It was easy to think safety came in numbers. The more eyes there were, the harder it must be for untoward behavior to occur unnoticed. A comforting belief for those who did not live in a metropolis. The strangest pattern about populations was that the greatest of a thing was usually owned by the smallest of its constituents. Most of the world’s money belonged to the smallest group of people. The storms that did the most damage are the rarest. Supervillains came once a decade, if that. But crime and city? That was linear. And the more people there were, the less likely it was that strange events were noticed.

So no one noticed when one more vehicle stopped by the side of the road. On a sidewalk with hundreds of people already, no one saw two more step onto the curb. And no one’s eyes registered when the sidewalk was three people short.

No one save for Penny. She ran through the crowd of suits and coats and t-shirts, ignoring the ‘hey’s and ‘watch where you’re going’s. The van was pulling away from the curb, its front wheels were making the turn to begin merging into the lane. She was thirty feet away. The van accelerated. She broke free of the crowd and reached out. The van had already become one of many cars on the road.

Amelia walked up behind her.

“I called the police,” she said. “Did you see a plate?”

“No,” Penny said. “But I planted a tracker.”

A small, yellow flower now blossomed from a crack on a nondescript van going down one of countless streets in an enormous city. Undetectable, unless one knew what they were looking for, or happened to be able to communicate with plants.

A sedan with hidden lights parked by the side of the road. A couple men dressed in casual stepped out. They flashed their badges in a rapid, practiced movement.

“Are you the one who called us?” The first man said.

“Yes,” Amelia said.

“Tell us everything, then we’ll take it from there.”

“I have a gift that can help,” Penny said.

The second quickly interjected. “I’m sure you do, but the CEOR is unequivocal. You two are not approved for ride-alongs, internships, or enforcement assistance.”

“Unless you call for it.”

“An abduction isn’t an emergency. Now, tell us what you know.”

Penny sighed. “They’re in a white van. No visible markings. Currently headed down Juniper coming onto 61st.”

The second man raised a brow, taking a glance at his partner. “Thank you. You kids go about your night.”

The officers headed off, leaving them by the curb.

“Well, the crepe line did not get longer,” Amelia said quickly.

“Why don’t we follow them?” Penny said.

“Oh god.”

“Just in case! We’ll maintain distance away from the operating area. We won’t be violating any CEOR clause.”

“Is it not true that the operating area of a kidnapping is the whole city until you know exactly where they have stopped?”

“Not unless we know where the victim is,” Penny said. “And I do.”

“You know where the car is. What if they change vehicles?”

“They wouldn’t get a chance to if you take me into the air right now,” Penny said sweetly.

Amelia grimaced. “Alright, but we will take off from behind those trees. You have no idea how embarrassing it is to…”

But Penny was already walking there.

--

Lyssa stepped onto her mind mansion, beholding its many corridors and rooms. The place had been growing more complicated as of late. It had never occurred to her that her Selves were autonomous to such an extent. While she moved throughout the day, they have likely been expanding their own space, living their own world in her thoughts.

“But it’s not their world,” Whitworth said.

He walked alongside her. It was strange having an immutable presence like him inside her head. Lian was a category 4 telepath, and she had always felt like a foreign element, a bug, when she and Lyssa did their help sessions. Lyssa could not guess what category the Director was.

He approached a heavy door made of stone and opened it as if it was made of hollow wood. Inside, nothing but concrete. Empty rooms and stairs and chambers. All grey, featureless. But the halls always converged into a common center, a single hollow tower that stretched high into the sky, where a dim light poured through. Izanami sat in her stone throne, head lowered, silent.

“Is this what you felt,” Whitworth said.

“When that building fell, she held it up for me. She-”

“You. You held it up. Your gift manifested. Like some twisted monkey’s paw. When you are stressed enough, your biology engineers an escape for you. It’s not up to you what you’ll get. It may never be, judging by how complex your body is, but it’s always your mind which controls the gift.

“Sit in the chair.”

“I…” Lyssa wondered if Izanami would move. But she found that she did not have to. It was easier than she had expected to recall those moments. A young Lyssa, hiding in her room, avoiding confronting her mother about seeing another man. Then came the meteors. She remembered seeing the balls of fire. She heard the floors above shatter. Then she saw the ceiling almost liquefy from the weight of the higher floors tumbling down like so many tons of eggshells. It was so loud. She raised her hands and felt those electric fields unspool as if she had had the ability her whole life, and she pushed against the metal inside the concrete.

Lyssa looked up from her stone seat. Her hands were the ones on the rests. She looked at the fine layer of dust on her fingers.

“See?” Whitworth said.

Lyssa looked up at him with deadened eyes.

“I got used to the quiet,” she said, enunciating each syllable with slow deliberation. “Days and days of silence. Even clenching this electromotive muscle became instinct.”

“You can make it a matter of will.”

“Do you think it to be so easy?”

“Pardon?”

“She lets anyone in nowadays, doesn’t she? That horrid game was a mistake.”

“Lyssa?”

“I’m here. Been here the whole time. That’s the problem with shrinks. They think everything is a case. A case of this. A case of that. You think I keep these parts of me separate to protect myself? Maybe. But there’s a different reason for every single one of them.”

She stood from the seat.

“Where are you going?” Whitworth asked.

“Back to reality.”

“Not like that you’re not.” He concentrated. An expression of confusion formed little by little. Lyssa’s lips stretched into a sneering smile.

“Where do you get to decide which part of me is real, anyway?”

“Working on it,” Whitworth said, gritting his teeth.

“It’s hard to tell, where Lyssa ends and Izanami begins. But we’re all ‘me’, so maybe I don’t end or begin anywhere. I’m just this.”

“Nope, there’s a distinction.” Whitworth flexed his hands and pulled apart the metaphor. The Self that wandered through life. The Self that took those tests. The Self that smiled when she found friends. That was real, separate, unique. He spread his arms. With one hand he pushed Izanami back on the stone seat and with the other he shoved Lyssa away.

“Wh-what happened?” Lyssa asked. “Sir? I don’t know why I said those things…”

“Hubris,” Whitworth said, breathing hard. “Mine, I mean. You are more complicated than I thought. I don’t think there’s a psychologist in the world who wouldn’t give an arm just to do sessions with you.”

“That doesn’t reassure me,” Lyssa said. She looked at Izanami, who had resumed sitting, silent, head prostrated. For a moment, Lyssa thought like her, but even that did not fully describe the experience. She thought as though she and Izanami had never been apart, ever. Like some unreachable gestalt, more powerful and actualized than the two of them as parallel entities. But that meant there were different individuals for every combination of any number of her Selves.

“We should take a break for the night,” Whitworth said. He snapped his metaphorical fingers.

Lyssa opened her eyes in that dark chamber beneath the school.

Whitworth stood to his feet.

“I’ll walk you out,” he said.

“Are- are we doing this again?”

The Director laughed. “Unless you don’t want to. Me? I feel invigorated.”

“Right, haha,” Lyssa said nervously. She was glad at least one person thought her to be all that interesting. She wondered what her friends were doing in the meantime.