Thump thump thump. Heavy metal boots on the chapel roof. I stare in horror at the ceiling, waiting for the guillotine blade to fall.

“How do you think he found Mateo?” Megajoule asks. “A tracker in the boy’s flesh, perhaps?”

“The PK cuff. It has to be,” I mutter.

“Oh, it has to be?” Megajoule chuckles and circles me like a shark. “This is why you can’t play the detective. Cat and mouse is not your game. You know what your game is? Making sure the cape never follows us again.”

“What are you saying?”

“Leave the boy. You’re too important to risk for his life. If you get into a fight with a Houston Hero you will become public enemy number one. And while I do think that would be magnificent, you’re not in the best position to do that right now.” Megajoule no longer looks arrogant, no longer wears his smug grin. He stares me in the eyes, and for a moment, I swear I can see his skin rotting. “You get the hell out of here.”

This would be the opportunity to get them off my back. I’m faster on my own, I could leave Mateo.

But if I do outrun them, leave him behind, what if they torture him, what if they work him until there’s nothing left and they’ve found me? What waits for Mateo if I don’t intervene?

“My life isn’t more important than his,” I say to Megajoule.

My conversation with the phantom ends there. Danger Close punches through the roof and lands in the middle of the chapel. I pull Mateo behind a pew.

I picture the bullets from Danger Close’s shoulder guns turning Mateo into mulch before I can stop it. I need get closer, close the gap before Danger Close can fire.

“If he fires,” Megajoule says.

I don’t reply. He tracked us here, although it took him the better part of the night. I have zero doubts we’ll get out of this alive if he has his way.

Danger Close waves his hand. Dozens of tiny drones spill from his armor and home in on me immediately. “I know you’re there, Goggles. Come out nice and easy, and the boy doesn’t get hurt.” He has a thick, Texan drawl, like the rednecks of the Old States.

I pick up a small rock and rub it, making sure it won’t flake apart. If I’m going to use it as a bullet, it needs to stand up to the force and not burn up right away.

Up close, Danger Close is even more imposing than he looked when I was watching him in the warehouse. In his armor he’s taller than me by at least a foot. His gauntlets end in deadly sharp claws, and a machine gun rests on his shoulder. I can hear the joints humming with power.

The visor of his helmet shows me his face in an ugly, red light. His expression twists with fear, but he whistles at me. “You’re a tall fuckin’ dude, Goggles.”

I’m certain he’s not invulnerable, not if he needs that suit.

His shoulder mounted gun whines and faces me. Mateo sits in his pew, taking in the situation with a monk’s stoicism.

“This doesn’t have to get ugly,” I say.

Danger Close chuckles. “Now, Goggles, I’m a Houston Hero. I give you my solemn word that I won’t hurt him.”

I know next to nothing about Danger Close. I do know capes will lie and manipulate to bend people to their will, though.

Something unusual: I sense no other capes. He showed up alone. Just like at the warehouse, he was the first there and flying solo. Capes usually travel in teams, at least in pairs.

It’s a hunch. A gut feeling. Something about this isn’t above board. He’s not trying to kill me and the kid or even arrest us immediately. No attempt to neutralize our powers – though he may know about the PK cuff.

I do have one leg up on him. I know about Pandahead. Aside from the pebble in my hand, that name is the only weapon I have. And I know he’s a human trafficker, maybe even an Affect slaver.

What would a cape want with someone who trades in Affect slaves? There’s one very obvious answer. Recruitment.

“Let’s talk about Pandahead,” I say. I take a step toward him, seeing if he’ll allow me the movement.

He allows it. His heart hammers in his chest. He’s a quick master of his emotions, but not quick enough for me to ignore the spike of fear that came with Pandahead’s name.

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“We have this place surrounded,” Danger Close says.

“No you don’t.” I’m on the edge of a confession, but to what, I don’t know.

Danger Close studies the church, reassessing me and the situation. His gun aims at Mateo. “You tell me who the fuck you are or I’ll put holes in both of you.”

“How very heroic.” I glance at Mateo. No matter what, I won’t let him get hurt. I just need a confession, a lead, something to work with. “Are we gonna talk about what happened in the warehouse, or are you gonna shoot me?”

Danger Close scowls, making him look like a gargoyle under his crimson visor. His clenches his fist, releases. Da-dump, da-dump, says his heart, three times a second. He’s got an interest in the warehouse. I’m right, I know I’m right. I just need to force it.

There’s one more card I can play before this erupts. “Pandahead’s done with you, DC.” A full on bluff.

Danger Close purses his lips. He is silent for another few seconds. His gun still aims at Mateo, who could do nothing if he started firing.

“He can’t be done with me,” Danger Close replies. “We have a deal.”

“Wow,” Megajoule whispers. “You were right.”

Cat and mouse isn’t my game, huh? “He doesn’t like the terms anymore.”

“Yeah? We agreed I get Welterweight and above. If he isn’t happy with that he should come talk to me directly instead of killing my entire shipment,” Danger Close says.

“Shipment?” I blurt. Damn it, why can’t I be smart?

Danger Close stops talking. “You…” He sighs. “You’re not one of his, are you?”

Before he can shoot Mateo, I fill the rock in my fingers with all the kinetic energy of a meteor and flick it at Danger Close. My makeshift bullet crunches through the armor of his gut and rips out the other side with a screech. He screams and falls back into the pews.

I warp over to Mateo, crossing the distance by expelling heat as movement instead of running. “You okay?”

Mateo nods.

The shoulder gun roars. Bullets hit my back. I snarl; while they don’t penetrate me, it’s not pleasant to have to absorb all their kinetic energy. Feels like someone’s punching my back over and over. I hunch over Mateo, waiting for a reload, feeling my stockpile of energy grow louder in my chest. If it grows too loud I won’t be able to stop the heat radiating from my skin. I count to ten, wondering how many bullets that thing has.

Before there’s a pause in the gunfire, a metal claw rips into my jacket and pulls me off Mateo. That armor is heavyweight strong, and it proves it by hurling me to the other side of the chapel. I smash through the pews, coating myself in ashes as I roll. The smell of smoke and metal burns my nostrils even through my mask.

Danger Close turns his gun on Mateo.

I leap, infusing my body with my power, and tackle Danger Close.

We rip through the church walls, sailing over the entrance and the dry fountain outside. Danger Close screams, slashing at me with his claws, failing to even scratch my clothes as I absorb the force of the blades.

We crash through something hard, something metal, and then hit the ground. A cloud of dirt and bright green grass blows up around me as I struggle to get my bearings. I follow Danger Close moving through the plume with my thermokinetic sense, listening to the thunderous drums of his jets go off.

We’ve landed in the baseball park across the road from the church. The metal bat from the statue of the baseball player rests on the ground next to me, its handle still grasped by one copper hand. The rest of the statue, twisted and broken by the force of our landing, lies nearby

Danger Close lurches toward me. I can feel him charging me down through the smoke and dust. His rockets roar one long, loud, furious note punctuated by the staccato of his shoulder guns. The bullets hit me, crunch, their energy absorbed into my body to fuel my power.

The noise of everything crashes down on my head. My ears are ringing, my head hot. “Fuck this,” I whisper. I don’t care if I become the city’s most wanted anymore. I just want this guy dead.

Megajoule’s voice rings in my ears. “Now this is what I’m talking about. The one game you’re good at.”

I grab the baseball bat and heft it over my shoulders like an all star player. Danger Close is two heartbeats from me.

“Swing, batter, swing!” Megajoule shouts.

I pour all my stored energy into the bat and swing for the fences. The metal shines like a star from the kinetic energy pouring into it, creating a scythe afterimage in my eyes with its arc.

The bat takes Danger Close right on the helmet. His whole upper half crumples like a car hitting a tree and he bounces away from me, hitting the baseball field once, twice, before crashing into the bare dirt field beyond. I can’t waste any time. I rush over to Danger Close’s body, already knowing that I killed him. I can’t dwell on that right now. I search the armor for a key to Mateo’s PK dampener. I’ve never seen one, but Paul has told me what they look like.

But if there was a key on Danger Close’s body, I’ve destroyed it. His torso is a mangled wreck. His lower half twists around the wrong direction for his spine. His armor is ruined from head to toe.

Bat still in hand, I dash out of the baseball field and back to the church. “Mateo!” I cry.

I find him lying as still as a corpse in the pew I left him behind. His breathing gently rises. I search his body with my thermokinetic sense for any device, anything besides the bracelet that they might have tracked us with.

There’s nothing. Only the bracelet remains.

There’s nothing left to do but pry the dampener off. It’s going to break his hand. I find a piece of usable metal, peel it from the back of the pew, and slip it between the bracelet and his skin. I rip a piece of cloth from my shirt. “Put this between your teeth.”

He does so without complaint.

The rod of metal is sturdy in my hand. It’ll work. I can leverage my power since I’m not touching the PK cuff directly. I glance at Mateo. He’s not even looking at me or the bracelet, but a smoldering rock not far from his head.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

I shove the bar down with my enhanced strength. The PK cuff shrieks and pops off his wrist, and Mateo screams in agony.

Tears flood his eyes and cheek, and he wails, grabbing his bloodied, limp wrist. I can sense the bones I broke. His thumb, something in his wrist.

Gentle as I can, I kneel next to him. “Come on, Mateo, we have to go.”

Between his sobs, between the snot rolling down his lips, he manages to squeeze out these words: “In the warehouse. I saw your face. You’re Megajoule.”