Owen failed to even throw up properly. He was running on empty and only managed to dry-heave a short distance from the four members of law enforcement.

“I guess that means we have our guy. Divi-vision is going to keep working on identifying him. Try to nab him before he gets the other three.” Heuer told her co-workers. Did they all usually work together? There seemed to be enough overlap that they should.

“Other three?” Owen felt dirty all over again, but he knew he couldn’t be. He was hungry though.

“Yeah. He’s going for his big debut. Spelling out his villain name in the blood of his victims. Divi tagged ‘Ichor’ as his endgame. ‘I’ and ‘c’ are down,” She stated, gesturing to the long arc of blood on the sidewalk. Now that Owen knew what to look for, there was definitely a painted letter ‘C’ on the concrete. Somehow that felt even more disrespectful. “Three left.”

The breeze picked back up, swirling dried leaves across the ground and kicking up the smell of blood.

Owen grimaced. “Is there anything else you need me here for?” He was still very much on edge, and itching to get out of there.

“Not unless you have anything else.” Charon answered.

Owen shook his head. He didn’t have anything.

Charon turned on his heel and walked off. His cloak flared dramatically and billowed out behind him, still without revealing even the barest impression of the man. Owen was certain he practiced that in his free time. It was too smooth to be anything else.

Themis took a few steps after him before stopping and turning to stare at Owen expectantly.

“Oh.” He hadn’t expected they would just get up and go if he asked. “Thank you so much for everything.” Owen thanked the two officers who looked like they would be remaining here for a while longer.

“No problem, kid. It’s literally our job.” Heuer responded.

“Maybe. But… It means a lot to me.” Owen hurried to follow Themis before either of the officers could answer, because frankly, that was completely embarrassing to say.

Owen and Themis walked back to the car in silence. Charon was nowhere to be found. He moved pretty fast for a guy in such long clothes.

Of course, once he was in front of the car, Owen stopped completely.

Charon sat in the driver seat like some sort of evil harbinger of motion sickness and traffic violations.

How was he going to be a government worker and then break every road safety law ever created? All the while asking his passengers to wear their seat-belts.

Thankfully, Themis evicted the man from the driver’s seat. “Owen was just throwing up. Your driving isn’t exactly helpful for anybody who’s stressed or nauseous.” Or the faint of heart, probably.

The morgue had been on the far outskirts of the city. The drive to the park had taken them past residential areas—sorry, Charon had sped through some residential areas— and stopped by the crime scene in the park which had been a long strip of nature that wrapped around a good portion of the city like a crescent moon.

Themis had taken over from there and the ride had become scenic instead of vague blurred flashes of color out the windows.

She’d taken the car down one of the roads that crossed all the way through the park under the canopies of massive trees and hanging vines. Many of the trees showed the early signs of autumn with yellowing foliage and falling leaves.

The car ride further into the city was uneventful which he would take a thousand times before putting Charon behind the wheel again, but the ability to see everything allowed him the opportunity to know nothing was familiar.

He’d treat it like he was visiting a new city.

Owen stared out the window the whole ride into the city. It was nice. Long blooming vines rose high into the sky, clinging to skyscrapers and painting the city in every hue with innumerable flowers.

The blossoming trees that lined the city streets didn’t show the same signs of the seasons that were present in the park. There was no autumn coloration and hardly a single stray leaf to be found the further they drove from the park.

Instead, many of the trees seemed to be fruiting, which didn’t properly make sense, since as far as he could tell, the trees were all the same and only the fruits and colors of their flowers would vary.

Themis would (lawfully) turn down a street and the fruits would switch from apples to oranges and then to bunches of grapes, which Owen was pretty sure didn’t even grow on trees.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

How were they doing that? Was someone using an ability to make that happen? Did people use super-powers for things like that? It was kind of nice.

Themis pulled into a spot on the side of the road and got out of the car to pay the parking meter. Or no, actually. She just tapped her badge against the face and it blinked green and displayed an analogue timer for three hours.

Owen scooted across the seat so he wouldn’t have to get out on the road side. He’d already died once today. He hopped over Themis’ cloak in the back, or rather, it was Charon’s cloak that he made Themis wear sometimes.

He wasn’t sure when Charon had gotten out, but when he had hopped out, the man was already standing there ominously like a specter of death. Was it weird to say Owen was getting used to it? Like an overused character in a horror film. At some point they lost a lot of that mystery and just kind of became another one of the regular characters.

Owen looked around to try and guess where they were going, but unless they were going into the shoe store they’d parked by, he had no clue. It wasn’t as if he remembered what was in the area.

Obviously, they didn’t go into the shoe store. Owen’s own outfit was proof enough that they’d already visited one earlier that day.

He wasn’t that far off though. They only passed a couple stores before Themis ducked into a building with a bright sign that read ‘Up-N-Down Burgers’.

The sign had a big yellow arrow pointing in both of the marketed directions.

Themis took a sharp turn and walked up one wall. A vertical half-pipe two stories tall.

Miraculously, she didn’t fall even when she was standing parallel to the ground. In a way it made sense, since Owen doubted she would have done that if she didn’t have confidence that it would work.

Charon didn’t hesitate or take any noticeable steps, so it sort of looked like he just floated up the wall.

Owen tried not to think about it too hard and just followed. It was easier than he’d hoped. Not even for a moment did he feel unbalanced or like he would fall. It was just a little disorienting to have his feet fully planted even as he passed the point of physical impossibility.

In the end, it just felt like walking up a particularly steep slope.

”Do all restaurants have something like this?” This was kind of funky, but if he could get used to Charon and Themis in full plate armor, this would be fine too.

“Not really.” Themis slipped into a booth. Charon moved to sit beside her, so Owen took a seat across from them.

She pressed a button on the wall above (Below?) the table. “I brought you here because it’s fun and helps to demonstrate a lot of concepts that you need to be retaught for your second life.”

Well, it certainly was interesting.

A small icon appeared on the table, and Themis tapped it. A digital menu lit up in front of him. Themis and Charon had one too. He wondered how the machine was able to tell there were three people at the table. Were there sensors in the seats?

Owen eyed the menu. All the items had punny names. There was the ‘Double Down Burger’, which had double the toppings and an extra patty. ‘Orbit fries’, which he was relatively sure were just deep-fried potato spheres based off of the helpfully supplied image next to it.

Charon selected a ‘Downtown Burger’ and Themis chose something called an ‘Upside Down Burger’.

Wasn’t that just a regular burger that someone flipped over?

Eh, he wasn’t paying so it would be rude to judge. He tapped the Double Down and added it to the order.

Once everyone had placed an order, Themis added an order of orbit fries to the digital receipt and submitted the list.

Owen settled in to wait for the food to arrive.

“So this is an anti-gravity well. It is restricted to the confines of the building. I’m not really sure how it all works, but that’s not really important.” Themis pointed at a concrete block floating in the middle of the room. “If something goes wrong and that system fails, it could implode and drag everything in this building through a black hole.”

Owen stiffened, “What?” Maybe he’d misunderstood something. Wasn’t that too hazardous to just have laying around?

“Yes, it’s theoretically dangerous, but not that much more than a campfire in practice. There are so many safeguards in place that if anything ever did go wrong, we’d know days in advance. And even if that failed, it would generate a black hole and suck itself through before it could get strong enough to clear the building.”

Charon nudged her.

“Right. Why is this important?” She gestured to herself and Charon, “It’s a little like us. We have the ability to do some really dangerous things. Worldwide, almost thirty percent of people are born with an ability. With all the other ways someone can gain an ability, the actual number of super-powered individuals-”

“Reported.” Charon added.

Themis rolled her eyes, but corrected herself anyway. “The proportion of individuals with reported abilities exceeds sixty percent.” She gave Charon a glare, but he wisely chose not to add anything.

“One of the ways someone can gain an ability would be through direct interaction with another ability. Another would be, well, gaining a new life.”

Oh. Oh! Was she saying what he hoped she was saying?

“Yeah. You get it. Not only have you been given new life, which re-rolls the dice all on its own, but you were brought back by Charon’s power. Interaction with a power doesn’t get more direct than that.”

She hesitated and then tagged in Charon. “In cases like yours, there is a high probability you already have a newfound power. The lingering energy inside you acts somewhat like a catalyst to activate your ability.” He paused for a second while a small hovering machine brought their food to their table. “Even if you haven’t yet, it is almost assured that you will awaken an ability of some sort within the next year.”

Almost assured. The possibility of not getting an ability was still there, so Owen tried not to get his hopes up and be disappointed, but it was impossible not to get excited at the thought.

He’d effectively just been told he could have super powers.