BLURRYFACE

[ TEN ] a little peace and quiet

The streets were blissfully quiet, for once.

Flickr was instantly suspicious.

She tried to tell herself that everything was fine, that it just happened to be a slow evening for crime. Maybe the average run-of-the-mill muggers and drug dealers had been scared off by Lucid's appearance yesterday. Maybe they had all migrated to Storm's end of the city. The older super could probably handle them, right?

Flickr shivered, slowing her motorbike to a stop in the shadow of an overpass. It wasn't that she was disappointed in the apparent lack of criminal activity. After almost five years of living in this city, she had come to associate the nation's capital with rough streets. It was like the extra supers assigned to the city had been an invitation for vigilantes to prove their worth. Good-guy supers were far less common than self-serving ones – people with natural superpowers often didn't want to join the government training programs. So maybe they would try to present as normal for a while, but with great power came a lot of temptation. Why should I pay for concert tickets when I can just go invisible? What if I just used my mind-reading to win big at the casino? Once someone started down that road, it became very difficult to convince them that they didn't own the world, that no one owed them anything for being born special. Self-proclaimed villains outnumbered the superheroes by far.

It always irritated Flickr when they arrested a natural super, someone who had been handed everything at birth and decided to waste their gifts on themselves. Flickr had been the exact opposite – she'd grown up powerless, poor, and filled with determination. She had decided she was going to be a superhero from the minute she could talk, and nothing – not her background, not her skin colour, not her gender – was going to stand in her way.

And she'd done it. At seventeen, she was accepted into the experimental government program, and at twenty-one she had graduated, leaving broken records in her wake. She adopted a superhero persona to keep her family out of the spotlight, but maintained contact with her mother and youngest sister. Her other sister was already following in Flickr's footsteps, two years into the same government program. Maybe someday they would be patrolling the streets together.

Not like I actually need backup, Flickr thought, surveying the darkening buildings. Her fingers absentmindedly brushed over the new communication device sewn into the side of her mask. The last rays of sun had faded out while she sat under the overpass, and everything was starting to look (literally) shadier.

Flickr checked for traffic, which was almost unnecessary, and started her bike up the road again.

* * *

The rooftop sushi restaurant was almost magical, the large windows giving Aether and Luis a panoramic view of the city at sunset. She was glad that her back was turned southward, facing away from the tallest building in the city – it would have got her thinking about Charlie on the sixth floor, Veritas taking over her interviews...

Luis was pointing at the menu, trying to get her attention. "This place has amazing calamari," he said. "You ready to order?"

"I don't know," Aether said distractedly. "I'll just... have what you're having. I'm a terrible decision-maker, sorry."

"Hey, it's fine." He leaned across the table, that annoying curl flipping across his forehead again. "You made a great choice with the face, though. Did I tell you I have a thing for brunettes?"

She couldn't hide a smile, touching the wavy brown hair she'd finally decided on. The darker complexion went well with the cream-coloured blouse Aether was wearing, and it also helped cover her blushing.

"You think?" she said stupidly, meeting his gaze.

Luis smirked, waving the menu at her. "Yep. I also think you should try the calamari. I guarantee it'll get your mind off work, if nothing else."