~~~

Sandra Lewis snapped the rubber band against her wrist for the seventh time that day. Surprisingly, this one had yet to break. Sandra dared not speculate how many rubber bands she had gone through ever since she’d promised Tim she’d stop drinking. Sure, she said just one week, but she doubted Tim would appreciate it if she showed up home drunk. Better quit entirely while she had some momentum.

Some people would disagree—Sandra had read several self-help books that did—but there was no big secret to quitting. Realizing you had to quit was a whole ordeal, one Sandra had already gone through and wasn’t in any hurry to repeat. However, the mere act of quitting? That was simple. Not easy, but simple. You just did it. No in-between stages. No easing yourself into it. No weaning yourself off. Those were lies for people who wanted to delude themselves into thinking they were doing something. It was always better to just rip the bandaid off.

Now, staying dry?

That was harder.

This was hardly the first time Sandra tried going sober. Somehow the bottle always found its way back to her hands. Sometimes, it took months. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes minutes.

Quitting was simple.

Starting again was simpler.

A train rushed by in the distance, making the lights over her head flicker. If someone had told her younger self she’d become an alcoholic, Sandra wouldn’t have believed it. Addiction was stuff that happened to other people. Sandra knew her limits. She’d known them ever since her first party when she threw up in Dustin Davies’ bathroom. It had been an embarrassing experience but also a learning one. She hadn’t gotten drunk again until after…

The rubber band was pulled to its limits and snapped. It left her wincing, but it did its job.

She wanted to avoid drinking. What sense was there in thinking about the very thing that had sent her tumbling down that road? Tim was counting on her. If she couldn’t pull herself together this time…

She’d seen his face.

It was her fault. Robert had never been much of a thinker. That wasn’t to say he had been unintelligent. Far from it. He had just never been the sort who could get lost in his own thoughts. Tim was. For all that he never seemed to stay still or stop talking, there was a brain working hard beneath that skull of his. Not smart, but hard. Always leaping from one thought to the next, sometimes seemingly without rhyme or reason. Sandra knew how that was. It was part of the reason she—

Snap!

Sandra frowned as she rubbed her wrist. She was well on her way to leaving a permanent mark there.

It was still better than the alternative.

Tim had been thinking. She’d seen his thoughts play out across his face with crystal clarity, a benefit of being a mom. If it came down to it, he would put her well-being over his. He’d drop out of that fancy internship in favor of something that paid.

He could be practical like that. Short-sighted but practical. Yet another thing he got from her.

What kind of mother let her son put his future on hold for her?

A bad one. Not that she had any illusions of being a good mom, but she wasn’t in any hurry to become a worse one. She took a deep breath and pressed her palms against her desk. She needed to keep it together.

Snap!

Sandra swore under her breath when the rubber band broke. It always hurt a little more when it broke. Huffing, she pulled a new one from her pocket and went back to her work.

Work that technically shouldn’t exist.

She sighed and shook her head, elbows resting on the desk. She couldn’t blame Walter for this, not when he’d gone so far for her. Without him, she wouldn’t even have this job. It was her own damn fault he couldn’t put her anywhere else. Couldn’t put her on track maintenance. She’d get herself killed somehow. Couldn’t put her near the customers. She’d show up drunk and cause a scene. Couldn’t put her on a train. She’d drive it off the tracks.

Instead, Walter had hired her as his assistant even though he had no need for one. He spent most of his day going from station to station. What little work there was for her to do around the office was so basic having someone hired to do it was a waste of money. Everyone knew her position was blatant favoritism and nothing else.

Which made her managing to fuck it up so wearily often even worse.

She huffed. A strand of straw-colored hair was blown away from her nose. The unfinished form stared back at her, taunting her. Once she finished this, she wouldn’t have anything else to do for the day. She’d be earning money for just sitting on her ass, listening as the trains rushed by in the distance. Some would consider it a pretty cozy deal.

It burned her.

~~~

Unlike Roger Point, which had been renovated several times throughout its history and was now home to several fancy, high-rise buildings, Petersburg kept a lot of its old aesthetic. Red brick buildings that rarely had more than five floors, narrow, curved roads, and concrete sidewalks. One could call it picturesque had it been remotely well-kept. Cracks and potholes ruled the pavement and most of the sidewalks. The walls were littered with posters from various ad campaigns, which had been pasted on, ripped, and pasted over countless times.

It was only in recent years that people with money were starting to buy old houses, the ones that looked like they were about to fall down, so they could knock them down and build nice apartment buildings. It'd take years to see the fruits of that. Most of Petersburg was still largely the result of poor city planning combined with an influx of migrants well over a century ago. People had come to Port Stanley and built where they could. It was fairly common for there to be gaps between old buildings. Sometimes they'd be a few centimeters wide. Sometimes over a meter, more than enough for people to walk through.

Not always, though.

Tim recalled at least three embarrassing cases where poor judgement had led to people getting stuck between buildings and needing to be pulled out by firemen. Tim never had that problem. For him, the alleys of Petersburg were a labyrinth he knew by heart, one he was now using to get back home. Even though the sky had already turned dark and dense clouds covered the moon, Tim walked without fear.

He was returning home later than usual today. Mr. Gerald had borrowed him from Ms. Martel so he could help out with some physical stuff. That seemed to be happening an awful lot lately. People making him do physical stuff. First, it had been Ms. Martel with the boxes, then Valerie a day later on orders of Ms. Martel, though she hadn’t said as much. Tim figured it was obvious, though. Why else would she ask him to move the copy machine when there were so many bigger guys around?

Anyway, Mr. Gerald had wanted him to help out with the maintenance of the security cameras on the 41st floor, which had sounded really cool, and he totally got why Ammes had looked so jealous. Security stuff sounded awesome!

But no.

It hadn’t been.

Even though he had been playing the tune of Mission Impossible in his head, it hadn’t been. The maintenance guy, Mr. Mac, did most of the actual work while Tim just carried around the ladder. To make things worse, a can of oil had landed on him, so Tim had to take a shower before leaving.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Good thing they had given one of those grey maintenance overalls to wear before everything began. Otherwise, it’d have been his nice shirt getting ruined. That’d have sucked. Bad enough, he’d made his mom spend money on clothes for a job he wasn’t even getting paid for. He’d feel horrible if he went and ruined them after a couple of weeks.

Tim absentmindedly rubbed his arms. He had expected to be sore from spending all afternoon carrying around a ladder, but it seemed he was in the clear so far.

Maybe, he’d only feel it after sleeping? Yeah, that made—

A flash of steel.

That was all Tim caught before a dark figure stepped from around the corner. A knife was thrust in Tim’s direction, forcing him to quickly step back until his back hit the wall. A cloud moved away at the right time, allowing the moon to shine down on the alley.

Tim’s heart dropped.

Yellowish skin, bloodshot eyes, and a smell he would have picked out if not for the garbage cans lying about.

“Joey?”

“Easy,” Joey said, advancing on him, his voice raspy and the knife trembling in his hand. “No one needs to get hurt.”

“Are you serious?” Tim’s voice came out harsher than he intended, insulted and disbelieving all at once. “Are you actually serious right now?”

It was as if a pebble had gotten stuck between two gears, bringing all the machinery inside his head to a screeching halt. Tim couldn’t understand. He couldn’t comprehend. He couldn’t accept this. Joey had always been a bit of a smartass, but he wasn’t… whatever this was.

“Don’t make this hard, Timmy.” Joey glared at him, his grip tightening around the knife even as his hands kept shaking. “Just give me the money and-”

“What money?!” Unlike Joey, Tim didn’t care to keep his voice down. “What money do you think I have?”

“Don’t shout!” Joey hissed at him, aiming the knife ominously at him, but Tim was past caring.

“You know me!” Tim gestured at himself with both hands. “You’ve seen me count dimes to buy cookies! What are you even trying to steal from me?”

It hurt to say it. Even though it was plainly obvious what was happening, somehow, it hurt to say it. The night was suddenly a little more real and the knife a little more threatening.

“Don’t act like you don’t know! You think I haven’t heard about your fancy summer job? Think I don’t see you walking around in new clothes?” Joey’s voice came out like a growl, his knife brandished like the fangs of a wild dog. “Don’t… don’t make this hard for either of us, Tim. You don’t know what will happen if I don’t get the money. Just… just hand over your wallet.”

“I don’t have a wallet!” Tim yelled, throwing his arm to the side, anger seeping into his tongue. Anger at Joey for threatening him. Anger at himself for insisting it was a job to other people. Anger at this entire stupid situation! “I don’t have any money! Just leave me alone!”

“You don’t have any money? You don’t have any…” Joey trailed off and chuckled, head shaking softly. “...No. No, no, no.”

“No?” Tim echoed, not because of what Joey had said but because of the way he said it. His voice was dipped in resignation. His eyes, bloodshot and angry, seemed to have lost their light. His body, pale, trembling, and sweaty, went still all of a sudden.

For the first time that night, Joey started to feel dangerous.

“No,” Joey repeated.

He charged.

The steel glinted in the night as Joey gripped the weapon tightly between his two hands and drove it towards him. Time slowed down for Tim, all his focus narrowing on the tip of the knife. Color faded from his vision as the blade pierced through the air.

He was going to die.

That thought crystalized inside of him and urged his body to action, yet his legs wouldn’t budge. Desperately, Tim raised his arms to protect himself even though there was no way flesh could protect against steel.

The knife broke.

Instead of piercing Tim’s skin, the knife bent then broke. The snapping sound echoed throughout the dark alley as the blade clattered to the ground near a puddle from a brief rain earlier that day. Joey was left staring dumbly at the broken tool in his hands, bloodshot eyes blinking in incomprehension.

In the distance, a driver in a hurry to get home honked his horn. Joey backed away from Tim with jerky, uneven steps.

“Y-You’re one of them,” Joey sputtered out, his hands shaking so much it wouldn’t have been weird for the broken knife to slip from his grasp. “You’re one of those Exceeds!”

He didn’t wait for Tim’s answer. He didn’t wait for Tim to do anything at all.

He ran.

Tim barely seemed to notice. The thought of giving chase did not once occur to him. He kept staring at his arm, poking at it, trying to understand what just happened. His skin felt as soft as ever, a little firmer perhaps but not enough to stop knives. Slowly, his gaze drifted to the broken blade.

A stupid thought took shape.

Like many stupid thoughts, it wasn’t easily swayed. In fact, his body was already acting on it before Tim had finished making up his mind.

He picked the blade and pressed it against himself.

It didn’t pierce.

Tim frowned, putting more force on it despite his every rational thought telling him that was a bad idea. However, the knife still failed to bite into his hand or wound his arm.

The knife fell to the ground a second time that night. Tim’s legs lost their strength soon after. An awed smile appeared on his face.

Several giggles followed.

~~~

“Honey, there was a very important sale today.”

~~~

“The boy found out.”

Gerald said the words as soon as he entered his office, yet Arthur did not turn. The CEO of Regum kept his gaze on the city below him. A million lights. A cacophony of humanity. A multitude of people rushing to and fro. Thousands of paths crossing yet so rarely connecting.

But when they did...

“Define found out.”

“Local low-life tried to stab him and failed because he couldn’t pierce Tim’s skin. Then he ran away.” Gerald shrugged. “Like a bitch.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes as he finally turned around. “You let his attacker go.”

Faced with the anger of one of the richest men in the world, most people would have immediately started making excuses.

Gerald was not one of those people.

“It seemed like the best thing to do.” Gerald shrugged. “He was involved in the incident at the mall. It might be a fluke, but I want to be sure there’s not anyone else behind the guy. I have a man tailing him and already sent his picture to Matilda. We’ll know everything there’s to know about him by tomorrow.”

Arthur Cadogan hummed as he took a seat and turned on the lights. “I see.”

“So?”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“What do you want to do about the kid?” Gerald asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I like him, but he’s a teenager who just found out he’s invulnerable. Teenagers already do plenty of stupid stuff without that sort of impetus.”

“Speaking from experience, I take it.”

“I was his age when I decided to get some fake documents and join a PMC, so yeah.” He grinned guiltily. “Letting him be right now could be trouble. Want to bring him in?”

Arthur considered it but shook his head. “No. It is much too soon. Keep observing him but be ready for extraction.”

Most people would have understood that as a dismissal, but Gerald was made of sterner stuff.

“You know Alice is mad at you because you’re avoiding the kids, right?”

Arthur’s face might as well have been carved from stone.

“I am aware.”

“This strikes me as a pretty good opportunity to become involved.”

Arthur met Gerald’s gaze for ten full seconds before saying anything.

“I do not pay you to play wingman for me.”

Gerald grinned and gave him a two-finger salute. “Don’t worry, boss. That part comes free.”

~~~

Where was it?

Where was it?

Where was it?

Joey hurriedly searched through his contact list. He was panting, having run several blocks to get away from the kid. Tim didn’t seem to have chased after him, but you never knew with Exceeds. Tim could pop out of a shadow or teleport above him for all he knew.

The sooner he made this call, the better.

Ring.

Ring.

Rin-click!

“Do you have the money?”

Good! Joey hadn’t been sure whether Brett would pick up or not. He still had a chance! This was going to make everything right!

Everything!

“Brett! Brett!” Joey said, hurrying to get words out. “You have to listen to me!”

“Not what I asked, brah.”

“I saw an Exceed!”

“...What?”

“An Exceed! I met one.”

“You fucker! You got in trouble with a hero? What the fuck do you think you’re doing calling me?”

“What?” No, no, no! He had it all wrong. “It wasn’t a hero! Just a kid. Not even one of those Young Yonders. Just a normal kid.”

There was a pause, but Joey could feel the interest coming from the other end of the line.

“Just a kid?”

“Yes, just some random kid. I know his name.”

“...I’m listening.”

~~~