The rooftop of the student hall was my new sanctuary, a place where the city’s skyline was a glittering monument to ambition and my own failures. I watched the sunset bleed out behind the architectural teeth of the skyline, painting the world in hues of orange and desperate gold before it was swallowed whole. It was a daily reminder that even the biggest, brightest things eventually get shoved behind something bigger and less interesting.

  A light jacket was a necessity now, a flimsy shield against the evening chill that did nothing to protect me from the metaphysical hangover Mister Bob’s “enlightenment” had gifted me. Our impromptu training session had bled hours into the afternoon, a fact he’d deemed important enough to officially excuse me from my other classes. Because nothing says “academic rigor” like a retired demigod teaching you how to breathe funny on a roof.

  In with the good air, out with the bad. Or, as Bob mystically termed it: essence in, chi out. Personally, I just called it “power-napping.” The man was convinced that since I could kinetically neuter a volume of air with a thought, I must be attuned to its “Dao” or “aspect” or whatever flavor-of-the-week woo-woo term he was using. I figured it was just as likely I was attuned to the Dao of Urban Smog or the Aspect of Desperate Loneliness. But hey, standing up here, gulping down lungfuls of semi-processed city air and mentally composting it into usable energy, was working. I’d recovered nearly half my reserves in a single day. My body still felt like it had been used as a punching bag by a team of angry kaiju, but at least the bag now had some air in it.

  The best part was the profound, beautiful emptiness. No social climbers like George, trying to recruit me into his future agribusiness empire. No instructors looking at me like a fascinating bug. Just me, the wind, and the distant sounds of a city that would happily forget I existed. It was bliss. A quiet, isolated bliss where no one could bother me with their inane—

  “The sunset is beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I damn near launched myself off the roof. Only a death-grip on an awning support kept me from becoming a very ironic pavement pizza. So much for situational awareness. I turned to see Mindy, out of uniform and looking strangely… normal. I’d taken my mask off to better taste the particulate matter, so there was no hiding the sheer oh, for fuck’s sake look on my face.

  I gave her a silent nod, turning back to watch the last sliver of sun get mugged by a skyscraper. She had the decency to wait until the sky had finished its final, dramatic performance before speaking again.

  In with the good air, out with the bad. And the unexpected interruptions.

  She fiddled with her silvery ponytail. “So…. Do you come here often?” She had the audacity to smile.

  I fixed her with a deadpan glare. “We’ve been here for two days, Mindy. I haven’t had time to establish a routine of ‘often’ for anything except existential dread and crippling energy debt.”

  She sighed. “They have me in something called remedial martial arts. Right now, that means I get pushed over again and again and again, apparently, until I learn how to fall over correctly. I don’t like being ostracized as the special needs kid.”

  “I’d think you’d have gotten used to that by now,” I said, a snicker escaping my lips. It was the kind of low-hanging, self-deprecating fruit I couldn’t resist.

  She stuck out her tongue. “Why I oughta… If you weren’t my sidekick, I’d give you such a pinch!”

  I chuckled, surprised at how easily the banter came. “You’d have to beat me first, and to do that, you have to learn how to fall. If it makes you feel better, when I got started, I had to do the same thing. I was a beefy kid, and I got progressively more pissed that this shrimpy Russian girl kept putting me on my ass. I finally took a swing at her.”

  “What happened?”

  I grinned. “I spent some quality time counting ceiling tiles and wondering why my spine and ribs had a new and intimate understanding of the floor. She was teaching Sambo. I figured, you know, big guy… the whole ‘size doesn’t matter’ thing was bullshit. Technically, I was right—if both fighters are trained, it matters a lot. But me? I was a hundred-and-seventy-pound pi?ata at a birthday party for someone who really, really hated pi?atas.”

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  She looked down at the roof gravel for a moment, then back at me, her expression turning serious. “I hate to do this, but you’re a Class Six now. A lot of the stuff you do is… interesting. I have to ask you.”

  “The answer is yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, you can spend lots of money on me, wine and dine me, and then brag to all your friends about how you caught the best-looking guy on campus and how amazing I was in bed with a two-by-four, a dishwashing brush, and a live hamster.”

  “Asshole,” she smirked. “But seriously…”

  I sighed, the humor draining away to be replaced by well-practiced lies. “The answer is sort of, I helped. Mostly with the flashy stuff. I have a pretty good working knowledge of fireworks and can trigger fuses from a ways off. Flash paper is super lightweight, and you’d be amazed at how easy it is to direct Roman candles with even a hint of telekinesis. I watched the fight, too.”

  “And the bomb? And him disappearing in a hail of sparkles?”

  I shrugged, a masterpiece of casual indifference. “His armor stopped most of it, and I healed the rest. The sparkles thing was pure stage magic, which you fell for beautifully, I might add.” It was a good story. A safe story. Bob might have unraveled the cosmic secrets of my Y chromosome, but the apportation was my ace in the hole, my get-out-of-jail-free card I wasn’t about to explain to anyone. The paperwork alone would be a nightmare.

  “But there was so much blood…”

  “Yes, and he’s totally fine. I am, too; you just caught both of us by surprise. I tend to try and coordinate the special effects, and if I’d known you were able to combine your kinetics with your ice for more than just personal defense, I’d have probably set up better counters. So I feel a little responsible as well.”

  “So terribly responsible. Did you get hurt, too?”

  I shook my head. “Not much. I just caught the edges. Still, if you wanted to pay off the D-Man, he probably wouldn’t turn down a new set of riot armor. You kind of fragged the last ones beyond my ability to repair.” See? Even in my cover stories, I’m a frugal businessman.

  She nodded slowly. “I can probably do my best with that. You know, I still get the sneaking suspicion that you are just bullshitting me, and you and D are the same guy.”

  I let out a short, derisive laugh. “Are you kidding? He’s a fire elemental. I’m just a fixer. Sure, I help rig things to look more exciting, but that’s pure PR. Besides, after a blast like that, I’d probably be covered with scars. Do I need to take off my shirt to show you again?” I offered, playing the only card I had that didn’t involve revealing my ability to spontaneously reassemble my own molecular structure.

  She smiled slightly, showing off a hint of a cute overbite and slightly larger incisors. Sooner or later, squirrel jokes were inevitable, but probably something she was used to and disgusted with. “You might.”

  I sighed, turning toward the stairs. “Maybe I should add ‘no flirting’ into our sponsor-sidekick deal. I am not here to meet girls. No offense, you are clearly a ten and a half on a scale from one to ten, but I have no intentions of turning into a man-slut. My heart’s a burned-out crater, and my bank account is a tragedy in three acts. There’s no room for romance.”

  She mulled that over. “Really, ten and a half? Is there a way to get to eleven?”

  I nodded gravely. “Yeah, but you would need to have been born with red hair and freckles. I am one of those awful guys who automatically adds two points for natural redheads. It’s a character flaw.”

  She snickered. “And if I told you I was born with red hair and dye it and my eyebrows to match the whole Glacier Girl aesthetic, and that it takes a lot of base to hide my freckles?”

  “Then I’d kick you out of my room and never let you in, even to study. I have my goals, and panting over a superheroine is not on the list. Financial solvency and not getting murdered by the BSA are numbers one and two.”

  “Speaking of studying, can we change and head to the gym? Apparently, my homework is to get in some cardio, and I suck at maintaining focus when I’m by myself… the whole remedial leper thing is bugging me.”

  “You didn’t have fitness yet?”

  She nodded. “I did, but it was just time in a team sports class, like high school, but with more plastic surgery. One of the guys in the martial arts class really impressed me, but Miss Pringle, who’s the improvised defense instructor, said that all of us who have not spent the last few years working out have to get in regular cardio. Something about it affects our power growth.”

  I nodded. “It’s true. Being an Alpha is a force multiplier, but both your power’s strength and your body’s attunement depend entirely on your fitness. That fitness can also help guide your power’s development. A fit body is a better antenna for whatever cosmic nonsense we’re tapping into.”

  “You know this?”

  “I lived this. Remember what team I was on? A lot of amateur cowls are in it specifically because heroing is too much damned work, and sooner or later, being a potato catches up with them. Hell, even the pro PR girls wind up getting themselves accidentally caught, often by normies who are just in better shape. It’s embarrassing for everyone involved.”

  “Okay, here’s my room,” Mindy said, pressing her palm to the lockplate. “See you in fifteen minutes. Actually, I just realized I need to deal with my makeup before I get there, so I’ll meet you at the pool in twenty!” she added before slipping into her room.

  The… pool?

  Ah. Of course. The final boss of awkward social interactions: semi-clothed athleticism.