Enigmatic: Sapphire City Supers

Chapter 5: Folding Space

"So I got to work with the new guy today," Seb said as he launched himself onto the couch later that night. Well, that was a weird coincidence. He went on, "Actually he got to be quite the hero. They ended up only really needing the two of us for the job, though the others worked perimeters and hostage retrieval after the main work was done."

Forgetting Enigma for a moment, I blinked at him. "Hostages? What on earth happened today?"

"Oh, have you not seen the news?" He looked surprised.

I shook my head. "Lexa was here for a long time, so I thought I'd wait until you were home."

"Well, it was all a bit of a bung-up on the Villains' part. Apparently a couple of them were casing out the art museum, which is supposed to be closed today, but it turns out they were doing a private tour for the museum directors and their families so they surprised these two idiots. One took off, but the other one stayed to trap the people on the tour. He can make some sort of forcefield that holds people suspended, and he seems to be mildly hypnotic. Strong abilities but he looked pretty green when I saw him so I don't know how good at them he is yet. Sounds like they were looking for something in particular, the way he was questioning his hostages. Anyway, the other one who took off managed to trip an alarm, since they only disarmed the rooms they were planning on touring, and that actually helped us figure out how to approach it.

To make a long story short, Enigma can camouflage himself against pretty much anything, so he volunteered to go in and sneak up on the Villain. Shadow might have done as well, with her invisibility, but she can't fly so she might have made a sound that tipped him off. I blasted the alarm system with electricity and disabled the remaining beams so that Enigma didn't hit any of them accidentally the way the other Villain had. It worked like a charm, and Enigma took him out without any injuries or much of a fight really. The Villain was so surprised, his forcefield collapsed right there. Anyway, I bet the new guy will be in the media big time tomorrow. He'll probably be a big hit at the signing on Friday too."

"You're being modest, Superstar, I bet you will too," I playfully pushed his shoulder. "Even if Lexa doesn't appreciate you."

He ignored that, obviously keen to talk more about Enigma. "He seems like a cool guy. We worked together really well, almost instinctively. And I promise, I looked deep into his eyes. I think he might be wearing a filter in the mask to disguise his real eye colour. I don't think he's part robot or anything. Anyway, I'm beat so I'm just gonna veg out here for a bit. I do actually have to meet with Jo for a training session in the morning."

"Alright, Superkid. I'm heading to bed. Glad you're home in one Super piece."

As I closed my eyes to drift off to sleep, I couldn't help but wonder again about the mystery behind Enigma. Which was probably exactly what he wanted; the thought didn't cheer me up any.

The first few days of the week passed quickly and with little action. Things were mercifully quiet on the Supers front, though as Seb had predicted, Enigma was a favourite topic for the news talkshows. Seb, too, was getting more attention as Zeus than he'd expected. He was keeping a low profile, concentrating on his swimming. 

On Wednesday morning, I had the morning talkshow on in the background as I made some tea and puttered around the apartment, waiting for Grace to show up and talk shop.

A familiar voice caught my attention, and I turned to find Enigma on the screen. It seemed they'd done an evening taped interview with him and were airing it this morning. I guess he worked during the day just like anyone else. He'd been suave and confident when he'd talked to me, but here he seemed a bit uncomfortable and fidgety, which the woman interviewing him seemed to find charming nonetheless. Perhaps he was right when he said he wasn't so interested in being in the public eye.