=== CINDI ===

I watched my husband pace in this man’s office. I had done what he had asked, much to Pinikir’s dismay. HE IS NOT SHOWING US DUE RESPECT. WE ARE A GODDESS AND HER AVATAR. WE SHOULD NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM A MAN. I unconsciously shrugged my shoulder. I didn’t care. It was something that needed to be done. I was more curious as to what he was thinking. This man had shaken Curt. I stepped back to Tierra and whispered to her. “What’s he feeling?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I want to be sure before I do something. I am pretty sure he’s doubting himself. That he was shaken by that man’s words.”

  “Yeah, doubt’s a big part of it. Loathing, both self and outward. Anger. He’s winding himself up and twisting himself in knots. And remember: when he does something stupid, like try to get himself, you, or most importantly, me shot, I’m out. I don’t give a damn about him.”

  “You really don’t like him,” I said. It wasn’t an accusation. But I was studying my friend. Tall, with dyed red hair shaved on one side. Her lips twitched downward. SHE SHOULD BE CAREFUL WITH HOW SHE PERCEIVES OUR PROPERTY, Pinikir’s voice thundered in my head. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the goddess. She was getting increasingly pushy and entitled. But she’s a goddess. I guess that much is to be expected. I pursed my lips and asked the question. “Why? It can’t just be the strong emotions issue. You deal with people like that all the time.”

  She met my eye and opened her mouth to say something before sighing. She had been about to lie to me. I don’t know what she was going to say, but I know it was a lie. She shifted away. “He’s brash, arrogant, and thinks he’s better than me. Too good to just be a thief.”

  I laughed at her. Curt didn’t even seem to notice. Tierra did, though. She glared at me, and I raised a brow, daring her to try something. “For an empath, you’re terrible at reading people. Or at least people you don’t like.”

  “Oh?” She asked huffily. “And what am I missing?”

  “He can be arrogant. He tries to hold the whole world on his shoulders. That can make him reckless. But I think you have cause wrong. He knows he’s a thief. He loves it. Us teaming up together has been a lot of fun for him. I can see it in the way he walked through this compound. The way he threw open those doors. The way we were poking fun at his need to be dramatic. He enjoys this. He loves the puzzle of thieving and even the action, sometimes. But he isn’t content to just have a little fun with other thieves. He wants to make things a little better for people and does his best to do so while still having fun. And he feels responsible. He was ready to get himself killed to stop these people from blowing up his building.”

  “Like I said, brash.”

  “That’s one way of perceiving it, yeah.”

  “Oh. What noble reason did he con you with?”

  “Noble?” I laughed at her again. “He doesn’t give a damn if he dies. If it can mitigate suffering, he’d happily die. It’s not nobility. It’s self-doubt and hatred.”

  “You and Des are too easy on him.” I raised a brow at her. “He almost got all of us killed at the wedding. You were in a coma because he picked a fight he couldn’t win. And he has the gall to try and turn his survival into a win. And you and Des are happy to play along. He’s going to get you killed. He won’t get Des killed. I won’t let that happen.”

  “And how are you going to manage that?” I asked, puffing out my chest and straightening my back. I was shorter than her, but I lifted my chin high.

  “That’s easy,” Curt began, crossing the room to join us. “She’s going to limit my contact with Des and try to have them cut ties with me. Make sure to focus on all of her correct observations about me.”

  “You seem pretty cavalier about it. I will get them to see the truth.”

  “Good,” he replied solemnly. My husband threw out the ridiculous little drone he had made and sent it through a portal that opened just outside the window. Curiously, he didn’t close the gateway after he’d done so. “I’ve long since overstayed my welcome. Let me open a portal for you. Get you back there. I wish you the best of luck on it.”

  “Am I supposed to thank you for letting me convince Des to leave you behind?”

  “I’m not asking for your thanks, Tierra. I don’t care that you don’t like me. There’s nothing you could say or believe about me that I haven’t heard a worse version of.” Tierra’s stern face softened some, and she frowned at him.

  “The job’s not over, is it?”

  “I-I don’t know what I’m going to do. But you’ve suffered my presence long enough. Thanks for your help.” Something shifted inside of me. I padded over to my husband and threw an arm around him.

  “What if we used these acolytes?”

  “Use them? What do you mean?”

  “Well, Mister Terrorism over there said you don’t pay enough attention to your little projects,” I muttered against his ear. He shivered and tried to shift away from me. I didn’t let him. “But things might be different if you had a network, people you could deploy to help you. You could change things.”

  “What do you even want to do anyway?” Tierra asked.

  “Provide water, food, and shelter to people. Let people live safely,” Curt muttered absently. He was considering my proposal. I could see the gears turn in his head. I grinned against his neck. He’s going to do it.

=== CHUCK ===

Kari and I landed in front of an office building in the middle of Avalare, just like any other. We were both in full costume. Her eyebrows hadn’t grown back yet, and her hair was a little frayed from when she tried to wield Lady Blade’s sword. Truth be told, I’m glad she couldn’t use it. I shuddered at the thought of Kari with even more power. She was already terrifying sometimes. We walked into the bright, fluorescent lighting and polished floors and got to the elevators. “This place seems kind of corporate, huh?”

  “Well, that just makes it seem more professional, right? I mean, they’re an advocacy group.” She tugged at her costume. “Maybe I should’ve dressed more formally.”

  The doors opened on the 5th floor, and we stepped out. This office space had much more natural lighting but was still decidedly pretty formal. The receptionist jumped up from her desk. “S-Smash Gal. P-Professor Mind. You came!”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry about last time. I was going to be here, bu-”

  “No! It’s no problem. We get it.” She walked out from behind the desk. Without trying to, I caught the sense of nervousness, a lot of excitement, admiration, and a little jealousy washing off her.   “You’re a big-time hero. And you saved my sister! Thank you! C-can I hug you?”

  “Uh,” Kari began before the receptionist threw her arms around her and squeezed tightly. Kari looked over to me before patting the girl gently on the back. “I-it’s nice to meet you. Uh . . . I’m Kari.”

  “Oh, right,” the girl said, stepping back with a wide grin. “I’m Sandy.” The girl rushed back behind the desk and picked up the phone. “Kevin. Your 2 o’clock’s here. Yeah, both of them.”

A few minutes later, a man in a polo, cargo shorts, and sandals walked out. Sandy was dressed formally in a gray pantsuit, but this guy looked like he had just come from the beach. Tan with slicked-back hair. He stepped up to us and held out his hand with a radiant smile, and my heart skipped a beat. What was that? I asked myself. I opened my senses to his emotions, and there was just confidence. Pure faith that everything was going to work out. “Professor Mind, Kari. Thank you for coming down.”

  We walked down into the office, and there were people making calls and the general din of a call center. Kevin would just point to people and give them the thumbs up. And they’d smile back, their nerves easing a bit. I observed him. I don’t think he’s putting off any psychic dampening field. He had the build of someone who casually went to the gym. Muscular, but not like a hero. Not like me, I thought. I wonder what his powers are. We entered his office with a glass wall and a great city view. He sat down and gestured to the seats in front of his desk. We took them. “So, your publicist, Jenny, reached out saying you wanted to get into some activism.”

  “Yeah. Well, we’ve been thinking about how metas are perceived, and we wanted to push for some change. Especially with how they’re treated after they’re arrested.”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s awful how y’all get treated. No doubt. By the way, do you want a water or anything? We have sparkling. Didn’t drink it before I started here, and now I’m addicted to it.” He laughed easily.

  “Uh, sure,” I said, finding myself smiling, then I leaned in. “You said ‘you all’. Are you not a meta?”

  “Haha, no. I honestly kind of just fell into this. But it’s good to do something important. Helping people.” He pressed a button on his desk phone and spoke into it. “Mike, could you bring our guests some water?” A very young, surly-looking man came in a minute or so later. He was carrying three drinks. He tripped over his feet, and Kari and I both jumped up to catch him, but he stumbled forward, and the drinks landed on top of each other, not falling to the floor. They wobbled on his little tray, but the youth managed to stabilize and deliver the drinks. “Good catch, Mike.”

  “That was weird. I didn’t think they’d fall like that,” Kari remarked, shifting the drink slowly in her hands. I gauged her emotions. Apprehension, anxiety, hunger.

  “Oh, yeah. Mike does probability manipulation. Little stuff. Got caught at a casino. His friends put him up to it. Says all he wants to use his powers for is to ‘get better Gacha draws’. Whatever that means.” Kevin leaned forward and rested his hands on his glass desk. “Anyway, we’re not here about that. We’re here to talk about changing the world. Now, I’m going to be honest: I don’t know what value you have. Your brands are . . . complicated and not existent, respectively.”

  “I have a huge online presence! 25 million followers on Twitter and 10 million on Tik Tok.” Kari said. I could feel annoyance roll off of her in waves. I put up a buffer between her emotions and mine, trying to keep my attention on Kevin. I still wasn’t sure about him. His confidence never faded, but his smile did diminish somewhat.

  “All of that’s true, and that’s great if you’re selling Energy Bomb. But there’s a difference between being popular and making social change, Kari. We don’t want a Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial, do we? Not for something like prison reform. Along with that, your punitive reputation does precede you. You are known as particularly hard on crime. And there are a lot of metas that are uncomfortable with how you handle things. The Doc Oak situation. And your attitude towards the very popular Esvanir.” Kari’s emotions had sunk lower and lower as Kevin went on, but anger flared up when she mentioned Curt. She met his eyes, glaring.

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  “You’d rather work with Curt!?” She demanded. But Kevin held up a placating hand.

  “Absolutely not,” the man said, trying to maintain his smile. Fear trickled underneath his confidence. It didn’t show in his sky-blue eyes or his posture at all, but I could sense it. I pursed my lips.   “He’s a criminal, and that would be the worst PR for us. And he’s not even a meta, right? Just a tech wiz. No. We wouldn’t work with him either, but he is popular. And your opposition to him makes you polarizing. Every big public figure is to some degree, but you’ve had a lot of controversies.” Kari sank down again, stewing on the man’s words. She had cooled off some, but I could feel her temper ready to flare up again at the first stoking. Kevin continued. “As for Professor Mind, you’re popular. Your publicist sent over your polling data. You’re a hit with women between 25-40. But beyond that, you’re not really that well-known. Your online presence is basically non-existent. In some ways, your lack of reputation is worse than a negative one. We’d be building your image up from the start. You do have some spillover from Kari, too. Since you’ve started dating, that made you a little more popular, but it also makes you a little controversial.”

  “So, we’re just not a good fit at all?” Kari asked in a small voice. Her disappointment was bottomless.

  “Well, I think that depends,” Kevlin said cryptically. “We might be able to do a test campaign with you. You seem serious about this. But I need to know why.”

  “We are serious,” I said, reaching over and grabbing Kari’s hand. “We recently visited Bellemere Sanitarium and Prison. And that really drove home how terrible metas are being treated.”

  “I didn’t really know what we were doing to prisoners. Especially meta prisoners.” Kari squeezed my hand. It wasn’t quite painful. She had gotten better at controlling her strength. “Especially for people of color. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to Harold if he’d been arrested that day. I don’t want to.”

  “Thunderblast?” Kevin asked. Kari nodded. “Is there any chance he’d want to join in on this? He’s very hot right now. Coming up fast.”

  “We haven’t asked him, but we can,” Kari added, considering it. “I’m sure he’d at least hear you out.”

  “Talk to him. Let’s see if he’s interested. And I’ll put together some focus groups and see how you guys test,” Kevin said. He showed us to the door and shook both of our hands again. I watched him for a moment. Sandy waved at Kari eagerly, and Kari managed a smile. We got to the elevator and started going down.

  “So, what do you think?” Kari asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think it might be a good idea, but he’s right about me. I’ve never really tried to be famous. Never really wanted it after . . . Scott and Blanca.”

  “Yeah. I guess I’m just different. I like the attention. Most of the time.” She paused. I got the sense that she wanted to ask something else. She tapped her foot impatiently. The doors opened, and we walked out into the lobby. “Kevin seems nice, don’t you think?”

  “I-I guess.”

  “Yeah. Chuck?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you bi?” She asked it casually. I stumbled and almost fell over, but she caught me and kept me upright.

  “B-bi? I . . . Well, there are some men I . . . I don’t really think I’m bi, though.” I took a few deep breaths and then turned to her. Kari wasn’t meeting my eye. I probed her emotions, but she had put up a wall. She never blocks her feelings. I could’ve broken through it, but I didn’t. That’d be a severe breach of privacy. So, I just did the adult thing and asked. “What are you getting at?”

  “Well, you seemed to be really . . . I don’t know. You just were looking at Kevin. Kind of how you look at me.”

  “I- no, I wasn’t,” I retorted a little too quickly. “I just . . . I was trying to figure out what he was about. He just . . . put people at ease. I thought he might’ve been an empath.”

  “Or he’s a good-looking white guy and knows how to leverage that,” she said in an almost sing-song tone. I stopped to consider this, pursing my lips.

  “Was I really looking at him like that?”

  “A little. Reminds me of when you would check me out when you thought I wasn’t looking.”

  “I didn’t do that!”

  “Chuck. Why do you think I switched to yoga pants? It was to give you more to look at. And because I wanted to try to avoid another wardrobe malfunction. But that’s the great thing about clothes. They can serve two purposes.”

  “Is that really why?”

  “Chuck, I have a great butt. And judging from the way your eyes popped out of your skull for Kevin, so does he.”

  “I’ve never dated a guy. I don’t look at them like that.”

  “And yet here we are,” she said with a grin.

  “Shouldn’t you be jealous?”

  “I am. A little. But It’s also kind of cute.” Kari said, wrapping an arm around me and squeezing. “Besides, if you act on it, I know you’ll be honest with me. You couldn’t live with the guilt.”

=== CURT ===

I hadn’t managed to convince Tierra to go home. She just kept watching me warily. Cindi wasn’t any help either. Eventually, Crowley woke up, and we tied him up and put him on a couch. He jolted up and struggled against his bonds. “What the fuck, Reese!? Let me go.”

  “No,” I responded simply. “We’re going to have another conversation. But I need you to know that you can’t intimidate me. You’re just a petty terrorist. I am the third greatest thief in this world. 7th on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Even in your prime, you capped out at 10th. Even still. I want to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate?” The man asked, still struggling against the ties. “Do you usually negotiate by tying someone up!?”

  “With me, a lot of the time,” Cindi replied, grinning. I smiled. Tierra rolled her eyes. Crowley just glared at her. I snapped, which got his attention again. Especially when a portal opened up in front of him. The other side was a choppy, roiling ocean. Well, it would be after about 2000 feet.

  “It’s to prove a point. You pulled a gun on me, thinking you could kill me. Since the only thing you seem to understand is violence,” I let the venom in my words sink in before continuing. “I thought I’d make it clear. You’re not a real threat. I am.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be better than me, liberal,” the terrorist spat back.

  “I am. I’m offering you a deal.”

  “Spit it out then.” He said a little desperately, edging away from the portal. I closed it and met his eye.

  “You were right. I don’t do enough to maintain the changes I’ve tried to implement. I’m only one person. But that doesn’t mean I can’t. I want to use the Acolytes. After we rebrand them to anything else. To start making real changes to the world. But I don’t want any more death on my hands. No killing unless you’re defending yourself.”

  “That’s not real change.”

  “It’s more change than you’re doing with your bombs. It’ll last longer than when my gifts are reclaimed. It’s a middle ground.”

  “You really are pitiful.”

  “Alright, Guess I’ll go find a second-in-command. Deal with them.” The portal opened again under his feet, and he yelped.

  “W-wait!” I paused for a moment, watching him. He took a few deep breaths, trying to reclaim any calm before saying, “What did you have in mind?”

After a few hours, we got back to Des’. They were curled up on the couch, watching some terrible medical drama, eating popcorn. “Really, Des? You’re a real doctor, and you’re watching Doctor McHunky sleep with everyone on General Hospital?”

  “Being a real doctor isn’t that sexy. All I ever get to do is patch up whiny thieves.” They paused the show. “How’d it go?”

  “It was nonlethal,” I said noncommittally. “Your girlfriend was a ton of help. It would’ve been much messier without her.”

  “Nonlethal? So, you just turned them in?”

  “N-no. Cin had another idea, and . . . we’re going with that for now.”

  “Yes. We will use these people to our advantage and make Curt’s goals come true.”

  “Oh . . . That makes . . . sense, I guess.” Des paused to kiss Tierra, who accepted it happily. The taller woman crawled onto my friend’s chest and looked up at me, jaw set. I nodded.

  “Right. Anyway, it’s been a day. Don’t want to take up any more of your guys’ time.”

  “Wait, we’re together. It’s not that late. Why don’t we grab a bite?” Des suggested.

  “I don’t know. Time zones and all that.”

  “I think it’s a grand idea. Don’t you, Tierra?” Cindi replied, staring directly at her friend. Des watched them both, clicking their tongue.

  “Yeah, of course,” the redhead responded in a tone suggesting the opposite. Des spent a little time getting ready, and Tierra and Cin had a staring contest over their kitchen table. I think they were murmuring something, but I didn’t dare step any closer. Instead, I just stood staring out the window. After a few minutes, Des called me into their room. Which was weird.

  Their apartment was tiny, and they had a bed just barely big enough for two people. It wasn’t made. Clothes were strewn about. It was the polar opposite of their practice. Everything was clean and neat there. Perfectly organized and obsessively labeled. Their room looked like a tornado hit a clothes hamper. And I felt out of place being in there. “Curt, what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Between Tierra, Cindi, and you. What happened?”

  “Oh. Uh . . . Tierra expressed some opinions while on the job. Cindi’s a little mad about it.”

  “What opinions?”

  “That I’m a danger to you and that I shouldn’t be in your life. And she’s right.”

  “This again?” Des sighed. “You don’t get to make that choice.”

  “It wouldn’t be mine this time. It’d be Tier-”

  “She doesn’t get to choose either.” Des cut me off. “Nor does Cindi. You’re my friend. I want you in my life. That’s all there is to it. And if she doesn’t like it, she can kick rocks. You need me.”

  “I know I need you. Just not so sure about the inverse.”

  “I am. I need you; you need me. We’re stuck with each other. Best friends forever.”

  “If we’re going to be the Mean Girls, dibs on Regina.”

  “Absolutely not. Cindi’s Regina. And you’re more Clueless material.”

  “I won’t let you choose between us. If it’s between me and Tierra, I’ll leave. Tierra makes you giddy and happy and incredibly stupid. All I do is bring you headaches.” Des came out and bonked me on the head with their brush.

  “Shut up. You make me laugh. And you’re my friend.” Des said, brandishing the hairbrush. “She’s fun. But both you and Cindi are treating us like we’re already married.”

  “Yeah, because you’re mooning over her like a lovesick puppy.”

  “Shut it!” They said, threatening me with the brush again. I grinned and held up my hands in surrender.

  We went out to a nice dinner on the other side of the planet. Tierra started out sulky, but by the end of it, she and Des were feeding each other and making jokes. Most of which were at my expense, but that’s hardly new. It was nice. Almost like we’re just people. Not just three wanted criminals and the weird doctor along for the ride.