So we join our own Sara Mulgrew at the scene of the fire. Sara?

Thanks Nathan. As you can see behind me, this was no gas leak. Twenty foot tall tongues of flame are spilling out of the windows, eating through brick and melting glass. Onsite firemen are estimating a category 3 pyrogenetic-

“Ma’am, please get back.”

The situation appears to have gotten worse. We have been told to step further back.

“It’s under control, ma’am. The fire isn’t the issue.”

Whoa! Suddenly it isn’t so warm here anymore. As you can see, Everest has everything under control. Looks like there really wasn’t anything to worry about.

---

The good thing about celebrities was the moment they appeared, all eyes were on them. The crowd on the sidewalk were too busy ogling the man in the 21st century rendition of the 19th century diving suit, spewing white beams of frothing mist from ports in his forearms. The flames were subdued. The crowd cheers and claps. And Lyssa slips away, clinging onto the dirty tarp she had found in a dumpster.

She was noticed. But people didn’t care, and likely wouldn’t remember the lady dressed in the garbage toga shrinking away, not while Everest was in the area.

Once the fire was completely out, the suit helmet was flipped open and the man inside smiled, waving at the crowd below. He then maneuvered his jet pack to land in the middle of the street. The bystanders swarmed. The journalists shoved a mic near his face. He spoke. Something about not needing to be thanked. They thanked him anyway, and some asked for an autograph for good measure.

Lyssa made it home without further embarrassment. Her home was a cubicle apartment ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. One window allowed the noon sun through, overlooking downtown New Langshir. In the distance, a pillar of smoke billowed into the wind. She looked out just in time to see Everest’s white contrail as he throttled back to the fire station.

How many minutes did he stay after the job was done just to fraternize? Lyssa could only suppose this was the only fire in the entire city of ten million. She pulled herself away from the thought. Law school. That was where she wanted to be. Leave the heroism to the glory seekers. She dreaded the tedium of the next day.

Lyssa showered, dressed, and ate lunch, a sandwich made of white bread, slightly toasted tomato, and lettuce. She drank water from the tap in a solo cup. Mundane things. Good things.

“How long are you going to ignore it?”

She studied for a couple hours. It was hard to focus due to the pounding in her chest, but she powered through.

“You nearly died.”

She wasted the rest of the daylight watching a show she didn’t particularly like.

“If it wasn’t for me, you would have.”

Sleep had always helped. Lyssa decided to turn in early. If she slept a good seven hours she would wake up refreshed and normal again. She covered herself in her sheets, and pulled the pillow tight over her ears.

“Look at me!”

Lyssa couldn’t breathe. She was in that office again. Walls of flame surrounded her. Fumes clawed her nostrils with every breath, leaving a dry itch behind with every strained inhale. She could not move; a mass straddled her, pinned her onto the floor. A boiling hot palm gripped her throat, preventing her from screaming.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was her. Lyssa saw herself, magma hands like iron bars, one around her neck, the other around her wrists.

“You killed him,” she sputtered.

“If it wasn’t for me, he would have killed us.”

“I don’t understand!” She threw herself against the ember shadow. Her grip only tightened, trembling the world. Cracks snaked up the walls as they shrunk towards her.

“You’ve always done this. Run. Hide. Pretend everything’s fine. Where is your anger!?”

“Please leave me alone! Where am I? Let me go! Let me-”

Birds. Sun. Tones, electric, long and drawn out, as if to draw attention to itself.

Lyssa opened her eyes. For a few, long seconds she allowed the alarm to ring. She tried to parse the faraway echoes of her dream, but recovered nothing. Only the nightmare’s dread remained. Eventually, her fingers unfurled, and she languidly pulled herself back onto the bed. A fist banged on the other side of her bedroom wall.

“Turn it off!” A muffled voice shouted.

Lyssa sighed. She slapped the button on top of the digital clock on her window sill, silencing the noise. She reveled in the micro-instant of peace.

To work, then. All of her belongings had been incinerated. She had to go to recovery center to get a new citizenship card. Then it was off to the bank. And then once more to the registry for another driver’s license.

Routine business in this world. She watched the news on her laptop as she changed. One of the newscasters was missing that morning.

Guess I’ll do Nathan’s part until he gets here eh? Hahaha! The reporter reached for the paper on the desk next to her. A swirl of blue smoke popped into existence before she did. The smoke cleared, and the man behind it adjusted his tie and cleared his throat.

Sorry Martha, I was stuck in traffic!

Oh you.

It’s with great pleasure that we report our worst news this morning is the fact that forensics have confirmed there were no deaths in that fire yesterday other than the perpetrator’s. They have stated that he likely perished from his own flames. Dental records show that he was…

Lyssa turned it off and hurried out the door.

She still remembered it, how it felt to dig into that man’s chest. She had felt his flesh come apart between foot long nails made of white fire; her nails. She had seen his innards turn black and crumble, and she remembered… exaltation.

Most of all, she remembered murdering someone. If she had had anything for breakfast she would have hurled right then and there. She had to find a nearby bench to sit and recover before she could walk again.

Across the street, the neighborhood theater’s LED board scrolled words past in art deco font.

REDEMPTION OF JERICHO

METALMAN VI

ROAD TO RACHMINAU

A young man in an apron sat in an empty spot in her bench.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I work at the coffee shop behind us.”

“No problem,” Lyssa said.

“I’ll get right to it. I’m a cat 1 empath, and you are very perturbed. If you need to talk to someone, I’m on break for ten minutes. If not, I’ll shut up.”

“…I don’t know. Something just seems… wrong.” Lyssa sighed. “I was in that building yesterday.”

“Christ!” The barista leaned forward. “You alright?”

“I left before things got out of control. I got out alive but something’s been different. It’s like I haven’t left.”

“I confess, usually I don’t get very clear reads on people,” the young man said, “but you’re all over the place, like a wild flurry of emotions. Maybe you’re still in shock.”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me about yourself. Something you wouldn’t mind a total stranger knowing.”

“I applied to M.A.G.E.”

He laughed. “Everybody applies to M.A.G.E.”

“I know I won’t get in. My gift is irrelevant. And I don’t want to work as a hero. Why did I do that?”

“Maybe you just needed to try new things, even if you know it won’t work. Maybe the attempt is enough.”

“Can we ever live a normal life?”

“Oppenheimer said the world would be fucked up once more of us are born. But most of us are useless! A cat 2 empath can tell if someone is lying within twenty feet of them with ninety percent certainty. I can’t be a hero, or work with the police. But I can make a mean macchiato. We can live perfectly normal lives.”

“We can.” Lyssa nodded to herself. “Thanks.”

She felt a cloud clear within, a spot of comfort where she could rest her thoughts. When those ten minutes were up, she went her own way, and the rest of the day went smoothly with no errant notions or faraway, accusatory voices. She went home in the afternoon, a little poorer—the thrift store had some formalwear for sale—but a lot more sure of herself.

“Tomorrow,” she said to herself. A promise. She would scour the classifieds, online adverts, public notices. She would stop the bleeding from her savings and take that step forward. For the first time in months, she slept with her head empty of droning noise. Utterly silent.

When she woke she discovered a letter had been thrust through the mail slot in her door, cordially welcoming her into the fold of M.A.G.E.