Flying was one of the best superhero experiences. You could float through the sky, touch small parts of the world, free and uninterrupted.

  More than airplanes or helicopters, freehand flying meant an experience of the world that was rivaled by almost nothing.

  That was until somebody shot at you; then you learned the dangers of the air.

  In terms of combat style, I was a float-there-and-shoot kind of guy. Over the years I had learned about the dangers of that combat style, mainly the floating part.

  While my suit could keep me in the air for a little over two days, it was lacking in maneuverability. Limitations were arguably the most important part of any wisher’s abilities. Relying on what you could do was easy, but knowing what you couldn’t and how to get around or compensate for those weaknesses was a talent all its own.

  My major limitation was money.

  A tinker was the ideal thing to become if you wanted to be respected and powerful in modern society, not so if you wanted to bea superhero.

  I could endlessly upgrade my tech to near Major C levels of power, but that would require millions.

  I opened the airlock system within my suit. If there was one thing I had, it was redundancy. I had layers of protection protocols installed into this thing, including its own oxygen filtration and storage system. I was just a fat bird and lacked agility, but that meant that I could shove a bunch of stuff onto this suit.

  But there was no need for that right now. Now it was just basic patrol. I looked through the clear visor and felt the wind against my skin.

  It was cold. The type of cold that dried out your sweat and left you feeling refreshed.

  This was the best part about being a wisher. These moments of inhuman power.

  The suit was controlled through a device that read my mind. It was like what Mochi had for her robot hands but much less precise.

  I floated up to the sky, about ten thousand feet up, and just sat there. Some people read books, others knitted, and some socialized.

  But this was what I liked to do. It never got old, being this high and floating on top of the world.

  You imagined flying all the time as a kid, but doing it was something else entirely. And here I was, flying high above the city.

  There was a static hum before someone spoke in my ear.

  “Sir, this is Air Traffic Control; you aren’t legally allowed to be this—”

  “I have a license to fly and am watching out for airplanes in the region. Sending you my certifications.”

  And there goes my magic moment.

  I sighed and flew around. You still needed to watch out for Air Traffic Control.

  Lots of stuff happened through air traffic, especially over busy cities like this one. It had been a big deal at first, people just flying around unmanaged and unknown.

  But there quickly became an anonymous license you could get via the Hero's Union, and suddenly people floating in the sky became another manageable thing.

  I was a pedestrian of the sky, and the flying police didn’t like it when I jaywalked.

  Drones were the more regulated thing. In theory, the city was perfectly capable of constant monitoring of the entire population via drones and CCTV. But that was illegal, and merely owning drones required a special permit.

  If you wanted to operate them without a permit, you had to keep them within a quarter mile of you, or you had to be sending them to a place without having a clear view of the journey there. Those were for delivery drones or even media drones that might go to a site before the people could arrive there.

  But those rules were a lot more flexible. Corporations weren’t allowed to break them, but random vigs like me who hadn’t proved themselves to be a threat to the people’s privacy, well, we were given much leeway.

  Besides, any smart super had a drone-detecting device. It functioned via sonar, radar, and radio detection and was mostly reliable in most places. You could also buy a stationary one as well, and most businesses had them.

  Then they would communicate with each other and ping the locations of any drones to one another within a certain area. And if an unfamiliar drone was following you, you could call the police, and they would have their drones chase them down.

  It was all very convoluted.

  Cameras of any kind were heavily regulated as well.

  But the point was that there was a web of laws designed to ensure privacy while protecting it. And while it wasn’t too clear on what was and wasn’t illegal, the general sentiment of privacy was heavily looked after in the courts.

  Flying a drone out on the cityscape and taking a time lapse? A fine maybe, if you get caught.

  Tracking a hero through the streets? A larger fine with jail time and being banned from owning drones in the future.

  I slowly came down on my rooftop. There were no cameras up here, and I myself had a state-of-the-art drone detection device installed onto my rooftop. It was disguised and squared through the black market. And since I used my stealth mode and went out only at night, I was pretty sure that no one would notice me.

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  Unless someone was looking.

  Of course I had methods of leaving in case someone was looking as well.

  I had my own delivery drone that I could send to pick me up along with my suit at any location. But that was for extreme cases.

  I unequipped my suit and picked up my cane.

  Mochi wasn’t there to greet me this time, but Kimber did rub up against my legs. I loved the cat, but as a man with a cane, it could be hard to walk forward when I had to look at every step as a possible act of animal cruelty.

  “Shoo,” I waved, pushing aside the cat with my cane.

  “Give me a second; I’ll let you later, alright?”

  The cat trilled and ignored me.

  After about thirty seconds of careful stepping, I was able to get into my bathroom and lock the cat out. He was a very affectionate guy, and normally, Mochi was more than willing to provide that affection, but she was busy tonight.

  I showered and dressed comfortably before stumbling my way into Mochi’s room. There she had a bed, her choice of wet dog food with an automatic food dispenser. A dog toilet I had bought off of Tuxedo and a whole host of chew toys, snacks, and computers.

  Mochi was centered in a chair. It was a rolling chair, one that I had upgraded for her birthday. It wheeled around automatically based on Mochi’s input and had a special place for her to rest her tummy on while still being able to face the computer.

  That was what Mochi was doing now.

  “Monkeybuns, I need you to stand back and heal! Stop engaging with the boss; you will get an ever share of the experience regardless! And DaVinciSLover, YOU ARE A RANGED ATTACKER! STAY BACK AND ATTACK FROM A DISTANCE. WE WILL NOT BE WASTING RESURRECTION POTIONS ON YOUR STUPID ASS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  I peeked over Mochi’s angry little head.

  Mochi was a dog, but in a strange way, she was also a person. She needed to socialize and make friends, but she didn’t want to be locked away in some facility for the rest of her life, so this was her compromise.

  MMORPGs.

  She played a lot of them, but she mainly played this one.

  The Eternal Nine.

  She was a guild leader and a constant presence in the leaderboard of best players, constantly reaching the top fifty and never leaving the top seventy-five. And when Mochi played, all semblance of gentle, childish joy went out the window.

  “KILL THEM ALL! IF A SINGLE GOBMITE GETS PAST YOU, THEY WILL START BREEDING AND RESPAWNING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DUNGEON! AND THAT DOES NOT INCREASE EXPERIENCE, PEOPLE. THOSE THINGS ONLY GIVE FIVE EXPERIENCES EACH; A THOUSAND OF THEM WOULDN’T HELP YOU GET A PERCENTAGE OF MORE EXPERIENCE! JUST GO FOR THE GOBMOTHER; SHE’S THE BOSS!”

  I gave her a pat on the head, which she leaned into for a moment before yelling.

  “I WILL FIND YOU, DAVINCISLOVER. I WILL FIND YOU AND CHOKE YOU WITH THE MONA LISA UNLESS YOU ATTACK FROM A RANGE AND STOP GOING IN HEADFIRST!”

  I slowly walked out of the room and went over to the living room.

  I sat on the bed, reclined the chair, and took out a pill. It was a painkiller, one that was becoming less effective by the day.

  I turned on the TV, and Kimber popped himself onto my lap. Distantly vague yelling came from Mochi, and the sound of rain pattering against my roof started to mix in with it.

  I turned up the volume and watched the news.

  A guy with gelled hair and a blinding smile came on.

  “The Grand Spin is coming up, as you know, and will be held in Oak City this year. The number of people planning to attend, along with the current Oak Stadium having to expand to fit those numbers, is still a problem with many folks here in the city, and—

  I switched the channel.

  A crisp movie came on. There were a bunch of people, an old detective, and a guy looking around in distress.

  “I’m telling you, I didn’t do it! Look, it couldn’t have been me. I was down at Abby’s house when it happened. Do you know how far away that is?”

  I left it on.

  It started to thunder outside, and the warm glow of the TV seemed to have to fight with the occasional burst of lightning.

  It was daytime right now, but the clouds made it seem like it was near evening. That with the rain blowing and the wind made it very low visibility.

  Oh well, our windows were reflective, and we kept them closed anyways. We could risk someone seeing Mochi walking around and talking.

  The show was interesting, if a bit predictable. And I kept watching for about an hour or so before Mochi came in and plopped down onto the couch.

  “How was the raid?”

  “It was good!” She chirped. “I banned some people from the guild, though, and PKed them to get back guild materials.”

  “DavincisLover?” I asked.

  “No, he’s actually decent. Just some leeches who refused to use their allocated items at the proper times.”

  I nodded.

  Mochi was ruthless when it came to video games. I had tried to play with her once, but… I then decided not to. We still played RPGs together, she handling the combat and me handling the storylines and decision-making.

  But multiplayer games were a sore point for her.

  “Burt,” Mochi said, hind leg scratching roughly at her neck.

  “Yeah.”

  “When are you going to get a girlfriend?”

  I looked at the dog. She said it so innocently, as if she was asking about the weather.

  And it was all genuine.

  “What brings this up?” I asked.

  “Well, you know about the guild, right? Sometimes we talk, and I say, You’re my older brother, right? And they told me that a guy that old should be out having a job, not moping around the house all day. And they said that at this age, I should encourage you to get a girlfriend, or a boyfriend if that’s what you’re into—”

  “Mochi,” I cut in.

  “But it’s been years, you know! And you have to move forward at some point, Burt, I mean.” She sighed and cuddled up under my arm.

  “It’s not healthy, you know. I was on a forum, and it said—”

  “What forum?”

  “A forum where concerned people get together to talk about their antisocial acquaintances of varying ages.”

  “A mom forum?”

  Mochi stared off to the side and put her ears down flat. Then she whined.

  “Mochi, you don’t need to mother me.”

  “I know, but you don’t have friends! I’m a dog, and I feel like I have more friends than you do, and sometimes I wonder if it's because of me and—”

  “Why would it be because of you?”

  “Well, you are hiding me, and maybe you’re afraid that if you get a friend or a girlfriend, it’ll limit my freedom, and maybe that’s why—”

  I grabbed her snout.

  “You know I hate getting sentimental, right?”

  Mochi nodded, her snout still grabbed by my hands.

  “My need to be alone has nothing to do with you, understand?”

  She shook her head.

  “I just don’t trust people, Mochi. It's that simple.”

  She shook my hand off her snout and put her head on my lap. She was panting slightly, and her eyes still held a look of guilt.

  “It wasn’t just the breakup or the cheating. It was everything else. They all just chose their side, and it felt like I was just expected to accept that. Look, I understand that it's not the best place to be, but I’ve been alone for a while now. I’m used to not talking to people. It's fine.”

  Her tail thumped the couch cushion in defiance.

  “It's normal. And I don’t need you worrying about me while you’re still chasing off the mailman and feeling threatened by the doorbell.”

  Mochi nodded, and I gave her a belly scratch.

  She was strange. She was smart, probably smarter than most humans, but she was still a puppy. She wasn’t a kid. She could devour a psychology textbook with no problem, and she even earned her own money through various means online.

  Sometimes I worried about all of that, but for now, she was just a dog. A dog that would psychoanalyze her person's state of mind and try to better his behavior for it, but still a dog.

  Just a very smart puppy concerned about their human.

  I felt bad about it. Sometimes I wondered if the only reason I trusted her was because she was a dog.

  I certainly wouldn’t trust a human.

  I ignored the thought and just kept petting her, and we both drifted off to sleep covered in the TV light.

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