I didn’t know who Windfall was, but I assumed that she was some sort of Cassandra.

There were psychic powers, despite Proteus’ claims that there were not, in order to avoid people panicking at knowing that there were people out there that could strip away the very privacy of their thoughts with little or no effort.

Cassandras were metahumans that, like tinkers, had finely-tuned minds. Their special gift was to connect disparate possibilities, often in ways that they themselves didn’t understand, using widely dispersed facts that could be collected from anywhere. President Leary had loudly proclaimed the victory of his universal armament act in the states, but the real reason was probably that Cassandras would likely be able to detect the possibility of a terrorist act, and there were often people in place to stop them from succeeding.

It was not well known, but most superteams had some kind of forecasting system, either a Cassandra or some kind of computer, that had a really good chance of knowing about the worst sorts of tragedies before they happened. It didn’t usually work so well against metahumans, who were kind of chaotic, and earthquakes, which didn’t offer many clues that they were going to happen that normal seismologists couldn’t already interpret, but that was probably due to lack of reliable data.

But some of them were damned close to reliable. I was betting it was a combination of wide-ranging passive psychic abilities and a special-purpose mind that could read prevailing mental attitudes and possible trouble spots, but honestly, I wasn’t any sort of power researcher, so it could be magical butterflies.

Remember how I said that I thought Powers were some kind of magic and not a scientific explanation? Well, Cassandras really supported that theory. None of them was 100%, or Proteus would already own the planet, but some of them got pretty damned close. If Windfall were predicting an 80% chance, then I would have to work extra damned hard if I wanted to prevent it.

If I wanted to. That was the real question. I wish I could talk to whoever this Windfall person was, I had a few important questions I would ask them. And some not-important questions too.

I took a shower and headed to brunch.

A known fact, most metahumans with attribute enhancements tended to sleep less. The same was true about healers, I think because they could process fatigue toxins more quickly or something. Or maybe they all just got woken up by morning wood.

I knew that was going to go back to being a problem for me. I’d pretty much suppressed any interest in sex for… decades. But now I had two incredibly beautiful sisters to think about. Hell of a problem for a guy, right?

Yeah, maybe I should try and get a laptop. That’s what the internet is for, right? Human tripods meeting plastic girls for some shared fake moans and groans? Who knows, it might even last a week before I managed to wreck it.

Ugh. No thank you. I really didn’t have much interest in watching some cutter relive her childhood trauma for an audience.

I was still drying my hair, although I had thrown a pair of shorts and a jersey on over a whole lot of wet. Right now we had traveled far enough south that the morning wind was warm, and I had no problems with air-drying, I was hungry.

Caelo beamed at me as I walked up and flopped into a chair across from her, waving slightly.

“I am not going to ask you if you had time to think, but I asked for a breakfast more like you are probably used to this morning since it’s just the two of us and the crew.”

“Is your friend Lauren going to be stopping by tonight?” I asked curiously. “It might be interesting meeting… what was his name?”

“Toby.” she fingerspelled. “Lauren’s little boy. She doesn’t like to bring him when the mercs are on board, but yes, she said she should be here by tonight. I think I am ready to learn to use a cell phone soon, and the Captain showed me a text from Lauren letting us know to expect her. Remember what I said about Windfall? Maybe she’s actually trying to keep us from getting romantic, she said that Lauren implied she should be here for some reason.”

I chuckled, “You think she’s here to you know… block things?”

Caelo shrugged, “I don’t know. Windfall almost always has a reason for what she does. Maybe she thinks seeing Toby will give you baby rabies or something.” It was kind of interesting that the LSF word for Rabies was ‘rage’.

I laughed, “Maybe she doesn’t know how men work. Seeing babies is almost guaranteed to squash any romantic thoughts we have.”

Caelo blew me a kiss as the mess crew dragged in brunch.

Ooh… grits! Stacks of bacon. Waffles, scrambled eggs, fried green tomatoes, hash browns, little sausage links, all the cheap stuff I had learned to love. The crew was also eating, which was cool. I literally stacked up plate after plate and tore into the food, Caelo giggling as she watched me refill after a very hard workout that had started very early this morning.

I’d had weird trouble sleeping, although, as usual, I’d forgotten whatever it was bugging me when I woke up. After the fourth time, I just gave up and went to start working out… at 4:30 am. At 7, Kjootoo, Naomi, and Tino had headed out for their flight, which was when Caelo found me.

I waved a piece of bacon at Caelo like a wand. “If you learn to cook like this personally, you are going to have every man in existence chasing you.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “I don’t want every man in existence. I decided. Might as well just give in.”

I pointed at the table, “Right here?” I chuckled and pressed against the surface. It was a little light and gave a bit.

“If that’s what you want,” she smirked.

Ugh, I was so tempted, but the backlash might be rough. I really needed to clear this whole thing with Naomi first before I busted up the faux relationship. Then again, She’d kind of been… pushing Caelo at me, a little. I was not a genius at emotional manipulation or body language, but her last remark had been teasing enough that I think she was hoping Caelo and I would wind up making out.

“Oh, by the way… you are getting a paycheck,” she signed.

“A paycheck for what?” I asked.

“It’s been a while. She put your earnings into an account, and she also paid you for your shoot. She heard about your kind of heading up the photo shoot, so she gave you a bonus for that. It’s a numbered account out of the Caimans. She wanted to tell you before she left, but got kind of rushed.”

“Oh cool. I could use some cash. How do I get to it?”

She smiled wickedly, “I have a card for you. She also loaded your share from the… job into it. It is back in my room. After breakfast, you can come back to my room, and if you ask really nicely, I might be persuaded to give it to you.”

At first, I wondered if she’d realized the innuendo, but looking at her face, I realized she totally had. “When is Lauren supposed to be getting here?”

“Probably about eight o'clock. I figured we could let Toby run around for a while, let him meet you, and then put him to bed. Afterward, some talking and drinks, and then tomorrow afternoon she should be heading back. Her time is tight, and she will be leaving Toby here for a few days because something is going on, and here is much safer.”

“Safer than what?” I asked.

She looked nervous for a moment, and then said “She’s a cowl.”

I did not approve. When you have kids, you keep them the hell out of that business or even retire until they leave home. She must have noticed my sour expression or felt the wave of irritation coming off of me, because she quickly added, “That’s why she’s bringing him here. She’s not a combatant, mostly playing transport, And Paula and I are fine with babysitting and can keep him safe… but there’s a lot of things going down right now, and bowing out is not going to work.”

I sighed and nodded. Life of a mask, or anyone with the power to intervene. Even if you retired, if something happened you had to get involved. If someone planned to blow up New York City, or if there was another breach, you couldn’t fairly ask people with no families to do your job of protecting your family for you. It sucked, but that was reality.

One famous superhero’s dead uncle used to say “With great power comes great responsibility,” but I preferred the phrase “With great power comes great power bills.”

You can shirk responsibility, but you cannot shirk the consequences of your actions. If you do, you might as well put a gun to your family’s head yourself. If some insane baddie decides to tear a hole in space over your hometown, just being related to a mask wouldn’t save them.

Now I had an important question. If another rift alert popped up, should I respond? Part of my earnings had gone into another set of armor… technically I was actually able to help now, whereas before if I showed up, I would have just gotten my flesh ripped off and laid there like a skeleton until the real superpowered people showed up.

I honestly didn’t know. I felt like the training I had been doing for two weeks was as much a yoke around my neck now as it was a boon.

I figured I probably would, assuming I could get there. I was no hero, but what would only hurt me would kill someone else. If I could take a hit that would kill someone, I was probably keeping someone else alive that might be able to do more than I could.

“Caelo, I think… I think I need to take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about my powers, and I think you might be the only one that can help me do it.”

She bounced on her seat a little excitedly, and nodded before signing, “Yes, what do you want me to do?”

We were sitting behind the helo deck again, and Caelo was almost vibrating. I hadn’t realized that she was incredibly pleased to feel needed as well. Wow, look at that. Co-dependence just waiting to happen.

I never really understood the whole philosophy behind co-dependence as a term. Yeah, I was old as hell, but when I grew up, some people were just assholes. They weren’t mentally ill, there were no pseudo-psychology buzzwords, you just knew some people were assholes, and you would always have to deal with assholes. They most likely thought you were an asshole too. The asshole circle of life.

“I think we may need to start with something simple. I am going to do my best to try and drop my defenses to your ability. Once you can peek inside, you can…. Add things too, right?”

She nodded excitedly.

“I am going to try to push to different effects, and I hope you can remember what you felt when someone used that ability to do something. Can you do that?”

She looked thoughtful, and then slowly nodded again, signing “I can try”

There was a chunk of metal in between us, a piece of the helo deck I had wrecked when I had jumped that first time, and it was intended to be the target of… whatever I could do. If I could do anything. I didn’t need any protection from the sun, it just sort of slowly filled my energy before it was lost, but Caelo was in the shade of the helo deck itself.

I tried to lower my resistance to her ability, but it was… weird. A little unnatural, and after several hours I realized why. Whatever her ability was, like her sister’s entropic disintegration, didn’t have its own pool. It affected the main bulk of my energy. She was able to sneak in for a few seconds, but even that brief contact seemed to fill my pool and turn it entirely to absorbing the energy.

She was able to give me a few moments where I could feel sort of what her sister felt when she was letting her ability run. I tried to reproduce it, but it kept slipping out of my grasp.

At one point, though I thought I managed… well… something, and closed my eyes to focus on it. Whatever it was depleted my pool a little, and while I was doing it, I was suddenly aware of a lot more than usual. I could feel the sun beating on my back, and the slow shifting of the deck beneath my crossed legs, but for only a heartbeat, I could feel MORE. The energy and warmth of the surrounding ocean, the kinetic energy as the waves and current moved, the energy of the sun as it impacted my resistances, even the movement of the ship and the feel of energy running through every wire and light… It was less than a heartbeat, but it was amazing!

I could even see my energy slowly pouring out, almost as if there was some kind of scupper that attempted to release the pressure in my pool once it got above a certain level. For that short moment, it was like I could feel everything around me in levels of energy even with my eyes shut, and the tiny trickle of energy I was trying to force into the chunk of metal changed to drawing it away into my pool.

Caelo lightly tapped my arm, and I reopened my eyes. She had been incredibly patient, sitting beside me for several hours. Enough time for the sun to have begun its downward journey towards the horizon. It looked like it was probably four O’clock already.

“It is cold.” She signed, pointing at the chunk of metal. It was! It was considerably cooler than it should have been, even after sitting in the sunlight for several hours. It should have been nearly the same temperature as the surrounding metal, but it was definitely at least ten degrees cooler!

“That is very weird. I wasn’t using the cold pool at all. I think those are just… tags, I guess, for where my power is distributed, not really pools at all.” It had been a convenient allusion to my abilities, but I think...maybe… it was not even close to accurate.

“In physics class, heat was the final energy form for entropy. Is it possible that your ability drained… I guess the potential energy, the molecular movement? That might be how it works. You don’t absorb the energy itself, you absorb its potential energy.” She looked thoughtful, trying to figure out how it actually worked based on this new clue.

“That would explain why, after a while, Tino couldn’t even move you. Also why Naomi charged you so easily? She was feeding the potential energy directly to you, which she uses to break down objects. You absorb potential energy and then can reapply it. You just have to figure out what kind of potential energy you are absorbing, and understand how it works! This is very exciting!”

“I guess it’s a little exciting, But I kind of already know that if I jack my kinetic I could probably stop something like a car instantly.”

“You don’t understand… what’s exciting is you did that without actually touching it!” She signed to me rapidly. Oh. Yeah, that was pretty cool!

I grinned at her, “So in a few hundred years I should be able to fly around absorbing kinetic energy and gravity and shoot laser beams from my eyes!” I chuckled. “Like a real cape!”

She twisted a little, getting up and beaming, and moved toward me, stretching. “No. I mean, that’s how it works if you just stand in traffic.” She signed, and then stretched languidly, her arms over her head. I think I needed to work on my control because I noticed her smirking a little as I guess she could pick up on the feelings I was having watching that stretch. After a few moments of letting me get a really good look at her delightfully bowed body, she lowered her arms and offered me a hand up.

I got to my feet smoothly. I guess I am lucky because unless I am grievously injured, I don’t seem to get much in the way of cramps from sitting still or in one position for a long time. “dinner.” she tapped her cupped hand against her mouth, and then dropped it over her other hand, and then grabbed my hand to drag me towards the front of the ship, the forward, I guess. Good. I was ready to eat her raw. Eat it raw.

Man, even my internal monologues were getting affected. I was ready to eat a stack of food.