The youngish man put his safety goggles back on before fiddling with his backpack and turning back on his fabriglass sprayer when he waved at Frank with a now brighter smile on his face. He first turned toward his work of filling in the window before he remembered that he had been told that they self-repaired and began his walk to the next window in need of replacement. His expression was now full of pure focus while his hands twitched slightly, an after-effect of using his aura powers. His face had a slight sheen and a trickle of sweat ran down one side of his now clearly drained face.

As Frank walked past the youngish man, his eyes discreetly took in the paleness that the man showed. He knew that super using their powers always came at a cost, despite their relative strength. He’d leave this one alone but still record his name and power in a private database that he kept. Empathy and emotional reading could still prove dangerous in the right situation.

Any power could, depending on the imagination and creativity of the individual. Not that he was in a position to do much about it yet, aside from attempting to limit the power and protect himself and his local community. Frank put it out of his mind as he kept to his daily vigil of checking the streets, trying to burn damage done into his memory.

You should have used more deodorant, Josh. It works wonders for reducing dampness.

Along further to the rest of the street and checked out either the respective damage to their premises or the damage to the local area. Cars and other vehicles had been broken with missing parts and cracked screens and were being taken away for fixing or reprocessing into different mechanical parts. As usual, no law enforcement officers, or superhero representatives had arrived to turn up and take statements on the events of the fight.

‘Typical.’ Frank murmured aloud to himself. ‘No records mean no complaints and then no justice.’

He was crossing his arms taking in the view of various people talking on the street and more than a few raised voices when a woman dressed in an executive suit walked up and stood next to him with her arms behind her back. She stood there next to him for a moment silently watching the view alongside him before she briefly spoke in his direction.

‘Quite the view, isn’t it? I have a friend who would enjoy this as a new form of experience. They prefer hotels though.’

The woman put both hands behind her back standing up straight with excellent posture. Frank didn’t give her a second glance, but a scowl appeared on his face. He hadn’t expected a representative from the last group to show up just yet. She didn’t say anything else but folded her arms and continued to look around as if she hadn’t said a single word to him in the first place.

Turning his head to the side he took in her whole appearance in a single glance. Blonde ponytail, the mid to late thirties, executive suite with sensible shoes. Her suit although not cheap wasn’t a branded item. She appeared to him smart enough to look like she knew what she was doing but not paid enough to wear high-end items. No handbag or briefcase, he knew that she had been prepared for this.

‘Yes.’

Frank grunted in acknowledgement and turned his head away. Too much staring at a person would come across as rude but he liked to have an idea of who he was going to be dealing with. This time it was along the lines of someone more professional than a semi-fan who couldn’t get the superhuman hype out of their system.

The worst thing about a rogue supe who caused chaos and minor property damage without consideration for the lives of ordinary people was a person who wanted a taste of it so badly that they would watch the footage and turn up at incident sites like a cheap tourist. Those happened to be the decent ones, the others were more like drug junkies who wanted a fix.

Damn. Frank had forgotten that his detection equipment was still in his shop. He had left it standing on the display shelves and he hadn’t wanted to go and bother Benny with her given tasks. He didn’t like to think of himself as paranoid but these days you really couldn’t tell a regular human from a supe unless they showed it. He hoped she didn’t have mind-reading capabilities or strong empathic links, he ought to have enough resistance, but you never knew.

Making a thought to himself to carry a minor power suppressor unit on him at all times, he carried on looking at the repair work carried out while they both stood there in complete silence. It seemed like she was also admiring the view and didn’t feel the need to talk just yet, Frank didn’t mind it one little bit. He didn’t know her nor recognise her; it best to tread carefully and spent a few more minutes watching the entire gradual process of rebuilding and fixing up.

It didn’t help with the emotions of any individual affected by living in a semi-war zone where one-day demi-gods would swoop down and cause minor chaos and panic by walking into throwing punches and throwing tantrums when they lost.

He was sure that nobody would do this if their names were publicly known. There was an old phrase that he’d read about called name and shame. The smart ones kept their identities semi-hidden and dressed in purely civilian clothing. The brash ones or highly active superheroes liked their dress-up costumes. The villains and criminals joined in, at least until they were arrested or suffered a beat down by someone higher up the power scale than themselves.

This woman could be either way. He’d better tread cautiously, being involved in a fight between major supes had resulted in him being in hospital for a few years in a coma state and then awakening with retrograde amnesia. Enough functioning memory to know his way around modifying and improving supe tracking, tracking and limited technology but not enough to even remember his last name.

At least three years wasn’t a long time. His identity had been traced to arriving in the city from overseas on a flight but beyond that, his records had either been wiped or removed. Going through all the tests had proved negative for any trace of supe activity though. If was a superhuman then his body had completely lost all abilities unless retrograde amnesia and waking up from a three-year coma was counted as a new type of superpower.

No supe organisation was interested in funding a standard human with no potential although a kind benefactor at the hospital had set him up with a business loan and a commercial real estate agent had found him a cheap lease on a property in a so-called rougher part of town despite the absence of crime. All of the criminals avoided an area that had become a testing ground for up-and-coming new supes with minor powers.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

This woman in her executive not-off-the-rack suit could breathe fire or remove the oxygen from the surrounding air as far as he knew. All the better reason for being polite although if he had the time later, he’d head back to the shop to ask Benny to give him a concealable portable power tracker. It wouldn’t give him any sign of power levels, but a simple green or red light would lightly glow and give his body a small buzz as a warning sign.

It wouldn’t be classified as illegal tech. Not exactly. The city laws on classifying power levels for supes existed in a grey zone. The tracker was a piece of heavily modified piece of machinery that was meant to only be in the hands of police, security forces and government agents. Frank didn’t sell any to the underground economy, but he was sure that variants would exist in the criminal sector. It was a necessity when you needed to protect yourself in a world of superheroes and supervillains and you were a base standard human.

He considered it as a storm detector. You might not be able to stop a tornado from ripping apart your house but if you knew it was coming then you stood the best chance of getting out of the area safely. It was far safer to use than any attempted power suppression technology. You would be either fined or beaten, burnt or worse depending on the emotional range of the supe involved and the amount of illegal activity and publicity that they were willing to tolerate.

Frank had heard rumours of minor freak accidents that had occurred before governments clamped down and enforced greater protection of normal, civilian humans. In one rumour, a fire hydrant had exploded which had propelled with jet water, forced open a sewer grate and smashed through a windscreen injuring both the driver and a passenger. All it would take would be one single freak with a hydrokinetic ability and a bad day to make it happen.

If he was strong enough to take the risks, Frank would be out there with a portable dehydration unit. Not enough to kill a water-based supe but he’d dry them out enough to let them warm up for a while. See if that killed their violent tendencies.

Thankfully he thought that mind-reading was strictly prohibited unless under emergencies. Your thoughts were considered absolute and private. Even if this woman was a telepath or possessed high-grade empathy powers, she wouldn’t be able to pick up his thoughts. Frank thanked his mind palace practice for that; each thought and memory would be compartmentalised and locked away in storage.

It was one of the few mental defences that he possessed that stopped any superhuman using hypnosis or mind control powers on him as one unlucky low-grade supe had found out when he had lost a few teeth late one night outside his favourite bar by eating a five-fingered sandwich.

Feeling that he had ignored the woman standing next to him for long enough Frank found himself slightly surprised she hadn’t interrupted his train of thought the entire time but still stood there taking in the view. She was paying attention but not to him, her eyes roamed over the different people and workers and the swiftly repaired holes in the concrete street and occasional building wall.

Professional standard. Thought Frank to himself. She’s keeping an eye out.

Dropping the scowl from his face, he ran one hand through his hair while moving his feet slightly from side to side. Looking at the woman he raised his hands in a shrug.

‘Look. I’m sorry if I came across as rude just now. I try my best to help the community after we have a supe storm passing through. The whole thing gets brushed under the rug by the superhero community and higher government. To be honest, this kind of thing gets the best of us sometimes. These supes just don’t think about normal people. We get government support and occasionally the odd insurance claim but on the who-‘.

Frank stopped talking. He was complaining to a stranger who hadn’t said any other words to him aside from ‘quite a view.’ The friend sounded like a different sort of person. No clue what she meant by hotels though.

The blonde-haired woman in the suit crossed her arms and turned to face him. Her ponytail turned with her as her head swivelled around and fixed on him.

‘Hmm.’

This time it was Frank who felt uncomfortable as she intensively stared at him and looked him up and down. She opened her mouth to speak.

‘You’re not what I expected. Too young. Far too young.’ She tutted and shook her head lightly.

‘Hey, now what is that meant to mea-.’

Frank tried his best to talk but halted when she moved her arm. His eyes fixed upon her hand worried for a second that she was a supe and was going to blast him into a wall. He wasn’t even wearing a layer of body armour at this point if she was serious about it.

She raised one hand showing all her fingers. Her other arm remained tucked across her chest. Her posture straightened out as she tensed up. Her facial expression shifted from friendly to serious so fast that Frank almost thought that his eyes had stopped working correctly for a moment.

‘Your turn to listen to me now.’

Raising a single finger on her hand, she looked Frank directly into his eyes. The noise of all the noisy work in the background and people bustling around them diminished as a dome of silence came down around them.

‘Number 1. I’m a registered medium-level supe. Codename Golden.’

Raising a second finger on her hand, she continued to stare at Frank. Her intense glare pierced his eyes. Frank ignored most of it and countered her by taking it and looking directly back. He wasn’t scared but preferred to remain on edge to see what would happen next.

‘Number 2. I’m here from the central organisation to verify the fight that took place and those involved. We don’t tolerate rogue, random fights in civilian areas. This is the second time this has happened in this location in a month, you can see why I’m here right?’

Now that she had seen that he was willing to listen to her directly without interrupting and his full attention was on her. Agent Evie decided to cut straight to the point of her talk with him. Telling people that you were a registered supe usually made their eyes widen if they were fanboys or fangirls and gave most ordinary people a sense of wariness. She saw a peculiar look in the young man’s eyes though, not hate but close enough to know that she didn’t like the look of it.

Best to change his mind while there’s still time.

This time she raised a third finger, straight up in the air.

‘Number 3, I get that you have some kind of grievance with supes given your coma and memory loss in hospital, but you need to check your attitude young man. Sympathy only goes so far. I’ve heard that you give a hefty part of the money you make back to this community and you’re some kind of local leader so I saw you and came for a quick conversation on how we can stop this from happening again. The government will only turn a blind eye towards your technological innovations for so long.’

Frank wasn’t sure of her actual intent as the woman clenched both her hands into fists and stared at him intently.

He sensed that she was angry, maybe not with him so much but she was angry.

Then she reached inside her suit jacket pocket. Frank had never considered if she’d been armed or not.

No reason for a supe not to be.