“Why don’t we go out this weekend before game three begins on Monday?” Penny said over the din of a kitchen under use.

“As long as at least one of us watches Lyssa and makes sure she does not have too much drink,” Amelia said.

Carrie watched them work with a sense of ease. It had been an awkward past couple of days. But whatever had happened between the two of them seemed to have mended. Penny had regained her usual gregariousness, Amelia her tall regality. Someone was missing.

“Where is Lyssa?” She asked.

“She didn’t come back from class,” Penny said. “Her last one was biology. The building that just got nuked by a gift misfire. No one got hurt though. It happened after class ended.”

“Hm…”

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

The door opened with a click and Lyssa strode through.

“Hey,” Carrie greeted. “Are you-” She stopped, noticing the dark expression on Lyssa’s face. Lyssa walked straight to her room, silent. Her bedroom door slammed shut behind her.

“Oh dear,” Amelia remarked.

Carrie stood from her seat.

“I think you should give it a few hours,” Penny said. “Come eat. We’ll set some aside for Lyssa later.”

“I wonder what happened,” Carrie said.

“I’m sure we’ll all find out soon.”

--

“Report.”

Jackson’s head appeared on the monitor. “I’ve calmed your asset down. Saved us all a lot of clean-up.”

“Who’d you bring?” Whitworth asked.

“Ace Pilot and Hawktress. One Magpie for back-up. Should have been enough if our student became untenable.”

“Good. Good.” Whitworth sat back in his office chair.

“What’s so special about this one? I can name twenty students with better character and stronger gifts. John Frauss, for example has a similar gift. The kid’s a genius too.”

“The asset can mutate any number of gifts, Jackson,” Whitworth said. “If there is a limit, I want to be the one to find it, not the others.”

“You mean Apex, our sister school.”

“I mean the people who managed to sneak into our facility. Lyssa’s vulnerable, unstable. And people like that become impressionable to influence. The majority of vigilantes we detain are orphans, you know.”

“Mhm,” Jackson acknowledged with a soft grunt.

“I want you to prepare a contingency for her though.”

Jackson raised a brow. “For a student?” He said. “How unorthodox. We don’t even have one for Victory.”

Whitworth laughed at the joke. It wasn’t as though they haven’t tried before.

“There’s always ol’ reliable,” Jackson said. “Don’t think she has a gift that can react to a supersonic round to the back of the neck.”

“For now,” Whitworth said. He sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m going back to Howard. Something’s been nagging me. I have a couple questions for him.”

“Right. I’ll see what I can draw up for our first anti-student contingency. How exciting.”

It was nearing evening. Where would Mayor Howard be? A call to the mayoral mansion was answered by the butler, who reported that Mr. Howard was away at the conference. Usual city affairs. Whitworth rarely bothered with municipal politics. This time he went to the school’s carpool and took his own vehicle. He was on the road again. That was the nature of the job: a spotless office.

“Where to, sir?”

“Town hall.”

“Calculating optimized route.”

Those who happened to share a journey with the car might notice the serendipity of the stoplights as they drove, always seeming to glow green at the right moment to allow the average-looking SUV to never stop for more than a couple seconds. At least that was the intended design. The SUV took an abrupt turn.

“What is it?” He said.

“Gift discharge five blocks ahead. Re-calculating.”

Whitworth extended his gift to confirm what was happening. A man was rampaging through the streets ahead, bashing himself through some of the last remaining original apartments the city had left. His mind was swirling with chaotic emotion. Three people were injured so far, no casualties. Whitworth closed his eyes and began to work. He needed to stall while first responders were on their way. It ought to take five minutes before they arrive. New Langshir’s size was a nightmare. It could be called a blessing that similar incidents only happened once a week.

As his car drove around the spectacle, he dove into the man’s mind. Who was he? A mechanic. Motive? Too cloudy to discern. He was a normal man with category 2 gigantism, celebrating successful anger management therapy. Something had set off a storm in the mechanic’s mind and he grew ten extra feet of height and muscle in the middle of their shop.

Whitworth numbed the man’s nerves, slowing those wild movements. Then he dug through the man’s mind to draw calming memories like water from a well. It seemed to work. He could feel the destruction coming to a halt. Then a blast of psychic pain interrupted him, loosening his grip. A fourth injury just occurred. A young boy with a telepathic gift just had his leg crushed by a piece of falling debris. About a dozen people nearby fell to the ground as the boy couldn’t help but project the horrific feeling of a destroyed ankle all around him. The giant mechanic roared, losing whatever calmness Whitworth had tried to create and was approaching the people on the ground with.

“Shit!”

He had no choice. He was being gentle before. Whitworth prepared to crush the uncontrollable man’s somatic nervous complex before something permanent happened to the people around him.

A tremor travelled through the asphalt as the giant’s bulk fell onto the middle of the road. One of his hands shattered the windshield of a parked car. Alarms blared.

Whitworth blinked in surprise. He had not done it yet. He took the perspective of a passing pigeon in the area to get a bird’s eye view of what had just happened. On the sidewalk, a man in a sleeveless shirt folded away a personal defense weapon. A woman tucked an identical weapon back into her apron pocket. There were at least two more civilians with those submachine guns in their hands.

Ammunition that could hurt cat-2 gifted were definitely on the schedule of prohibited weaponry. Yet there they were in the hands of apparently ordinary people. Meanwhile, the first responder team of heroes were still a minute away. Whitworth withdrew his mental awareness, his brow furrowed deeper than ever.

He made a call.

“Sokolov? I need you undercover.”

“Where?”

“This city. Something’s been happening under our noses.”

“What? Where are you?”

“I’m headed to a conference in town hall. Don’t wait up.”