1997-

  Shirou Mirota pointed an index finger at a cardboard target. The target blew up. He

  worked his way down a line of targets that flipped up when he approached. He paused

  when he thought he had blown up the last one.

  He felt a little more normal despite his increase in ability. The coating the Institute

  had developed seemed to be working as intended. A few minutes of blowing things

  up on the target range and he hadn’t sprung a leak yet.

  And the sensors hadn’t sounded the alarm. That meant he was safe at his current

  expenditure of power. His new biology made it difficult to judge, but he felt like he

  had jogged a mile.

  He wondered how long he could keep shooting beams of fire before he actually

  exceeded a limit. At least inside the Institute, he would know when he was a danger

  to others.

  If he sprung a leak, an alarm would go off. Then sprayers would drop a chemical

  radiation absorber on him. Then all he had to do was wait for a mobile room to take

  him back to his quarters.

  He might be able to get some sleep if this kept up. It might be nice to dream again.

  His new condition had eliminated the desire and need to sleep, food ingestion, and

  most normal bodily functions. The lab people suspected that was because of the metal

  and energy conduits buried in his body.

  It was hard to be hungry when your heart was a nuclear battery guaranteed to run for

  another two hundred years.

  He briefly wondered what he could do when his battery eventually ran out of power.

  Another target popped up in his face. His hand came up. The target blew apart under

  the heat wave he generated.

  Shirou paused. Then he looked around. Hopefully, no one had noticed the blast.

  He needed to work on that. He didn’t want to throw around enough power to cut

  through the range. That might hit someone in some other part of the building.

  He didn’t want to kill someone on top of everything else he was trying to fix.

  A siren went off. He looked around. What was going on? What should he do? Did

  something need to be blasted?

  “Emergency teams report to launch pads.” Misa sounded panicked over the PA

  system. “We have had a major earthquake. Emergency teams report to launch pads.”

  Shirou frowned. At one time, he would have been grabbing gear and running to the

  pads. The Institute responded to major disasters all over the country, and he would

  have been in the middle of the action.

  Now he was stuck in the building, hoping that his makeover wouldn’t cause him to

  blow up if he was stressed enough.

  He walked to the exit. Maybe he could use this as cover so he could get out in the

  field again. It might be good to get his hands dirty again after spending so much time

  trapped in his room.

  All he had to do was get out of the building and fly to the disaster area. He decided

  it was a lot easier to think of doing it, then it would be in doing since Security would

  want him to stay put.

  He thought he could punch through them if he wanted. The problem was he didn’t

  want to do anything like that. They would be in the right. His power was largely

  untested, and one wrong move could have him spilling radiation on anyone and

  anything close to him.

  Maybe he could join the crews heading for the helicopters. He would have to be fast

  and blend in until they reached the scene.

  Shirou decided to take the stairs to the hangar level. He flew up the six levels and

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  paused by the door. He put in his code to open the door to get on the floor. The large

  doors were sliding open to let the aircraft hover up and then head toward the

  emergency.

  He noted several people were pointing at him. He had to do something if he wanted

  to get free. He looked up at the exit. Then he was gone from the hangar in a blast of

  wind.

  Shirou smiled. Dr. Yamada would not like his violating the safety guidelines. He

  would deal with that when he had to. Now he needed to find out where the disaster

  was and see what he could do to help out.

  He should have taken the time to find out those facts before taking to the air.

  He flew toward the city. The Institute’s grounds were outside the city, but within

  sight. He knew there was a news feed running on some of the signs in the shopping

  areas. He just had to find one, and see where this earthquake was. Then he could fly

  down to see if he could lend a hand.

  Shirou found the Sony large screen right where it had sat before his self-exile. He

  landed on the sidewalk in front of it and watched as news unfurled in front of him.

  Three minutes in, the broadcaster talked about the heavy destruction in Kochi. It was

  miles to the southwest of Tokyo, the Institute’s base city.

  How fast could he fly?

  That was a question he had never really asked himself. How fast could this new form

  go in the sky? He looked to the southwest. The Institute and the DF would be on the

  way to the area. Could he beat them?

  Did he want to?

  Shirou smiled. Yes, he did want to beat them to the scene.

  He headed into the sky. He willed himself to go faster. He passed the Institute, and

  kept going. Helicopters were in the sky ahead of him. He went around them instead

  of tearing through their formation. He didn’t want them to crash just because he had

  slipped his leash.

  He reached Kochi a few seconds later. He hovered over the scene, trying to figure out

  where he could start. Several buildings had collapsed around what looked like a

  fissure.

  He decided the best thing he could do was try to move some of the debris away from

  the town. People might have been trapped in the collapses. The faster he could dig

  them out, the less other rescuers had to do.

  He landed quietly beside a mound of rubble. He wished he had super senses to go

  with the rest of the powers the liquid had given him. Too bad a x-ray machine had not

  been in the room when he had been forcibly transformed.

  He decided that out of the options he had, blasting everything was out. He didn’t want

  to cause a collapse on someone waiting for rescue, or blow them up. That left his

  strength and physically moving things with his hands, or the gravity control he used

  for flight. Gravity seemed the safest to use until an expert showed up to give him a

  more efficient way of doing things.

  Shirou concentrated. Rubble floated upward. He worked his way around the closest

  pile until he had a majority orbiting a central gravity. He found some people at the

  bottom of the pit. He smiled when one of them took in a breath.

  He moved his wrecked building to a cleared spot and gently put it down. He pulled

  the wounded from the excavation with his power before setting them down out of the

  way. He headed for the next pile of rock to start excavating there.

  People were on the scene, trying to help him. He waved for them to move back. He

  didn’t want to lose control over the gravity and hurt them or anyone buried under the

  ground.

  One wrong move could bury someone under a unknown weight with no way of

  digging them back up.

  He didn’t need that on his conscience to go with whatever risks he was undertaking

  just being there.

  The helicopters arrived as he worked his way through another pile. Dr. Yamada

  jumped from his vehicle before it could settle on its skids. He held a Gieger counter

  in his hand. It barely registered anything in the air.

  “What are you doing?” Yamada placed the counter on the ground.

  “I am digging up anyone buried that I can.” Shirou moved his turning ring over to

  another area and let go. Hopefully, his powers were making a difference.

  “How big an effect can you do with your powers?” Yamada glanced at the counter.

  Everything was normal according to it.

  “I don’t know.” Shirou looked around.

  How much could he move at one time? He had never thought how much he could

  move at one time. Maybe he could move everything at once.

  “Workers are coming in to help us.” Yamada noted the helicopters. “Can you move

  all of this rubble to a safe spot as you’ve been doing with the smaller piles?”

  “I don’t know.” Shirou held up his hands. “I think you might want to clear the area

  while I try.”

  Shirou closed his eyes and concentrated. He had never tried to expand his powers

  over such a large scale before. He might break himself in the attempt. Dr. Yamada

  was right. He had to work better than what he had been doing. He felt energy running

  through his body as he tried to clear his head.

  He could do this. He could move everything. He was a star. Everything shaped itself

  to his bidding. He smiled at the energy activating from his battery heart. He opened

  his eyes.

  Why was everything so small? He raised a hand and compared it to a nearby building.

  He was a giant. He closed his hand. He was a giant, and he still had a job to do. He

  just had to be more careful than what he had planned to be.

  Could he move everything? Yes, he could.