Rhythm felt the firm ever present sensation of her headphones. Her playlist was on shuffle and it hadn’t disappointed.

  Smooth guitar music flowed into her ears, and her wish responded.

  She danced. That was what she called it. The moment when the noise of man gave her power. It was her dance, her moment, her wish.

  She leaped off into the air. She couldn’t fly and she didn’t have any durability abilities. No, without music she was nothing but a regular person, but with music she could breathe.

  With music she could dance.

  Her body caught on the notes and the music gave her flight.

  She laughed in time with the song and the air whizzed by as if it sought to just touch her hair.

  She had always loved music. She had been that girl with her headphones on, always nodding to her own beat. Always irritated when someone wanted to talk to her.

  Then she got a call.

  She sighed, pushing off the irritated emotion until she could find a safe place to land. She skipped onto a small roof and answered.

  “Hey Sam, we got a call about two miles away from you down at the pier. There’s a bunch of battle drones and they’re targeting someone, want it?”

  Two miles? She thought.

  “Sure. Send me their location.”

  “Already sent!” The voice chirped.

  Nevaeh was great. She never took Sam’s bluntness for rudeness and back when Sam had just been a vig, her respect and quick responses were the thing that had brought her in.

  “Play something fast,” she spoke.

  Her headphones switched immediately to a fast tempo rock song.

  ‘Thunder!’ By ACDC

  It was an old song, pre upheaval and then some. But music never got old. The language might change, the style might become outdated, but music?

  Music never expired.

  It was the oldest art form. Before cave paintings and writings, you had people humming to their children as they walked. Before even human sentience, you had birds singing about the wind.

  It was older than humanity and it would probably outlive it, she thought.

  Then she ran, and even though she was not a speedster, the music made her one.

  ********

  I was hoping it would be an either or situation. It was not. Both of them were called and the one that got her first was the speedster, carrying his girlfriend on his back.

  I sighed. Being in the business, you were bound to run with your peers eventually and while I had interacted with them from a distance, I had never talked to them.

  On the bright side, they wouldn't recognize me. They couldn’t really. They didn’t even know me now. My voice had changed but I always used a voice changer on top of it, and as a person, I had changed considerably since they’d known me. I was practically an entirely new person.

  “Combat drones are after this guy. He works for some villain he’s too afraid to name.”

  “Want me to take him and run?” Caleb asked, or rather QuickNick.

  “How fast can you go?”

  I already knew the answer.

  “About Mach 2 on a good day.”

  “Nah,” I replied. “They have a Major A on the way and I’m pretty sure he has high speed drones somewhere in the bunch.”

  Caleb nodded.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “You’re letting me take the lead?” I asked.

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  “Well you've been working on this for a while now and Mike spoke highly of you.”

  I heard the sound of drones getting closer.

  “How fast can your partner go?”

  “I’m enhanced,” Kayla answered. “So about fifty to seventy miles per hour. But my main ability is punching.”

  I knew this too.

  “Alright, I’ll fly low with PunchStar, Nick you can circle us and take out any drones with your raygun, that works?”

  “Sounds simple,” he nodded.

  “Easy,” she shrugged.

  This was immensely uncomfortable, but thankfully they couldn’t tell.

  Some might think I hated them, and I did. But I had learned at some point you had to let it go, for personal reasons at least. I still didn’t like them and I certainly hadn’t forgiven them.

  But nowadays, I was more apathetic.

  Caleb and Kayla were never the reason I had got little to no contact with the rest of my family. They were just the straw that broke the camel's back. Well- they were the giant log that broke the camel’s back.

  But the biggest problem hadn’t been Kayla’s cheating. If it was I could just not talk to the two of them and still have my family. It was how everyone made excuses for them. It was how everyone expected me to forgive them. It was the way my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends expected me to be so understanding about it.

  Only a few people knew about their hero business. Grandma, my parents, and a few siblings, but even those that didn’t know had asked me to forgive. They had just pushed aside my feelings.

  And I probably would have too. If it wasn’t for that wish, I probably would have crawled back to them and said it’s okay, I understand.

  I probably would have been his best man.

  But unfortunately for them, I got smarter. I saw the way everybody treated me and realized that I was everyone’s last priority. The only people that cared about me were grandpa and grandma, and they were on their way out. My dad didn’t even know my interests or future plans. I had just moved out to work and live with my grandpa and that had been fine for him.

  Everyone in my family had something to be proud of except me. My siblings were successful, Caleb and Kayla, everyone had done something.

  I think we celebrated my birthday a few times when I was a kid. After that I started getting cash because they would forget and I would remind them the day of. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I could get cash on my birthday instead of a party. That was awesome to a kid.

  I was bad at school and bad at reading people. I wasn’t braindead, but in a family full of geniuses and overachievers, I was treated like a moron. I was the last priority, if I was even considered.

  I tried to keep numb and focus on the mission at hand.

  We weaved through the buildings, me keeping low and out of sight.

  Caleb came back with a few drone parts in his hand and a smile.

  I sighed.

  “Don’t attack them if they don’t notice you. You’ll just bring more attention-”

  The drone was still blinking.

  This fucking dumbass.

  “It’s still active and tracking us,” I said to him with a shrug.

  He looked down at the light, eyes widening.

  He had been in this business for what? Nearly a decade? He raised his hand, about to throw it away.

  “No,” I stopped him. “Stay here and wait, me and PunchStar will go the other way. You keep moving in this trajectory at the same pace. Then you can catch up with us in a few minutes.”

  “Yeah sure-”

  I had parked my drones on various rooftops within a mile radius and while they weren’t flying, they were certainly active.

  Mike: Rhythm just accepted a few seconds ago. Give it ten seconds and she’ll be right there.

  Me: Cool.

  I sent Mike an update on our location.

  But what concerned me more was the growing group of drones locking into our location. We couldn’t move now that the Major A was on her way.

  Oh well.

  “Change of plans. Take down as many drones as you can.”

  I opened a dumpster and threw Jace in it. There was a lot of trash inside. Good.

  He started squirming.

  “Either you stay with the trash or you get shot, pick an option.”

  “But-”

  “The trash is good. It will help hide your heat signature. Also give me your phone and electronics.”

  He reached into his pockets and gave them to me.

  I took them.

  “Passcode?”

  “Come on man-”

  The sound of ray guns came from the corner.

  “One Five Seven Three Eight Seven.”

  I put it in. I had touchpads at the bottom of my talons for this specific reason.

  The couple had already gone off to fight the drones.

  I was going to get whatever information I could out of this guy before the Heroes Union took over the investigation.

  “Shit, there are like a hundred of these things!” I heard one of the cheating duo yell.

  And they were flying which made them impossible targets. I was better off fighting the drones at this point. But I needed this sweet sweet info before the Union got to it. I plugged in my adapter and cloned everything, except for his blackline, but I took down all the access codes on his blackline and copied his logs.

  You couldn’t clone blacklines. They were unhackable.

  “Does he have any good music?” Someone spoke.

  I jumped.

  “Hehe,” a girl chuckled. “You shouldn’t do that, you know.”

  I looked to my left and found a girl wearing an oversized shirt with some tight gym shorts on and headphones so big they could have been mistaken for a helmet.

  She wore a tight full body suit as well as a mask, but that was all underneath the shirt and shorts. She looked like a girl heading to work out at the gym.

  “Those the drones?” She asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Cool,” she nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

  Then the music started.

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