live feed of every publicly available stream or image with the GPS location of the camera. I can search for keywords being spoken, try for image recognition, or even set up an alert when multiple people begin filming in the same location since something must be happening.”

“I’ve seen this sort of thing in movies before. Mass surveillance by cracking into all the cameras in the city. with no regard for anyone’s privacy.” If this were anyone but Niki, Milly would question the legality and ethics of what she was looking at here. “But you said publically available. That means all these people are willingly putting all this on the internet to be seen, and you are just collecting the data?”

“Correct! Influencers, lifestyle bloggers, YouSupe Dancers. You name it, there is somebody streaming video. No need to do anything shady!” Niki looked awfully pleased with herself.

“I see.” Milly caught on and hugged Niki extra tight. “I’ll bet the shady route woulda been much easier, but you didn’t compromise on your principles and toughed it out till you found this method? Very impressive!”

“It is nothing really. A thought experiment that I tinkered with in the past. I just found some motivation to finally finish it.” Niki blushed but leaned back into Milly’s embrace. Her fingers rattled on the keyboard. “We will need to do some testing, but once it works properly other hero teams might benefit from it as well. For now, we just need some keywords. Like ‘Super’ and —Oh!”

As soon as Niki typed in the word ‘super’, the screen flickered and changed immediately to six different streams all showing the same massive battle taking place right in front of an apartment complex. Huge flocks of birds battled a massive white tiger the size of a truck amidst a crowd of heavily armed police officers. A news station was already covering the event with a caption across the screen that read:

Vigilante White Dove protects police raid from new foe!

A real mystery, right up until Milly saw a flock of pigeons fly past one of the civilian streamers. After dive-bombing the tiger, each of them clutched torn pieces of paper in their beaks. When the camera panned to follow the bird’s path, Detective Killjoy briefly entered the frame as he took shots at the tiger to no apparent effect.

“Oh no.” Milly looked on in breathless shock for a moment before she fumbled for her phone and made a call. “This better not be what I think it is!”

Paige’s phone went straight to voicemail.

Meanwhile, Niki tried Celine and switched to speaker the moment she picked up. She didn’t even wait for Celine to finish saying hello. “Celine! Is Paige with you?”

“Uhm, no. She's fighting the creatures outside at the moment! But! We figured out who keeps summoning those monsters.” She huffed while echoing footsteps revealed she was rapidly running up a stairwell. “I just, hah, have to tell her to stop, or so we hope. Before the SWAT Team moves in. Hah, can’t talk. Running. Sorry.”

Milly and Niki shared a look of confusion.

“Paige is fighting a hero, not a monster.” Milly corrected and called Stella’s number as she spoke. “I’m calling ACE, neither of you were meant to engage with the police or any villains. Stay put!”

Stella picked up. “Hey, Milly! Wha—”

“Huge trouble in Westmidlyn! Pick me up, I’ll explain on the way!”

The phone popped once. Stella’s voice was muffled on the other end. “Hi! Yes, sorry!” Then popped once more as Stella appeared with Terra in tow.

Mercifully, Terra was fully dressed, but she didn’t look happy about it. “What’s wrong?” she asked while scanning the room.

“Just a pitstop!” Stella grabbed Milly by the shoulder but paused a split second when she noticed Niki. “One or two?”

“One!” Niki called out while she swapped her phone with Milly’s.

“Bye!”

The room vanished.