The hostages had been sitting in the same position, wedged together behind and beneath the cash register, for hours now. The pain of their wrists and knees, tied together with masking tape and cable, worsened every minute, relief impossible as long as they remained bound. Above them, a pistol waved erratically, only occasionally pointing in their direction, attached to the arm of a man shouting down his phone at the police negotiator on the other end.

"Dammit, just tell them to back off, alright?" the man shouted down the phone, swinging the gun directly towards the two captives. "Back off or you'll be down one hostage, you get it? Just give me some space."

The situation had started early in the afternoon, the man running into the tiny store and demanding the till, making to leave with the cash before noticing the cop holding the door inwards, paused, hardly yet reacting. Firing two quick shots into the ceiling, then swinging around and placing a gun to the head of the cashier, he forced the officer to retreat out the door, and the situation had escalated until now, with the sun down and moon rising above, half a dozen squad cars and a number of police surrounded the building, creating an impasse the hostage-taker was in no way equipped to handle.

It was about this time, as the man spat down the phone, a crazed, desperate look in his eye, that smoke started pouring soundlessly in, unnoticed at the back of the room, entering through a small ventilator and equally small rectangular window that barely opened, collecting and swirling along the ground.

The two hostages temporarily ceased their struggles against their bonds, wide-eyed as the smoke rose up behind the man on the phone, at first amorphous and then rapidly taking the shape, then the texture and form, of a man whose hands swiftly grabbed the hostage-taker from behind, one taking the hand holding the gun and forcing it clattering to the floor, the other holding the man by the head, palm over the mouth, so that this all happened as silently as it did swiftly.

"Hush... Don't struggle, relax, and it'll all be over," said the man who had, until recently, been only vapour. "That's right, just relax - you're in way over your head here, give it up before you really hurt someone."

As the police burst in, guns focused on the hostage-taker as a single officer cut the restraints of the hostages, the lead officer, identifiable by both his air of authority and by the instructions he issued to his subordinates, wandered over to the apparating man, unfazed and face registering recognition in a way that the hostages, who had no idea what was going on, were surprised to see.

"I almost don't remember what it was like when you weren't here to make our jobs so simple," said the officer. "Now, get out of here before one of us has to arrest you for public indecency."

The man slowly evaporated without a word, smoke pouring back out the way it had entered while the officer turned to the hostages and spoke.

"I know, I know, he can't help it; it ain't like the comics. He can change, but not change anything that isn't part of him. Leads to a lot of problems when ladies are involved, I tell ya," he chuckled.

For the entire time, a time that had been less than a few minutes yet would wake the hapless hostage-taker in the middle of the night for the rest of his life, and most likely stay with the hostages for some time too, the man had been completely naked.

Stepping out into the night air from the store, Lou Reddrick, lead investigator for the New City police, walked towards his car as out of the shadows of the alley behind the store stepped the now fully-dressed Smoke. Smoke had a real name, Lou knew, but even his friends hardly ever called him anything else.

"Good job there. I swear, you're gonna have us all out of a job in a few years, and then I'm coming for you," he smiled wryly.

"Well, I'm just in it for the action. I'm more than happy for your guys to do all the paperwork and counselling and whatever it is that happens after I save the day," said Smoke.

Lou knew he was joking, but it was a little too close to the truth for him to do anything but pat him on the back and nod in agreement, both getting in the car. As he turned the ignition his radio crackled into life, a woman's voice carrying across the airwaves.

"Robbery in progress, 6 men armed, the I M Bank, Welles and Ford crossroads. All available officers, please respond."

"Well, guess we should get over there," said Reddrick, shifting the patrol car into gear. "It's right the other side of town, but maybe we'll get there before it's all over, anyway" he said as the radio chimed in.

"All units, be advised, I M Bank situation has been upgraded - Eric G M Matthews attending. Caution advised."

"FX? Where the hell did he come from? Shit, we better get there before anything major gets wrecked," said Lou, hammering the accelerator as his sirens started blaring. "I swear, why can't all Advanced have safe, quiet powers like you, Smoke?" The car tires squealed as they rounded a corner at speed.

The Advanced had first come on the scene around 15 years ago, appearing around the world but quickly gravitating to those countries that could best remunerate their talents. Indeed, at first, the Advanced were nothing but a television event, their powers simply entertainment for the masses. Unlike the comics and films on which people based their ideas of super-powered humans, the Advanced found their abilities very limited in a world that valued hard currency over great deeds.

There were no billionaire playboys saving lives at night, no super-secret agencies providing support for teams of people with incredible abilities; there were daytime chat shows and evening talent shows, and it was here those who became known as the Advanced[1] emerged.

There was no public outcry against them, no inter-governmental discussions and secret treaties to control these people, because they had been from the very start in people's living rooms, appearing on the computer screens of the masses through viral videos, vines, and compilations before they appeared on the government radar. Indeed, many social commentators stated that the actual existence of these super-powered beings was of little import to the social conscience, which had already had superheroes beamed into its living rooms for decades, and the fact that these were not fiction but could be seen outside in the real world was of no real impact.[2]

Only in recent years had these "differently-abled" started entering careers outside the lure of media lights, as businesses and organisations belatedly realised they were going to have to compete for their services, not simply wait for one to turn up and apply. It was even rarer for an Advanced to join a government service like the police, and Lou knew they were lucky to have Smoke. For that matter, they were probably fortunate to have FX, but there were many times he felt differently and he would never say such a thing out loud. It looked like tonight was one of those times.

"Look, when you get in there, just do what you can to calm him down, and for god's sake don't do anything that might encourage him, yeah? He doesn't get that what he's doing can really get him into trouble with the force. Hell knows what we'd do to stop him, though."

Smoke just nodded, a sound that may well have been a laugh escaping his lips, and left the car.

"You could at least go out the door," said Lou, winding the window up.

It was one of those old-style city banks, all Roman columns and grand spaces, seemingly designed as a temple in service to the gods of finance. Stepping out of the car and heading up the broad granite steps that led to the entrance, Smoke began to feel the vibrations that signalled FX at work. As he stepped inside he could hear the crashes of various objects falling to the floor, shaken off their perches on shelves and desks. There was still no sound from the source of the vibrations, though that was nothing unusual given the accuracy of FX's abilities.

Alternately walking and flowing, Smoke switched from one form to the other as he swept over, under, and through the various desks, counters, and doorways that led to the steps near the back, leading down to the safe. Here, he could hear the wub-wub-wub of FX in action, a heavy track as if played through the tinny speakers of a cheap smart phone.

At the same moment that he went to lean over the banister and look down the spiral stairs heading to the basement a masked and gloved body flew up past him, and suddenly the noise was louder than the most powerful sound system of any club Smoke could name[3]. As the sound reached a crescendo, the masked man was held in the air, limbs flailing against nothing as he seemed to levitate a little above Smoke's eye level. After a few seconds the music cut off abruptly, and the man went falling, screaming, back down.

"Annnnd here comes the drop," said Smoke, looking down over the banister to see six men, all in black masks and gloves, fallen on all fours with a tall, skinny tattooed man in a tank top, baggy shorts, and with a shaved head standing in front of them, hands outstretched towards them.

"Annnnnnd here comes the DROP!" shouted the tattooed man, and suddenly the world seemed to fall away, vibrations turning the concrete floor under Smoke's feet to a liquid-like surface, waves rushing across it and making it difficult to balance.

Shit - and that's just the edge of the blast, Smoke thought, as the fearsome modulated beats sent the six flying back, rolling, spinning, completely disorientated, as Smoke knew, unable to think, to see, barely able to breathe.

"Just so long as they don't puke... damn," he said, as his hopes were dashed. Turning into a thick, roiling cloud, he flowed over the banister and went to calm the situation.

"Thought you'd turn up sooner or later, Smokey-boy. You here for the come-down, or what?" FX was no longer paying attention to the 6 men he had blasted into unconsciousness, and what had been a tightly-focused beam of sound aimed directly at the robbers was now a diffuse, light chill-out tune of soft harmonics and what sounded, oddly as Smoke thought, like a saxophone.

"Trying out some new things, I see," said Smoke, as FX grinned and amplified the sax.

"Yeah, I reckon I could be onto a whole new genre, at least sub-genre," he smiled, as the sax, or whatever it was, faded into the background. "Not sure that works, though." He frowned.

"What, you, bored of Dubstep? You'll be play Bach next. Only a while 'til you're providing background music for elevators," Smoke joked.

"Nah man, never gonna happen, but I tell you, I'm never going to improve if I can't get a more appreciative audience."

He gestured to the unconscious men.

"Idiots. I mean, why even try to commit a crime like this anymore? There's too many of us Altered all over the place; it's not like they'd have got far even if I hadn't been in the area. We've got a god-damned speedster, for fuck's sake."

"Actually, Shel's touring Europe right now, out for a few weeks at least. Doing the chat show circuit - everyone wants to know about the fastest woman alive."

It was funny, Smoke thought, even though Shel was faster by an exponential amount than even the fastest jet fighter, she was still known as the fastest woman alive, as if somehow there must be a man faster lying in wait somewhere.

"That so, huh? Then I guess these fools thought they could try their luck before she got back."

The music stopped, and Eric looked like a man suddenly crashing at 7am after spending the night out, skin pale and drawn.

"I dunno, I think I'm making a name for myself and then it turns out no one’s ever heard of me."

"Well, you've certainly made a name for yourself in the Police department. They sent me here to keep you in line, not these screw-ups."

"Ha! Well, I'll take what I can get. Guess I'll get out of here before they ask me to clean this mess up."

Putting his arms to his sides, palms down to the floor, he threaded thin waves of sound toward the ground, slowly growing louder.

"Still, at least you can tell them this time I didn't break too much."

Suddenly, the sound increased massively and FX clearly decided, as he launched upwards, to have a final laugh, because with one last, massive WHUMP of bass, all the windows in the building smashed, including the skylight above the staircase. He shot out, surrounded by a vortex of swirling glass.

[1] Or the Changed, the Evolved, or the Sanctified, among other names

[2] Of course, there were those who called this rubbish, and in fact followed up on this by asking "and what the hell is a 'social commentator,' anyway?" before getting in a huff and storming off.

[3] And he'd been to a few - being able to transform into a cloud really helped get you into places, and once you were in a few tricks would mean you didn't pay for a drink all night