In 1971, the first and only alien humanity has ever seen died over the Pacific Ocean.
We’ve been dealing with the consequences since.
- Excerpt from a public statement by Vincent Hyde, current director of the Superhuman Response Unit
#
Vivian accidentally became a murderer on her first night as a superhero.
The day had started simply enough. As per usual on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Vivian had to wake up at the crack of dawn to join two hundred other students in Advanced Superhuman Studies 120.
“…so the knock-on effects of the 2011 Synth frenzy cannot be understated. Many of you may not realize, but many of the medications we use today are derived from innovations made simultaneously by several thousand Synths around the world. Can anyone tell me the name of a mundane brand founded on Synth tech?”
And as per usual on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 7:30 AM, Vivian was not paying attention.
She wasn’t alone on that front. AS 120 (frequently referred to by students as the ASS class, which Vivian definitely never accidentally let slip, especially not in front of Professor Lionel) was one of the easiest ways to fulfill a humanities credit for a computer science major. Importantly, it also fulfilled three other requirements, making it one of the most worthwhile classes to take for the efficient student.
As such, it was always packed. The only issue? AS 120 literally just rehashed the high school equivalent. Hell, it even had some of the same standardized tests. Watching a documentary or two was more helpful than this entire class, which of course was at seven-thirty in the goddamn morning. All her friends said their schools didn’t have any class earlier than eight.
Vivian’s phone buzzed, distracting her from her very important task of pretending to take notes.
It’s from Sunrise.
Sun: Hey, kid. You doing alright?
She swiped the notification away, just like she had with the last dozen. It had been over three years since he’d first reached out, but she hadn’t replied for almost half a year. Vivian appreciated the effort the hero was making, but she was in Indiana now, and Sunrise was never going to leave San Francisco when he was so needed there.
He was going to have to learn to give up on her. Mom had, and for a while, she’d seemed happier because of it.
That was a path she definitely didn’t want to let herself stray onto, so she forced herself to listen to the lecture.
“Six point four percent.” A student was replying to a question she hadn’t cared enough to catch. Vivian didn’t recognize him, though that wasn’t saying much. She didn’t recognize anyone at this school, even after almost a year and a half attending. “Give or take, of course. Given the zero point zero nine percent occurrence of supers in the general population, that means about one in seventeen thousand people are Synths. Basically, it’s statistically likely that there are two or three of them at Purdue.”
Vivian decided she didn’t like this boy. Smartasses were the worst.
“That’s correct, David,” Professor Lionel said, gently as ever.
He then launched into a detailed explanation of the socioeconomic effects of one in seventeen thousand people being capable of making technology that defied the laws of physics, and Vivian stopped caring once again.
One in seventeen thousand, the boy had said.
Kinetics were more common, but not by much. Pure Kinetics made up seven point one percent of supers, though the proportion of supers that included a Kinetic power as part of their set was far higher. Not that she cared much.
7.1 percent of 0.09 percent was… 0.00639 percent, according to the calculator.
Vivian was one in 15,649, if she rounded down. There were somewhere between four hundred and five hundred thousand others with the same category of power she did.
And I’ve got the shittiest one of them all. F-rank, if that.
She sighed deeply, putting her head down onto one folded arm. Underneath the desk, she unclenched a fist that held an eraser within. Her leg wouldn’t stop jiggling, and she nearly dropped the eraser.
Focus. Breathe.
Despite the public setting, she wasn’t particularly worried about anyone seeing what was happening. This was a lecture hall, so the front of the desk was entirely covered. Nobody cared enough about her to try to sneak a glimpse at what she was doing, especially when she looked like she was trying to sleep.
Concentrating was hard over the constant drone of the lecturer’s voice and the litany of whispers between friends who thought they were being quieter than they were, but she managed.
Ever so slowly, the eraser lifted from her hands. An odd pressure exerted itself on Vivian’s brain, quietly alleviating a portion of the restlessness she never didn’t feel.
Even if she was hiding it, it wasn’t the smartest idea to experiment with her nascent superpowers in a public setting, so she let the eraser drop. Caught it.
And her leg started jiggling again.
Vivian sighed. She wondered if this was what smoking weed was like. Using her power wasn’t addictive, not exactly, but it was one of the few things that relaxed her nervous energy long enough for her to feel… normal, almost.
That was about all it was good for, though. If she tried to lift anything heavier than her laptop, the pressure turned into crushing pain. If she tried to move even a water bottle too quickly, she was rewarded with migraines for days.
Her Kinetic power was limited. At best, maybe, it could—
Force a fistful of pills out of his mouth. Slam his window shut. Shift the steering wheel back when she jerked it.
The pain of her nails carving deep half-moons into her palms brought her back, but it was already too late.
Tightness in her chest. A rush of thoughts that wouldn’t go away. Blood pounding in her ears so loud she could swear the people around her could hear it.
Once upon a time, she’d felt this and thought she was dying. It’d taken her two visits to a cardiologist to convince herself that nothing was physically wrong with her.
These days, this was just par for the course
“Alright, we’re running short on time, so put away everything except for a sheet of paper and a pencil,” Professor Lionel announced, which was much better at distracting her than she was.
The class collectively groaned.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” the girl on her right said. “Wakey-wakey.”
Vivian was, of course, awake. She wouldn’t be able to fall asleep here even if she wanted to. Rest never came easy, these days.
In-Class Comprehension Quiz:
1) Which Synth is the most active around Purdue? Be specific.
2) What percentage of Synths are registered Guardians?
She scribbled her answers down quickly—Ashwind. Hero, works for Act. Corp. Dust Synth, does crop dusting, very little field work and 20-30%, since corporations are much more likely to poach Synths than any other type of super—and left.
#
The restlessness wouldn’t go away. It didn’t disappear through CS 250, her Computer Architecture class; lunch, a sad affair at a dining hall that contracted to the lowest bidder; MA 351, a linear algebra course that she tended to sleep through; nor during her brief appearance at the machine learning club, which she was doing more for Dad than herself.
Her roommate was out again tonight, which meant the dorm was hers for a time.
She sat there, dully watching anime while lying to herself about how she was going to start her homework after just one more episode, and the buzzing at the back of her mind only increased.
Since her roommate was out, probably getting wasted, Vivian felt comfortable in using her limited telekinesis. Even if it was weak, it was hers, and who didn’t want superpowers?
There was surely a way to increase its strength. Figuring out how definitely meant going Guardian, though, and Vivian was already busy enough with school. She wasn’t keen on risking her life for slightly more pay than graduating with a CS degree would grant her.
Tonight, even her power wouldn’t grant her relief. That restlessness was taking hold of her. She couldn’t stay still. Her heart kept pounding like she was sprinting, even though Vivian wasn’t moving.
Unbidden, her thoughts flashed to her brother. To Mom.
“Fuck!” she shouted, slamming a fist into her shitty school-issue desk. It rattled, and she accomplished nothing other than leaving a red mark on her hand.
Vivian needed to get out. She needed to leave. She needed to do something—so she did.
There was one person she knew that might actually know how to deal with this, and she’d been ghosting him for the last four months.
Vivian: Hey, Sunrise. Srry abt lack of response, its been tough but im managing fine. I have a school project about supers coming up, so I was wondering if it was ok to ask a question or to?
Vivian: *two
She turned her phone off, knowing she was going to stress about that message until Sunrise—
Ding. He’d replied near-instantly.
Sun: Hey Vivian! It’s great to hear from you. I’m sorry that it’s been hard. Don’t apologize for not responding. You’re a busy woman!
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Sun: Ask away.
Vivian: Do your powers ever feel like they *have* to be used? And how do you locate villains/crime to take down?
Vivian: We’re doing a unit on hero psych haha sorry if the questions are weird
Sun: Not at all! Hold on. This might take a bit.
Vivian: I have time
Sun is typing…
#
“This is stupid,” Vivian muttered to herself.
She hadn’t honestly expected Sunrise to give her such a comprehensive list. As it turned out, other supers did experience that same restlessness that had been bothering Vivian for nearly a month now. Sunrise himself had dealt with similar issues during his first week.
Apparently, she would learn more about that when she eventually got to her upper divs. It was a rarely-reported side effect of powers, which Sunrise claimed was because supers had a tendency to use their powers so often that they generally weren’t anywhere near the “boiling point,” as he termed it.
Essentially, the power-granting fragments of the dead Pacific alien really, really wanted to be used, and over time, that would manifest itself as increasing agitation that would eventually push a new super to act. The exact term was “power pressure,” and the senior hero had struggled through a pretty hefty case of it himself.
Sunrise had burned through his by taking down his first criminal.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to get more specific answers out of him without getting dangerously close to exposing what she was. At least he’d been open about most of the broad strokes.
An explanation and a series of ill-considered purchases later, Vivian now felt exceedingly silly, strolling down an empty, snow-dusted sidewalk with a police scanner in her earbuds. She shivered as a gust of wind hit her, chilling her to the bone.
Her outfit currently included a black surgical mask, ski goggles that smushed her glasses against her face, jeans, and a pink hoodie that definitely wasn’t thick enough for what was becoming an abnormally cold autumn but did have a pocket big enough to fit a can of pepper spray and her phone. Not exactly a superhero outfit, but hopefully enough to keep her from getting recognized.
Not that anyone at school would recognize her, but she’d felt more secure knowing that people wouldn’t see her face. That was when she was putting it on.
Now, she just felt like an idiot. At least the mask kept her nose from freezing off.
The scanner was quiet, occasionally chirping up for minor medical emergencies that were responded to with haste. Vivian was deep into the city proper now, having left the campus nearly an hour ago, and she still hadn’t seen much of relevance.
She chastised herself silently. Of course Sunrise had been able to manage a villain fight just by walking around the neighborhood. He was in San Francisco, which was one of the top ten cities in terms of super activity across all fifty-two states. On the other hand, Lafayette was not exactly known for much other than Ashwind, their resident farmer.
Another fifteen minutes of walking later, Vivian found a Starbucks that was still open at ten-thirty PM. She got a latte. The caffeine had an even chance of calming her down or making her even jumpier, but she liked the taste.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she ordered, still wearing her… unique outfit, but the dude behind the counter barely even blinked. She could appreciate that.
He didn’t even react when she used her weak telekinesis to hold the coffee while she fixed her hood.
Good for him, she thought. There’s someone who’s dead inside. Or a senior. I guess those are the same.
By the time the clock hit eleven, she was half-done with her coffee and ready to call it a night. Vivian didn’t feel any better than she had earlier, but it wasn’t like there was going to be any action out here. It would be best to try to sleep, though she knew from experience that wasn’t likely till half past three.
Maybe she’d actually get some homework done.
At twelve past eleven, she finally got a bite.
“All units, please cut off the Wabash River region. Lafayette’s resident Esper picked up potential super activity by the river. Guardian ETA is forty-five minutes. Do not engage.”
Wabash River was—
Vivian frowned, looked down, and typed quickly on her maps app.
It was a ten minute walk.
In the distance, she heard sirens.
She broke out into a run.
#
By the time Vivian drew close to the area they’d mentioned on the scanner, she remembered why she didn’t tend to break out into runs. It wasn’t like she was terribly unfit or anything, but she hadn’t been able to commit to her cardio routine ever since—nope, not going there.
The police had evidently not been close by, because the sirens were still approaching as she cautiously made her way through the sparse neighborhood. Esper information was generally good, but she’d heard it secondhand and the scanner wasn’t providing more details.
It was quiet out tonight. This area of the city usually was.
That made the raucous sound of voices all the more obvious when she got close.
They were coming from the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall. There wasn’t much cover, but Vivian managed to make it to the side of a shoddy, run-down building that had once been a Taco Bell before she became concerned about getting spotted. She peeked around a corner. The gap between the ex-Taco Bell and the eternally empty building next door was enough for her to see what was happening.
There were three people and a sedan in the parking lot, far away enough that it was difficult for Vivian to make out details even if she took the goggles off. They used the stopped car’s headlights for illumination.
It sounded like they were arguing.
“The deal was ten pounds for twenty k, Killjoy,” one of them shouted. “Ten for twenty. That’s how it’s always been, you rat bastard. Don’t change shit up on me because you think I’m new. Ten for twenty or no deal.”
Vivian’s eyes widened. Killjoy. She knew that name. Aiden… Aiden Carter? She couldn’t remember the article about him. Formerly a Guardian, he’d defected about three years ago. He was a Synth, specializing in some kind of drug. That information had never gone public, but his identity had. One more reason not to register.
“Jesus, man,” Killjoy said. His voice was iconic. Raspy and laid-back, he’d supposedly been every stoner’s hero for a few years. Still was, for some. “Chill. This is a negotiation, not a fight. Twenty-five. That’s my price. Jakey here knows you got that much.”
“It’s Jester,” ‘Jakey’ grumbled. “Told you not to use my name out here.”
“Jakey, Jester, same shit,” Killjoy said. “We got a deal or not?”
Vivian’s heartbeat sped up, but not in the same tight, anxious pattern it usually followed. This was something else. She wasn’t sure what to call it. Excitement, maybe, but she didn’t know how that felt anymore.
Her range was nowhere near enough to reach them. It was honestly pathetic. Her radius of control was barely long enough to lock the door from the other side of the dorm. This was at least five times that.
She’d come into this with some half-baked idea of using her telekinesis to pepper-spray a bad guy, but as with everything else, her goals coming in were feeling sillier and sillier by the moment. Her power’s range was so low that she would be better off just trying to spray them herself, and at that point she may as well be a normal.
If she focused her power into a specific part of one of their bodies, she could simulate a punch. Maybe if she aimed between their legs and did it fast enough, she could take one of them down and hit the other with the pepper spray.
Am I seriously thinking of doing this? Killjoy has drugs that’ll make me catatonic if I so much as breathe them in.
No, she wasn’t just thinking. She was going to do this. The restless part of her demanded it. As to how, well, she’d always prided herself on her improvisation.
“Fine. Twenty-two,” the first man said. “And I’m telling Pine.”
Vivian had missed part of the conversation.
“Pine knows how it’s done,” Killjoy said. “Pleasure doin’ business with you.”
“Hey, KJ,” Jakey said, inclining his chin towards the buildings Vivian was hiding behind.
She cursed, ducking behind the Taco Bell. Jakey—no, Jester, did she recognize that name, no she didn’t, was she sure—stopped talking loudly enough for her to hear him.
Heart pounding in her throat, she brought up her phone and typed.
The sedan’s engine coughed to life, and the sudden noise almost made Vivian fumble her phone.
There was an SRU wiki entry for him. Thank god. She loaded the abbreviated version.
Jester. Esper (F)/Brawler (D)/Mover (F). Overall D-rank. Affiliated with Killjoy. Based in Lafayette, IN.
Powerset: Believed to have a moderate danger sense. Punches strong enough to break through steel[1]. Speed increases with each punch when he is active[2]. Exact mechanisms unknown.
WARNING: This super is an active threat to civilians. If you see him, call 911 and evacuate the premises.
Accompanying the article was a CCTV shot of a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask with red paint slashing X shapes over the eyes.
Vivian looked up to see the same man approaching her hiding spot. The sedan leaving—presumably with Killjoy and the unknown third guy in it—had masked the sound of his footsteps.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Jester said, affecting a high, sweet timbre. “I know you’re there. Don’t run. I won’t like it if you run.”
The sound of her heartbeat was so, so loud. Vivian shuddered, and she couldn’t stop shuddering.
She stuck her head out to get an idea of where he was, and she found herself staring straight at his mask.
“Ah,” Jester said, satisfied. His voice turned confused. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
He was on the other end of the building, which meant he was too far for her to execute her distance-pepper-spray plan.
The latte wasn’t warm anymore, but there was still liquid in it. Vivian threw it at him.
Jester had the decency to look surprised when the lukewarm cardboard cup popped open, spilling coffee and milk all over an expensive-looking leather vest.
The two of them stood there in silence for a moment—Vivian a deer caught in Jester’s headlights, Jester a man who couldn’t believe his cat had just knocked over his grandma’s ashes.
He broke the silence first.
“My fucking clothes!” he shouted.
Vivian used her power on the pepper spray, focusing all the incessant, useless noise in her mind on that one singular task.
Jester roared and hit the wall. Literally.
His fist punched straight through brick.
“All units,” the scanner announced in her earbuds.
Vivian backed up a step, and Jester sprinted.
“Evacuate any civilians in the area.”
Bang. Jester hit the wall again, and this time, he punched deeper. He closed the distance between the two of them in three steps.
If she could use the pepper spray—
“A super is fighting. Do not engage.”
Bang.
Jester slapped the floating bottle of pepper aside. It careened off into the grass, far beyond Vivian’s ability to reach it.
She made it about three more steps before Jester made it to her, gripping her by the collar and lifting her off the ground.
The air between them filled with a stench that was an acidic mix between her coffee and the acrid smell of some drug or another. Jester was breathing hard, and whatever he’d been abusing before, Vivian could smell it now.
With his free hand, he slapped her across the face. She yelped in equal amounts of surprise and pain, and she scrabbled for purchase on the ground. There was nothing under her feet. She couldn’t breathe. He was choking her.
“Bitch,” Jester hissed. “I’ll make you pay for this.”
Vivian panicked.
Oddly enough, she thought of Sunrise’s words to her earlier.
He’d said that he hadn’t truly felt at ease until he’d managed to fire his power at the maximum it was able to at the time. Vivian had thought she would build up to doing that, but she hadn’t, and now all the nervous energy of a month of neglecting her power twisted through her and it wanted to be let out.
She released it.
Telekinesis—at least the form that she used—applied force to objects. Vivian hadn’t done enough experimentation to tell how much she had, but she’d tried hitting herself with her full force once, and it hurt less than a hard punch.
Still, at that moment, she wasn’t thinking. She just wanted to get away from him.
And in her panic, she misjudged the distance. Vivian intended on focusing her Kinetic power into a small area. His eye, maybe, or the groin. A weak spot.
Instead, Jester leaned in to say something else, and Vivian punched him straight in the brain.
#
In middle school, she’d learned how to spot the signs of a stroke. She was fairly sure she’d learned how to treat them, too, but she’d long since forgotten.
There was no way Vivian was going to be able to save Jester, especially when she was sucking in air and trying to keep herself from throwing up. Her neck was going to bruise. That would be awkward to explain to her roommate.
Jester thrashed on the ground bonelessly. His mouth was foaming.
This was her fault. Her fault—again.
In her mind’s eye, for just an instant, Jester wore her brother’s face.
Vivian turned away and vomited.
I didn’t mean to.
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, as if saying it out loud would help. “I didn’t mean to.”
The scanner app blared to life. “Guardians are en route. The Esper says the situation’s resolved. All units, prepare for—“
Vivian ripped her earbuds out.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, staring at the cooling body.
“Hey!” a new voice shouted from the parking lot. “Hey, is anyone here? Lachlan, you better not be bullshitting me. The lot’s empty.”
I’m here, Vivian wanted to say, but she froze as she opened her mouth.
That voice. She recognized that voice. He was on the news pretty regularly, wasn’t he? Alexander. As in, the Great. That was how he always introduced himself.
A Guardian.
If she called for help, he was going to find her kneeling over a dead body. A Guardian was going to find her standing over the man she killed.
Quietly as she could, Vivian turned around.
“Have no fear, citizen!” Alexander shouted the moment Vivian started to run. His voice was artificially bright all of a sudden. The line must’ve been rehearsed. “I’m coming to help!”
By the time Alexander arrived, Vivian was already sprinting in the woods. She heard, distantly, the sound of dismay he made at the body.
I didn’t mean to.
At her brother’s funeral, they’d allowed her to see the body. Somehow, even in death, he’d looked accusatory.
I didn’t mean to.
If she couldn’t even convince herself of that, how would she do the same for a Guardian?
The murderer kept running.
And she couldn’t help but realize that the restlessness was entirely gone.