Jimmy leaned back in his seat with a sigh and sipped at the wine glass Nate had pressed into his hand. It actually was pretty good, Jimmy thought, once you got over the 'what-did-I-just-put-in-my-mouth' taste and learned to manage the bubbles. It was sending happy, warm feelings coursing through him and a sensation that he could only call 'anti-sleep'.

  Patricia was shooting him betrayed looks and had scooted her chair farther away when he'd accepted the glass.

  "So... so I have to come back to this, Jim. So you followed some street-kids to their alley where you proceeded to..." Nate raked Jimmy's form with critical eyes. "Win?"

  "There were a lot of them. And a ti— ger like monst—" 'Damn it' "— One may have had feline ancestry."

  Tom snickered and Sashaya swooned over her hand which was cupped around her cheek. "You hero!"

  "There is nothing wrong with heroic inclinations. Even small ones. I commend you, Jim."

  Patricia inclined her head approvingly and Jimmy felt a surge of heat to his face which he tried to hide behind a big gulp from his wine glass and a subsequent coughing fit.

  "It's nice to help people, don't discourage him." Said Mico, eyeing the hecklers reprovingly. "Just, Jim. Maybe not start with taking on kids in an alley. I volunteer at a homeless shelter every other weekend. You could come with, if you want."

  "Uh... Thank you, Mi—"

  "Have you ever even been, in a fight before?"

  "Yes!"

  "Oh..." Tom blinked. "With who?!"

  Jimmy shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "... Don't worry about it."

  To which Tom's snickering turned full-throated and Nate boisterously added "Hey. Kayla-chan can be vicious! My shins still have divots in them!"

  'I think I should have been able to say no to that.' Jimmy thought grumpily at the Itch. 'It's not like any of my fights are anything to write home about. I mostly just get my butt kicked and then use a power gimmick to eke my way out of trouble. I don't think powers in a fist-fight really count, and I'm pretty sure if Buck had known about the taser I would have learned what it feels like to have my hand broken.'

  "Should we try our hand at problem seven?" Jimmy asked quickly as Tom opened his mouth looking like he was going to ask more questions about Jimmy's fisticuffs experience. "It looks...." He groaned. "Figwistle. Double Pendulums again. They're like my nemesis."

  "I don't know what you're complaining about." Nate grumbled, paging through the text book. "Pretty sure your grade is assured." He squinted at it for a second before slamming the book closed and leaning back. "Ha. Nope. It's been three hours, and I'm seeing the world in ballistic trajectories and mass-spring-damper systems. I don't know how you two can keep this up."

  "We are intelligent and studious, Norbert."

  "Hey!" Tom bridled. "Take that back! I'm studious."

  "I'm intelligent!"

  "Mmmm..." Sashaya rocked her hand back and forth. "I'm fifty-fifty," she sighed. "That makes me intelligently studious, so I know when to take a break."

  Patricia seemed to swell in her seat before Mico rested a calming hand on her arm. "Maybe, a small break. Nate's right about the trajectories."

  Tom raised his hand. "Issss.... anyone going to comment on 'Figwistle'?"

  Jimmy shot him a dirty look. "I'm going to the bathroom." He said, and stalked down the hall.

  Jimmy sat down on the toilet seat and took a moment to check The Guys Phone For Illicit Dealings. He slumped.

  Yep. Those had been texts he'd been feeling. Yep, They were Vicky. Nope. They did not make him feel any better.

  Jimmy rubbed at his face with his hand. It was hot. It could have been the green, anti-sleep stuff he'd been drinking, he thought. Or a low grade fever. Based on the fiery itch he could feel tracing along his bones, though, Jimmy had his suspicions.

  Vicky's texts were... well. Snippy wasn't quite the word Jimmy wanted to use.

  He hadn't given her a date for their next date yet, so Vicky had started suggesting some, and then implying unsubtly that he was holding those four dates as some kind of leverage.

  'How had it all gone so wrong?' Jimmy leaned back against the tank and stared up at the ceiling vent. 'Two days ago, it felt like nothing could go wrong. Now it feels so long ago. If I could just get Vicky back to that park,' Jimmy thought, 'Explain in person, with our masks on and a picnic and.... But if we did that, and we are still like this, then maybe it won't....'

  Jimmy remembered his mother's advise on the way to school. 'Confidence tends to be its own lubricant, Babe.'

  'I could... call?' The very thought caused a roll of anxiety through his chest. 'What would that even be like?'

  Jimmy looked down at his phone.

  [2:30 PM — VM] I can't believe i agreed to this

  It would be just like texting, Jimmy thought glumly. 'Just faster and in Vicky's voice.'

  Vicky had a good voice, Jimmy thought, staring at the bathroom vent. It always made him think of gold when he heard it. Something shiny and bright and warm. Like the color of laughter but in a voice.... It didn't make any sense. It just felt good to hear, he decided. Really good to hear. It would probably hurt hearing these texts in her voice. More than he thought it should.

  "Hey, you want to check out the new Go Team with us tomorrow?" Sashaya sprung the question at him when he emerged.

  "The... new Go Team? We can't. Everything's closed."

  "Nope. Governor's orders only held for a day. Everything's back open tomorrow. School's back in on Monday."

  "I don't know...." Jimmy chanced a quizzical glance at Patricia and noted that she looked dead inside.

  "Oh. Patricia's in too." Sashaya said brightly. "She just needs to put up enough resistance so that we know she's hardcore and more responsible than us." She placed a hand over her mouth and yell-whispered in Patricia's direction, "But we already know, Trish!"

  A lot of emotions flickered over Patricia's glowering face.

  "Haven't we all had enough super stuff recently?" Jimmy rubbed at the back of his head. "I don't know that I need more footage of Super Fights in my life."

  "That's why we need to go!" Nate countered emphatically. "Where's all the 'cool' gone, y-know? That stuff used to be sick!"

  They all looked at him. "Oh, come on! You know it's true. And after the last few weeks. I could use a super-being-nuked scene."

  "... Does... a super get nuked?"

  Nate nodded his round, red-topped face sagely.

  Sashaya shrugged. "Ehh. Fair. Speaking of, did y'all know the Feds have a suspect in the Buck case?!"

  "They do?"

  "What?!"

  "Since when?!"

  "Ask Mico. She's the one who's friends with one of the feds."

  This was news to Jimmy. This was unwelcome news to Jimmy.

  All eyes turned on Mico who glared at Sashaya. "I told you that in confidence!"

  "This is confidence! I confidently confided in our friends. We're all tree-nerds here."

  Mico huffed and rolled her eyes. She didn't look too aggrieved, though.

  "It's not like that. I —"

  "Was it Walker?"

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Walker? No I—"

  "—It's the handsome one."

  This time Mico punched Sashaya's arm, which, from the soft-spoken girl was the equivalent of a shout.

  "No! I mean... he is a bit." The tops of Mico's cheeks flushed a bit. "It's Suma. But it's not like that! He asked for directions, and I noticed he had an accent, so I answered in Japanese."

  "Whaaatt."

  Mico shrugged. "We talked a bit after that."

  "Wow." Nate frowned appreciatively. "That guy is super intense.

  "He's really nice!"

  "Ok..." Sashaya made a hurry-it-up gesture with her finger. "But, tell them what he said."

  Mico scowled again, but without heat. "He did not say they had a suspect. I asked him about someone called —" Mico lowered her voice slightly "—The Guy. And he said, The Guy was a, quote, person of interest in the case. Then he asked me if I knew The Guy."

  Jimmy twitched.

  Mico shrugged. "I said no, of course."

  "... Of course."

  There was a beat, and then everyone was pulling out phones and searching.... Well, Nate and Tom were. Sashaya obviously had already done so, and Patricia....

  "I kind of wonder if Legion's List should have more of an impact than a single day..."

  No one was listening to him, so Jimmy quickly followed Nate's example and Patricia scooted over slightly to look over his shoulder.

  "... Ok. Yea, that's definitely the guy."

  Sashaya cackled.

  And Jimmy blinked as instead of his ad advertising... well... his services, his search took him instead to the Rate My Power website.

  Jimmy remembered Kaykes mentioning Rate My Power, but so much had happened that it had completely slipped his mind, and he'd never checked it out.

  Now.... It looked exactly like Jimmy would have expected from a questionable website running on a niche and outdated fad.

  Three pop-ups tried to jump out all at once the moment he entered, it asked him for his email and whether he wanted to set up a membership, and every single boarder contained ads for various specialty services or products which sounded more useful than they looked.

  'Really, a drone fan? That sounds loud.'

  But underneath all of that... There he was. The Guy.

  Patricia's mouth twisted distastefully.

  "Oh, Yea... He's bad. He's a really bad guy." Tom goggled at his screen, snickering. "This is their suspect?!"

  "Person of interest!"

  It was a picture of him. Jimmy's breath hitched. A recent picture of him. Before Vicky, he thought. He'd thrown away those sunglasses after he'd accidentally touched them with his fingertips, but... still recent.

  He was wearing a black baseball cap with no logo, a duster jacket that fell all the way to his ankles and was buttoned all the way up to his neck with blue latex gloves on his hands and medical face mask covering his mouth.

  Was that... really what he looked like? No wonder Vicky had been so... reticent. His heart shuddered in his chest. What was she doing going on a picnic date with him?!"

  "Why do you know about The Guy, Mico?" Jimmy asked, his head spinning a little.

  She cleared her throat, a little abashed. "Well... remember a few weeks ago when I lost my phone? I thought about asking The Guy to get it back for me. But..." Mico waved a hand in the direction of Jimmy's phone and huffed a laugh. "I picked dad's ire instead."

  "Well, I should think so." Patricia sounded like she was trying to be consoling.

  "Oh yea. He looks rapey."

  "He does n—"

  "Totally evil."

  "Maybe he's just misunderstood?" The table roared with laughter.

  Jimmy grimaced. "Why're the Fed's interested in him?" he pressed. 'It's official. The Guy is getting a costume make over. At least a real mask. And maybe black latex instead of blue? Is that better?'

  Mico threw another dirty look at Sashaya. "It was just a comment. He asked me if I knew anything about The Guy. I said no, and when I asked if he was the... guy who broke into Buck Higly's house. Mr. Suma said he couldn't tell me anything about an active investigation."

  "— Which is probably a yes!"

  "... Probably." Mico nodded. "Then he advised me not to reach out to him, and to stay away from him if I see him. Apparently he's been seen recently around Eastwall, and they're pretty sure he's a student. That's all that happened." Mico paused, then raised a slim finger. "Actually, he didn't say that last part. But he looked it.

  'Right... Recently.' Jimmy thought bitterly. 'I wonder when.'

  "Seriously though," Sashaya wiped a tear from her eye. "That shady fucker is in Eastwall! Anyone else thinking that there are suddenly far more Supers popping up than.... I'm not, you know that anti-super... you know?" Sashaya shifted in her seat. "Just, there are a lot around suddenly."

  "Rosette, That Dragon, there was that one Super Rosette shwasted... now this guy."

  "There was apparently another one too, that —"

  "– Is he even a Super?" Jimmy asked, hopefully. "This doesn't even say what his power is. Just that he finds things."

  They all looked at his picture again.

  "Nah.... He's a Super." Nate said definitively. "He needs a nuke."

  "I thought you were pro Supers, Nate," Tom asked. "Legion finally change your heart?"

  "Oh, no. They're still super cool. "And I'm soo team Rosette."

  He whistled and then gave Patricia an apologetic look.

  Patricia looked back with such concentrated affront, that Jimmy felt like he should be apologizing.

  Nate didn't even flinch.

  "But... I do need a super to be nuked after Legion's NFR gambit. It's not personal."

  "Does anyone wonder..." Mico looked around. "Maybe Legion..." She shrugged uncomfortably and Jimmy thought that he saw her eye her curtain of hair a little longingly. "Maybe it was warranted? He didn't hurt anyone."

  "Warranted?!" Tom exploded. "He took seventy-three people hostage!"

  "But he didn't hurt —"

  "He killed more than a hundred operatives."

  "Yes. But they attacked —

  "Because he took seventy —"

  But by this time Mico had had enough. "Let. Me. Speak." And glared darkly until Tom subsided.

  "What about what he said about the AI lock?" Mico asked. "That's very illegal. What if he had to, to get the word out to other Supers? If the government is abducting Supers, that's...." She trailed off.

  Tom snorted. "The government? Targeting Super's? I don't think the SHRPs would have lost so completely if they were able to do that. I don't think Ice Age would be a problem if we could do that. Legion reads off a list of names he could have generated with the correct AI prompt, and we're just supposed to believe him?"

  "Many do. Almost all of those name have representation among people who can't be located. And —"

  "That's a garbage statistic. How about all the other people that can't be located who aren't on that list."

  "—ashtag 'WhereisAmyLynch' is suddenly trending on social media, and the date stamp says it was first posted about a year ago. That's not the only one either."

  "So?"

  "Sooo... A. I. Lock. And the psychologist who keeps bumping it says that she's received zero traction on it anywhere. Not Q. Not Zeta. Not even Amber. She's left tips with the feds. She's talked with —"

  "This is all hearsay. And even if they were gunning for Supers." Tom pressed. "Would it even be a bad thing? Legion himself said the people on his list were special."

  "It would, Thomas." Patricia waded in. "To accost a person without cause is evil. It does not matter if they are your stronger or weaker." She eyed him. "But that is not what occurred." She continued now eying everyone else. "There are other methods for countering an AI lock. He could have spread leaflets. He could have provided tips to sympathetic public figures. He did not. He picked a path of great destruction under a sympathetic guise. He is evil."

  "He could have just... not thought about it." Nate pushed back uncomfortably.

  But Jimmy remembered the feeling he'd gotten as he'd watched Legion address the camera, and what Agent Walker had said. Theater. Whatever had been going on, Jimmy didn't think it was impulsive. Legion had known what he was doing, whatever it was. Still....

  "There tends to be... nuance to things. I think." Now it was Jimmy's turn to shift uncomfortably. He chewed his lip. 'Jeez! Legion is not a very easy guy to appear to speak positively about.' "I don't think the world is as absolute as that, Patricia. If you were a —"

  Jimmy remembered Agent Walker's warning to their class. 'Do not call out your classmates....' and flinched. Then he reminded himself that he was the resident Super, and he was siding with a super... he flinched again. "A—a Super, and you learned that your own government, was abducting and killing and — and I don't know, maybe experimenting on people like you. Wouldn't you be angry? Say it's not Supers. Say it's redheads. The government's targeting redheads. Now what?"

  Patricia arched an eyebrow. "If I learned that the government was targeting gifted individuals," She shook her curls out and pointedly did not look at Nate. "Then my fury would be boundless."

  "So, doesn't that change anything?

  "No." Patricia pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Three civilians died due to Legion's actions, and the forces sent to subdue Legion are unlikely to be involved in any conspiracy. Legion killed hundreds of innocent people with this action."

  "By that logic, any conflict in history has been evil. World War Two, Enduring Freedom. Even what's happening today in Sudan." Mico fidgeted with her hair. "You are disregarding logical factors. Jimmy's right, context matters."

  "And to be clear, Jimmy isn't saying anything nice about Legion, or that he agrees with him." Jimmy pointed out hurriedly.

  "It does not." Patricia's voice was icy. "I live in a world where Legion engineered an altercation that slaughtered hundreds of people I think are innocent. If Legion lives in a different one, where he committed good, and the responders did evil, than by nature our worlds are incompatible and must conflict. Neither side can bear the other. In mine, he is evil."

  This was Kaykes' notion again, Jimmy realized. Ramen and Varelze. Carrots and Humans. A zero-sum. That was... sad, Jimmy thought.

  They were silent for a bit after that, picking at what was left of the popcorn and chips.

  "Sooo.... Nuke a Super?" Nate asked hopefully after a time.

  "I am not barbaric, Nick," Patricia responded disparagingly, but it lacked heat, and she shrugged and nodded after a moment.

  And that apparently spoke for Jimmy as well, for whatever reason.

  Kaykes was not home, when Jimmy made it back, something that made him irrationally angry for a moment and the Itch, nearly incandescent.

  After Jimmy levered himself back up and washed his mouth of the taste of bile from what he'd left in the toilet, he texted his sister.

  Her response was immediate.

  [03:03 PM — KW] Next door. Mom's becoming BFFs with our new neighbors and she sold them her daughter as indentured labor. Come.

  [03:03 PM — JW] HAHA. No. Come back. I want to hear what the deal with the... thing is.

  [03:04 PM — KW] Mom says come. She just sold you too.

  "KAYKES!!!!"

  'Fudging fickle, spiteful sisters....' Apparently, Kaykes was still pissed from this morning.

  Jimmy slumped, and procrastinated as long as he could while putting his backpack away, changing, making himself a sandwich, coordinating with the group chat labeled Tree Nerds + Patricia regarding the movie tomorrow.... And then he finally succumbed to the inevitable and slouched back out of the house and over to the house right next door with the moving van in front of it.

  It looked a bit small for a new family moving in, Jimmy thought. He learned why as he entered.

  "Oh he's coming later," a blond woman was saying with a laugh and a gesture. "Couldn't fit everything in this one, so he's coming a bit later with the rest of — Oh. This must be Jimmy!"

  Jimmy plastered a grin on his face and waved his hand a little awkwardly "Hi." His eyes darted around looking for Kaykes, but she wasn't in the room.

  His mother beckoned him over. "Took you long enough, Babe."

  "Stacy Pen," The blond woman extended a confident hand for Jimmy to shake and yelled behind her. "Kids! Come meet the third Wallace!." There was a rumble of footsteps from upstairs.

  "Jimmy." Jimmy said a little unnecessarily. "Nice to meet you Mrs. Pen."

  "Oh! Call me Stacy. No need for that. Kids!"

  Narrowed eyes from his mother told him a different story.

  Kaykes appeared with a little girl with brown pigtails sitting on her shoulders, wearing a rueful expression and twirling a screwdriver between her fingers.

  "Hi! Are you Jimmy?" The little girl on Kaykes shoulders extended a short arm solemnly for him to shake, which, of course Jimmy did with equal solemnity, and huffed. "Kayla says you're cool. My brother is a douche!"

  "Sophie! Where did you learn to speak that way!?"

  "Caleb," Sophie said glibly, still nodding solemnly to Jimmy.

  "I am Jimmy! And I'm sure—"

  Jimmy's eyes slid past the girl's dimpled grin. Past Kaykes' 'how-did-I-get-roped-into-this' expression. And....

  "YOU!" His eyes bulged.

  Pink bubblegum popped with a wet splatter.

  "... You..."