Vulen rubbed the sweat pouring down off his forehead. The burning sun sat on his shoulders and put him in a headlock. He wanted to resist the oppressive heat, but the A/c decided not to call in sick. It just took a day off. 

He slammed a crate of brakes on the back room supply shelf. He half-turned at the waist to lift another box off the cart and thrust it onto a shelf. One last box and he could call it quits. His fingers got up under one side, and he tilted the box up to get his fingers under the other side, bringing it to the edge of the cart for a better grip.

“Yeah, he’s right back here,” Mr. Fowler said. His voice grew louder with the sound of feet scuffing the already damaged tiles. “He didn’t do anything wrong, right? One of my best workers and a damn good mechanic. Don’t even remember the boy having a girlfriend since he started here.”

Vulen sat the box down and took off the gloves. He shoved them into his belt; his brows furrowing. Nobody else fits that kind of distinction but him. He sure as hell did nothing worth any cops checking out. As the boss said, he kept a low profile to avoid trouble.

“We just have a few questions we can solve for him. Nothing major.” A deep voice pushed at the edges of his instincts, as if something was wrong.

Brows twisting into a twist, he trudges out of the back room, almost running into Mr. Fowler's beer gut. He looked at the two men in professional suits. Nice and crisps with stripes. Shopped at the same location. They weren’t built like linebackers, but they radiated the same danger as staring down a grizzly would. Vulen took a step back.

“These boys want to ask you a few questions,” Mr. Fowler said, swiping a dingy towel at his forehead. “You ain’t going nothing to worry about, right?”

A half-smile played at the edge of his lips, but Vulen nodded. “You gentlemen want to do it here or down at your station?” He spied one of their badges when they spread out to block his running paths.

“We prefer back at the station where we can record your witness statement,” the shaggy-haired guy on the left said.

“Alright, then.” Mr. Fowler took several steps out of the way and crossed his arms, a hint of worry digging into the sides of his lips.

The cop, on the right, took a step back and held out one of his hands. It swept out his jacket, showing off his badge. Something that felt deliberated, but it made Vulen breathe a little easier. At least he had the signs of a real cop.

A breath out, a bit of hand dusting on his black slacks, and Vulen walked towards the front of the shop. Only the clicking of their dress shoes accompanies him. It made him wonder what he could have witnessed. The past few days had been peaceful. Well, unless they are wondering about what happened two months ago, which made his heart race. He glances back at them upon passing through the doorless entrance to the main part of the shop.

“So, what is this about? I remember nothing specific happening in the last two weeks near my neighborhood.” He crossed from the back of the store to the front glass door with the swaying open sign hanging from a loose piece of tape.

“Again, it isn’t anything serious that implicates you,” the deep voice cop said, holding the door open. “However, the situation is an ongoing case and rules state we cannot discuss it outside. Apologies.”

The man wasn't apologetic. His shoulders didn’t slump in that kind of ‘I’m sorry’ way. His face ran like a stone that didn’t want to be budged by a raging river. The guy just went to a beige sedan, opened the back door, and tapped the roof with his nails. An expectant head nod said all he didn’t.

Vulen took another deep breath and crawled in. He learned real quick; they did not design the backseat for tall people. His knees pushed into the back of the passenger seat. His head bump into the roof, and the cop didn’t seem interested in adjusting the seat at all.

The inside of the cop car reminded Vulen of those cop shows where it was empty but coffee in the cup holders. The back seat had no bag or briefcase. No trash on the floor and the car smelled like some kind of weird orange freshener. He ran his hands down his slacks and looked out the window, stifling the need to ask questions they would not answer.

Autumn came in early. The trees tanning red and orange. They littered some of their hair on the pavements and small squares of grass. People dress warmer while walking. Bright sweaters or longer hoodies compared to the belly-less crop tops that became a trend over the summer.

The cops drifted past the main streets, keeping to the back resident streets. A faster approach that only some locals would take. These people would not whisk him to a black site. However, this whole thing still made little sense to him. Convicts talk about their cases in the open with their Parole officers all the time. How come this not-sensitive case had to be done within their confines?

He chewed on the corner of his lips and looked over at the guys. They didn’t give off the sense that they wanted to kill him over the thing he did back in the day. He paid back those people every cent when he was a kid. It has been four years since then and those guys shouldn’t have found him eight cities over. Not with his new alias and a petty job of working as a mechanic.

What could it be?

It took a bit of time for them to cross from the edges of the metro Lexington to downtown proper during lunchtime traffic. They pulled into a parking garage underneath a building that carried the Federation Bureau of Investigation. It removed the thought that they were not real cops. The sixteen-story building looked legit, with people in suits walking out the front door. Stress-out office workers smoking and the people near the elevator in the underground garage sounded about as happy as an old lady getting sale calls.

The driver parked right in the front, not even ten steps from the elevator. He opened the back door and Vulen stepped out. The burnt tire smell mixed with oil that sat months in the same car just didn’t have a pleasant smell.

Vulen hurried after the two cops and stood behind them in the elevator. When it dinged on the fourth floor, one of them marched off quick as a bee, while the other motioned for Vulen to follow him. Vulen did, right to a conference room with grey carpeted floors, and a long table with rolly chairs pushed up against it. A single landline phone sat on the table. A cord snaking out of it towards a wall with a flat-screen held hostage.

“Take a seat,” the smooth talker said. “I need to go grab the files, and some refreshments, and informed the relevant department that we picked up their witness.”

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Vulen nodded and pulled out a chair at the end of the table on the other side of the room. He watched people walk by in a hurry, not even sparing him a passing look. Or maybe they did, and he just wasn’t to their liking. What with him being in a grease-stained white shirt with his blue onesie tied around his waist instead of worn properly? Maybe they didn’t like the salt and pepper hairstyle he felt would make him look distinguishable enough with a full beard. It wasn't enough to get a better job.

After a bit of time passing, he leaned back and crossed his arms. They couldn’t be so busy that they couldn’t get to their witness with any actual speed. He also had a job he wanted to return to. Bills didn’t magically pay themselves. Chewing on his lip again, he got up and paced near the window. His act of spying hardly bothered the people below.

The squeak of the door opening dragged him away from his stalking. He spun around to a short woman walking over in a tight pencil skirt. Should be against regulations given her ability to make the clothes sweat from all directions.

“Mr. Permaer, right?” The lady dropped a briefcase onto the table and nobody else walked in with her.

Vulen’s heart raced because his cover identity did not have his real name. The name his elf-loving mother named him after liking it once in some fantasy book popular in the hospital ward. He crossed his arms over his chest to hide the sudden trembling.

“I’m sorry…” He blinked a few times and swallowed the bile that threaten to come up. “What?”

The lady lifted her black eyes with an amused smile. “You don’t have to worry. We know everything about you that can be known.” She opened the briefcase and pulled out a file, taking a seat while she was at it. “The thing is that Vulen Permaer isn’t a normal name. Not for someone born within the Federation or the Eastern Asian Union.” She twisted her lips to the side. “Nor any of the other nations unless…”

Confusion drilled me toward the questioning. A name was just a name. Meant little to anyone, but the person named it. So what do the origins of his name have to do with anything?

“Oh, you don’t know?” She sounded like she was struggling not to laugh. “Your mother, Saphielle Permaer, was not human.” The one slipped a photo out of the file and slide it halfway across the table.

Vulen leaned over, noticing that his mother looked younger and healthier, but nothing different from when she washed his nasty butt.

“Ah, you don’t see any difference compared to normal people, huh?” The lady pulled out another photo. She circle something and slipped it towards him.

Taking another gander, he noticed the ears. Which, in retrospect, wasn’t a big deal. His mother was a hardcore fan of Fae and Elves. She has done tons of cosplay, even when she came down with cancer. Many people have genetically gotten themselves enhanced to look more exotic. He could point out at least three people walking below with pointy ears and a cute button noses.

“You don’t find that strange,” the lady asked.

He shook his head. This is becoming a solid waste of his time.

“What if I say that your mother wasn’t one of those silly girls wishing they were someone else? That your mother was a foreign elf that illegally immigrated to our world?”

“So? Tons of illegal immigrants come from the war-torn states south of us? As for the ears,” He said, shaking his head. “That proves nothing, and this is feeling like a tremendous waste of my time. I will file a report with your supervisor about this.”

The lady started laughing. The kind where she snorted and had to hold her belly. She grabbed a device out of her briefcase and pointed it at the tv after getting ahold of herself. A video played of his mother, who looks damn good in a green dress that pulled the best parts of her bright green eyes and pointy chin. However, things took a sharp turn. His mother went from smiling at his father to raising her hand, clenching it, and then a building in the distance collapsed. She turned back to his dad as if nothing happened, taking a sip of some vanilla shake. Her dad picked up his phone and spoke into it, then they got up to leave.

“This is one of the many acts,” the lady said with a smug smile. “-in which we know your mother is a part of…”

Vulen waved his hand in the air, grabbing onto a chair as he sucked in a deep breath. “You want to tell me that my mother magically just caused some building to collapse? Instead of pining that on faulty construction or some kind of pre-planned attack by those geo bombs, you guys developed back in the day to prevent earthquake vibrations from affecting cities?”

“We thought so too until we discovered a significant number of magical incidents where people have shot fire from their hands, turned into giant beasts, or moved so fast that the naked eye could not track them.” The lady leaned back in her chair with a look that made her kind of cute. “We know your mother worked for some group because your father still does. Your father is also one of our most wanted terrorists and, as their son, he has already shown a sign of forging identities. Well, we want to know if you have the same magical ability, and how to harness it.”

“Woah,” he said, clapping his hands in a timeout sign. “You want to know what now?”

“You did not hear incorrectly. We have already captured many people like yourself who may have the same abilities as your parents. And we will turn you into weapons against your kind or well, you will end up in a little box, in the middle of nowhere.”

Vulen glances at the men in tactical gear. The weapons they held did not seem for show and his only choice for escape was through a thick glass window where he stood four flights above hard concrete.

“How do you even know I can do this magical thing? I have shown no signs and according to proper belief, I should have, right?”

The lady put the photos and file back into the briefcase. She climbed out of the chair and moved to the door as if she expected something to go down. “See, we developed this device that reads magical frequencies. This whole time we have been talking, you have been going off the charts.” The lady giggled. “Which means you are powerful and will be immensely useful to our efforts.”

Well, hell! Vulen leaned his head over the chair, hiding his expression within the confines of his curly hair. It would stop them from seeing the telltale sign of his glowing eyes.

“Stop him! He’s using magic!” The lady’s scream ignited his instincts.

Vulen lifted the chair and swung it at the most forward cop. He didn’t stop to see if the guy could tank it or not. If they came to tackle someone like him, they must be supernatural. Instead, he launched himself at the window, and the bit of magic he gather turned into a hammer similar to what destroys windshields on cars. The window in front of him shattered like fine china, and the wind slapped at him from all sides.

A stomach-turning sensation almost choked him, but his grip on his power added confidence to him. Halfway to the ground, he tugged on gravity, and his body jerked back, which made him vomit the tuna salad sandwich he ate for breakfast.

The crowd below him spread out while looking up with phones out. New era, eh? He landed in a three-point kneeling posture and stood up with a cocky grin on his face. They didn’t expect that, did they?

The sound of something smashing into the ground made him spin around. The two guys were pulling off the three-point kneel with such grace in their suits. They stood up, removing the one button holding their coats closed, and cracked their necks.

“Make this easy on us, hm?” The deep voice guy walked in a half-circle, spreading out. “We’ve done this enough times to understand how to take down people stronger than you.”

The other guy stood with the cuffs dangling from a finger. His casual demeanor gave the impression, this was just another day.

Vulen bit his lip. The crowd gathered together in a tight enough circle that if he ran, someone hiding within could kick him back out. It is something he would have planned in their shoes. Standing outside the FBI building might have been his mistake. He should have fled the first instance.

The biggest issue is that whatever he uses to escape these guys will make the next ones smarter.

Running a hand through his hair, he relaxed.

The cocky one motioned to the other cop, who shot forward like an Olympic runner.

Vulen had no plans on turning himself to be a tool that would die faster than smoking four packs a day.

He released magic through the soles of his feet, and the concrete soften, turning to a fine powder. He drop an inch and the cop dashed forward. Vulen punched out and pure magic shot out of his fist.

The dumbass shot back like a rocket taking off. Cocky cop surged forward at that moment, and a baton that crackled with sparks shot into his open hand. The guy carried a scowl like a professional.

Vulen waved his hand and the dirt underneath the concrete wrapped around his feet and pulled him straight down. He wouldn’t get far, but he didn’t need to go far. Just far enough away from these guys.