The fabriglass mixed with the crushed remains of debris that had been blown into his storefront window from outside. Thankful at least that the material of the window would slowly turn into dust once the main structure of the window had been broken, he swept the remnants into the yellow bucket before taking a look at his display stock. Still standing, still strong. He had built the display frames well not to mention the technology, it was one reason that his business had been in local demand. Not everything was built to last but when you put your heart and soul into excellent quality products, then it came.

A soft morning breeze along with a smell of smoke and a tinge of burnt-out concrete came through the open window. The acrid taste of the air made Frank wish that his mechanical skills were good enough to design an air scrubber.

A necessity in a city where pollution didn’t only come from cars. A rogue superhuman who spat acid and breathed poison might not be so considerate even if government-mandated after-fight cleaners came along and did their best to make the area a bit cleaner than before.

If they had the right tools, then Frank wouldn’t mind them spraying the window with fast-setting fabriglass. The insurance company liquid would set faster and withstand more outside force than the government stuff that only if his insurance company was willing to produce it after being shown direct proof of the events. He decided this time that rather than keep waiting, he’d opt to use his standby expensive reserve, Benny would be able to use the stuff and the windows would fill themselves back up. A little bit slower than he’d liked but fast enough that it could show a presentable little store just in time for the visitors they were both expecting.

A parade of idiots in fancy dress.

If was thankful for one thing it was that his memory loss affected his past as well, he had to learn exactly when the Gifted appeared and was fortunate enough to have forgotten more than twenty years of their arrival.

Not the best option to take but he needed to keep up his appearance today rather than be economical. Besides, the insurance company would be happier knowing that he’d be spending his own money this time. If any government cleaner turned up later, he’d just need to thank them for their efforts, but he wouldn’t need it today.

He was so focused on cleaning away the mess as fast as possible that he didn’t even hear the door swing open, and a young woman with olive skin and blue eyes dressed entirely in pink walked in. Her face showed that she was slightly overweight but with the slimmest build. The difference made for an interesting contrast. She was swinging a large toolbox in both hands. It was also a bright pink covered in sparkly glitter. Frank sighed softly. Benny was finally here. The one person he really could trust.

‘Hey, there old man. Sorry, I’m late. Woah, I saw the street outside. Another street fight, amiright?’

The young woman smacked her lips as she talked and dropping the heavy pink toolbox to the floor with a thud, she grabbed a pack of blueberry chewing gum from her back pocket. Hey, eyes roamed across his clothes taking them in with a deeper glance with a slight frown on her face when she saw his old leather jacket.

Frank looked up at the young woman with a bright smile on his face. He knew he’d have to face up to her sometime about his fashion choices. She wasn’t trying to make him look cute but rather it was a personal favour that he owed to her. Benny would dress a wolf in pink if she could get away with it, he may not be a wolf, but Frank wasn’t a gentle-natured man.

‘Benny! Are you ready for another day working with a talented mechanical engineer?’

‘I think you mean you’re being blessed with the presence of an electrical goddess. Praise to her.’

Despite her interesting fashion sense of dressing entirely in pink, including shoes and accessories, she was talented, and Frank was lucky to have her working with him. Her choice to come and work for him given the smallish salary that he was able to pay her surprised him until one day he had flat-out asked her if she was taking pity on a single, lonely man with retrograde amnesia. Correction, a single, lonely young man with memory loss. There had been a few rumours going on about that before he called everyone together to discuss it after the last coffee and pastry session.

Her response had been the same as just now. She was there to supply the blessing of an electrical goddess, no more, no less. Frank didn’t dare to ask her if Benny’s fashion choice of colour extended to her underwear and bra. He liked to think that if he was brave enough to ask, she would give the same response as the rest of her clothes. Pink. He preferred red himself, but he never wore his on the outside like some weird superhumans.

‘Enough of the old as well. I’m twenty-two, and you’re….well you’re a certain age. I’m a bit afraid to ask.’

‘Aw, why thanks, Frank. You’re not a kid after all.’

Frank was unable to tell the exact age of Benny. She was young enough to be in her late teens but came across as mature and diligent as though she had lived for decades more. If he’d been more interested, he could have paid for a background check for her, but she’d been genuine enough. Especially, when she had stood with him during the last few underground sales events. Her real age was her own business.

The fact that she’d likely been the only one who stood by him and tolerated his attitude spoke volumes about her mindset towards Frank. Good quality friendship was hard to come by in his opinion.

Given it was the age of superhumans, he figured that genetics played a far smaller role in how a person looked and more the superpower lottery instead. A shapeshifter would be able to alter their appearance however they chose. He felt quite sure that she wasn’t a supe though. Her presence never tripped off any of the mechanical alarms that Frank had built along with a couple that had their presence masked and therefore undetectable by normal means.

‘Where do you want me to work then, oh young boss?’

‘Frank nodded at her directness although her sense of humour was something to be taken with a pinch of salt. Benny often did what she wanted when she wanted, within reason.

‘As you would have heard on your way here this morning, we had a genuine superhuman fight out on the street. A scuffle. Never can tell when the freaks, sorry, the Gifted decide to start a mini battle about whose ego is bigger. I’ll need to check out the collectors and recorders in order to sell to the walkers and gawkers later. Unless you’d like to do the honour this time…’

Benny gave him a cheeky grin and picked up the heavy-looking toolbox with relative ease in two hands as though holding a new birthday present. She knew that after an attack like this, business would pick up quickly due to the fear from other neighbouring streets that this could happen to them.

At least if you caught it all on camera, then an insurance company would be willing to reimburse direct damage costs.

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Any collected genetic material from the fight itself would be put up for sale, the same for good-quality images and videos of the superhumans themselves.

Frank was glad to have an employee that wasn’t scared of working in an area that was frequented by supes. The last three hadn’t worked out. Two of them quit after a week and demanded their final salary and the third one did. Well, he didn’t like to talk about what happened to the last employee who worked with him. Trying to tamper with power sources that were designed to monitor and stop low-level supes was a careful job at the best of times. It had gotten messy near the end.

‘Firstly, I’ll be tidying up the front before making sure that all the display models are fully functioning, and no repairs are needed. The dampeners should have limited any excessive use of supe power-ups, so it was mainly the window that needed replacing. I’ll do the paperwork for that myself.’

Benny breathed a sigh of deep relief. Admin work was not one of the parts of her job description that she enjoyed. She clutched the heavy pink glittery toolbox tightly to her chest.

‘Boss. Thank you so much. Despite your memory loss, you can still function as a decent guy. Do you need a hug to make you feel better about the shop window?’

‘Benny?’

‘Yes, Frank.’

‘Just get to work thanks. I’ve got to check the collection boxes and drones.’

‘I sense your relief from here. Dealing with insurance claims is just part of life. The Goddess protect and guide us. Your memory will return. She promised me.’

Frank saw her take a small deep blue crystal statuette out of her toolbox before she kissed it and placed it back inside.

He thought back to the electrical goddess that his friend in pink followed regarding an event that had occurred over eighty years ago.

A well-known inventor and pioneer of electrical supply systems had been constructing a tower relay system that was designed to wirelessly transfer power from one location to another. The structure had been completed through her efforts in securing more funding from several millionaires at the time and the results while successful were mixed.

The engineer who had designed and was in charge of the whole project had turned into an early-stage electrically powered superhuman before her full transformation into a different type of being.

A significant amount of electrical energy had been noticed as a fully visible face and hands were seen on an island temple several miles away off the coast of the nearby city.

The entire transformation process was viewable throughout all as she boosted the voice of the engineer turned superhuman and called out that the experiment had been a success and she saw a path ahead for energy.

The whole thing sounded like it was out of a story but given that it had been noticed and heard by the entire population of the city and a few more slightly upstate. When the site had been examined after the entire situation had calmed down a week later discovery was made that the surrounding area had been scoured clean. There was no sign of the corpse of the engineer any of the twenty workers with her, or any equipment or structure.

All that remained was an enormous crystal shard that had melded into the ground. It was in the shape of a sculpture of a woman raising her hands into the sky. A cult of personality had formed around the crystal statue from those who had been affected by the light-blue electrical images of the now-famous engineer.

It was a recorded superhuman phenomenon that had happened but calling her an electrical deity was deemed a step too far until certain people who had approached the statue awakened powers and turned into fanatic believers who called her a goddess.

A religion was formed that day, which eventually developed into part energy company and part regional temple for the faithful.

The overall scope of the religion was not as large as it could have become, given that other superpowered beings existed although not all of them were worshipped. It was too organised to be called a cult and was more of a minor religion with a few hundred thousand followers at most. This took place over several decades to stabilise and become accepted in society. The followers and those who flocked to the site mostly proved harmless and any who weren’t were immediately handed over to local law enforcement authorities without fuss.

It was the financiers of the entire project who were pleased that the experiment worked without fail when tried again and without any undue side effects. Power was flowing from the location and connected seemingly without issues to the power distributors that had been based across the island and the city region. No further superhuman accidents or incidents occurred.

A new form of power transfer had been developed and capitalist society had been pleased with the result. New and old money began to flow to improve the quality of the electrical flow and make sure that it was able to work with current systems. The city began to develop and take advantage of the form of clean energy that worked efficiently with near minimal fault.

The only downside was that the new form of power transfer was limited to a highly specific regional area, mainly the vicinity of the city borders, outskirts, and the island itself. Beyond those borders, electricity was unable to be transferred. A large portion of the funds generated went back into the religion as it was purchased out from the financiers early on by those rich enough to want to purchase superpowers.

Beyond those borders, electricity was unable to be transferred. The energy simply dissipated into the air. Despite decades and decades of effort in trying to replicate the process under scientific conditions, it was ruled to be a random fluke that simply wouldn’t run.

After a final time when a massive explosion had destroyed a tiny, isolated island chain in the ocean, it was discovered that it was due to an unregulated test using an illegally obtained small part of the crystal statue and observers swore that they had seen a frowning face in the sky above. All further tests were banned on an international level. It was considered too high a risk to even destroy the source.

Other countries in the world had developed their superpowers by this point and small-scale alternative power sources had been generated in the decades following the electrical goddess so it was mainly accepted as a flawed development of a superhuman being. The religion that worshipped the crystal statue as a goddess and profited using the energy source was mainly ignored.

The fact that the electricity wasn’t an unlimited supply and covered a fairly limited range helped a great deal. Yes, it was a miracle by all standards that scientists had been unable to replicate but so were a thousand other miracles in their own countries. Corporations and charities were formed as donors and supporters flooded towards the island, some chasing what they deemed a miracle and others simply wanting to become part of something larger than themselves.

As far as Frank knew the crystal statue remained on the island, heavily guarded, and now protected as a new power source which was able to wirelessly transfer energy and also existed as the main church of the religion of the electrical goddess. He supposed that Benny had been there but so far, she showed no sign of superhuman powers activation or even traces. Feeling thankful that he was working with a baseline human made him feel comfortable despite her constant praise of the so-called electrical goddess.

Frank didn’t think it too odd that a young woman with a talent for designing and building electrical components for supe-proof products would follow a ‘goddess of electricity.’ He just wasn’t keen on the whole idea that his work was being blessed. He had seen no signs that Benny had activated any latent powers, electrical or otherwise. None of his devices had been triggered so she was just as she appeared. A normal human with a natural talent for building electrical components and testing-built devices.

Looking towards her he nodded his head into the back part of the shop where the storage and necessary tools were kept. It was a far more secure location than the rest of the shop and your average supervillain wannabe would find it hard to break past the restrictions in a short space of time.

‘You can check the current orders that we have and make any minor adjustments as needed. The rest I can deliver on my own during your lunch break. If any new customers come in, which is pretty likely seeing as how word spreads fast, then I’ll be you to add their details to our database. Any questions?’

‘Yes, boss. I got one important question that needs to be answered.’