Nancy, are you streaming yet?”

  “Just a moment, Miss Lane. My camera should be online within the next few seconds and then I can start the stream.”

  Alanna Lane, student journalist and aspiring online streamer, brushed a few strands of her dark hair behind her left ear nervously. Because it was the middle of the night, Alanna couldn’t see much other than the glowing blue eye of her AI drone hovering in the air before her, although the security lights on the other side of the fence behind her did provide some illumination, at least. “Fine, Nancy, but let me know when you start the stream. I promised all of my followers that I would be streaming tonight’s big investigation into the Destiny Corporation and I don’t want to be even one minute late. Okay?”

  The small, cylinder-shaped drone, which Alanna had named Nancy, blinked its single blue eye once. “Yes, Miss Lane, I understand that your streaming career is important. You would not want to disappoint all five of your followers.”

  Alanna cringed. She knew that Nancy, being an AI-powered drone, lacked the sarcasm that more expensive AI drone models had, but it sure felt like the drone understood the concept better than she let on sometimes. “You don’t have to put it like that.”

  “How should I put it, Miss Lane? Across your various social media platforms, you only have five followers, two of which are bots, one of which is your father, and the other two are still undetermined but likely fake accounts created by spammers who will inevitably DM you to try to sell you something.”

  “Everyone starts at the bottom, Nancy. Now just shut up and tell me when you are streaming.”

  “I am streaming, Miss Lane.”

  It took all of Alanna’s admittedly limited self-control not to rip off the microphone from her shirt and throw it at Nancy.

  But as soon as Nancy said the stream had started, Alanna immediately went into what she called ‘streamer mode.’ She smiled and put her hands on her hips, gazing directly into Nancy’s camera. “Good morning, everyone! Or, uh, I mean, good night, since it’s midnight. Anyway, welcome to the Alanna Investigations Show, where I delve into all of the biggest secrets, rumors, and even conspiracies that plague New Gold City.

  “For new viewers, I always intend to get to the bottom of every mystery, whether we are talking about the barking ghosts of Ninth Street or the mysterious and reclusive Miss Grady and her army of mutant cats. Normally I record episodes and post them online after the fact, but tonight we’re doing a special live episode! Isn’t that exciting?”

  “It is, Miss Lane.”

  “Shut up, Nancy. I wasn’t asking you.” Alanna rubbed her forehead, trying to regain her composure. “Anyway, you might be wondering what today’s special episode is going to be about. Am I going to sneak into the Maxwell Mansion and find out if the Maxwells really do bury the bodies of their deceased family members in the walls of their family house? Or am I going to enter Alexander Fry High School and find out just why the toilets in the boys’ room are so noisy?”

  “Both of those would count as breaking and entering, Miss Lane, which are crimes.”

  “Yes, Nancy, I know.” Alanna was starting to regret streaming. Either that, or she was starting to feel glad that she only had five followers. She turned her attention back to the drone’s camera. “But I’m not going to tackle either of those mysteries, and not just because they are technically, to use Nancy’s favorite term, ‘crimes,’ either.”

  “That seems like a good enough reason not to do them, Miss Lane.”

  Alanna’s right eye twitched, but remembering the best tips for streaming online she’d read about, kept her composure. She gestured at the massive building behind her. “Tonight, I am going to tackle the single biggest issue threatening all of New Gold City, the one that teens and adults alike can’t stop talking about: The Anomalies.”

  As soon as that word left Alanna’s mouth, she felt a chill in the air, a chill that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the cold November night air. Nonetheless, she pulled her pink jacket tighter around her body and kept her composure. She’d heard rumors that even talking about Anomalies could sometimes summon them, but she had never seen any evidence of that herself. Just rumors kids told to scare each other.

  That’s what Alanna told herself, despite the creeping feeling of dread rising up her spine.

  Shaking her head slightly, Alanna leaned toward the camera, putting on her best mysterious expression. “But what is an Anomaly, you might ask? While I’m sure most of my viewers know what they are, at least if they live in New Gold City—”

  “Most of your followers do, Miss Lane.”

  “I know, Nancy, I know.” Alanna sighed. “Anyway, Anomalies are these mysterious creatures that have been popping up all over New Gold City over the last six months or so. They appear at random, cause chaos and destruction with their Warps, and then disappear as quickly as they appear. Most of the time they strike before the police can get there, and even when the police do get there in time, they usually can’t do anything about them. The collapse of the Jack McDonald Memorial Bridge last month has been attributed to an attack from a particularly dangerous Anomaly.

  “What are the Anomalies? Where do they come from and where do they go? What happens to the things and places they ‘Warp’? Even the city’s top scientists, such as Dr. Mark Bartholomew Wright of Hernandez University’s Physics Department, are mystified by these strange creatures. Yours truly attempted to get a quote from Dr. Wright about the Anomalies, but he was simply too busy to respond to my messages, so I am only quoting based on what the local newspapers have quoted him saying.”

  The actual truth was that when Alanna had reached out to Dr. Wright, he had told her that he didn’t have ‘time’ for a ‘make-believe’ journalist like her and told her to focus more on her studies than investigating something best left to adults.

  That made Alanna think even less of Dr. Wright than she already did.

  But Alanna chose not to mention that to her followers. She couldn’t undermine her own streaming career right off the bat by quoting from one of the city’s most respected citizens.

  Despite that, Alanna couldn’t keep all of the bitterness out of her voice as she continued her speech to her audience. “Regardless, the presence of the Anomalies has proven too much for the New Gold City police to handle, so there has been talk of recruiting superheroes from other cities to help deal with the problem. But will that actually play out, given the current gridlock among the politically polarized City Council? Your guess is as good as mine. Even Brainstorm, New Gold City’s resident superhero, has been unable to deal with the Anomalies.”

  Alanna honestly didn’t know how that decision would turn out. She just knew that her parents, both of whom followed politics far more closely than her, had talked about that particular decision for the past few months. She only threw it in to add intrigue to her current stream, though part of her hoped that they wouldn’t bring in supers.

  If only so Alanna could avoid talking about her grandfather.

  “But that’s all pointless background info that everyone already knows about by this point.”

  “If that is the case, Miss Lane, then why did you bring any of it up?”

  Alanna took a deep, deep breath. “Because you’ve gotta set the stage before the big show, Nancy. Anyway, the point is that no one knows for sure where the Anomalies came from or what their true goal is, if they even have one and aren’t just mindless monsters trying to destroy everything. But that’s where I come in.”

  Alanna once again gestured at the big building behind her. “Right now, I am standing outside the main manufacturing plant of the Destiny Corporation, run and owned by the eccentric billionaire, Richard Plutarch. This particular manufacturing plant is where AI drone companions, among other high-tech tools and equipment, are built and shipped all over the country and the world. Lots of workers in New Gold City are employed here and the plant itself plays a crucial role in the economy of our city, so it’s pretty much the last place you would expect to have anything to do with the Anomalies, right?”

  Alanna then leaned toward the camera dramatically. “Wrong! In fact, in recent days, there have been multiple rumors of Anomaly sightings in and around the plant. Some of the wilder ones even claim that Anomalies are being manufactured in this plant like some kind of bio-weapons, but I personally don’t believe that.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Regardless, there have been enough rumors, both online and in real life, that I decided that I, yours truly, Alanna Lane of the Alanna Investigations Show, should investigate them. And tonight, I hope to get to the very bottom of these rumors by entering the plant itself.”

  Alanna then looked over her shoulder at the tall security fence surrounding the building and muttered, “If I can get past this fence, anyway …”

  “What was that, Miss Lane? My audio receptors did not pick up on what you just said.”

  Alanna turned her face back to the camera and smiled. “Nothing! I was just saying that I hoped all of my viewers would stick with me while I find answers, answers that could potentially save the city itself from the onslaught of these destructive, mysterious creatures.”

  Alanna well and truly meant that. Sure, investigating the rumors of the Anomalies and their connection to the Destiny Corporation manufacturing plant made for great streaming content, but she did care about New Gold City and the destructive acts of the Anomalies. It wasn’t too long ago that Alanna had personally witnessed the destruction of the Jack McDonald Memorial Bridge herself, the event that got her interested in the Anomalies in the first place.

  Now did Alanna actually think she’d find any answers?

  Well, she wasn’t sure.

  The Destiny Corporation manufacturing plant was a massive facility with a lot of security. She had tried to get clearance to enter during the day, only for all of her requests to be rebuffed or ignored by the administration of the plant. It seemed like no one took her seriously just because she was a sixteen-year-old.

  A short sixteen-year-old, Alanna remembered a particularly arrogant security guard calling her when she came to the front gates of the plant a few days ago.

  Not my fault both of my parents are tiny, thought Alanna, a slight scowl crossing her features before she remembered she was on camera.

  Putting on her ‘camera face,’ as she called it, Alanna began walking along the fence and gestured for Nicole to follow, which the AI drone did, dutifully floating after her as if borne on a wind only she could feel. “Now, viewers, our first obstacle is to find a way into the facility. It’s extremely well-protected, but also pretty old, so maybe I can find a hole in the fence big enough for me to—”

  Alanna was interrupted by a crunch and a crash somewhere on the other side of the fence. She immediately came to a standstill, as did Nicole, hovering just behind her head, not making a noise. Alanna had gone silent as well, listening closely for the source of the crash.

  But everything was silent again, making her think that maybe she’d imagined it. She opened her mouth to ask Nicole if she’d heard anything—her AI drone was usually unfortunately honest about things like that—before she heard another crash, followed by a roar and a grunt.

  Instinctively, Alanna knew that had to be an Anomaly. It didn’t sound like a stray cat or dog or some other wild animal. And it seemed to be coming from inside the manufacturing plant.

  Part of her wanted to turn and run. It was as if the universe itself was telling Alanna to avoid the building and go home where it was safe. She was no superhero like Statesman.

  She shouldn’t be here.

  But another part of her, bigger and stronger than her scared self, told her that this was her one opportunity to launch her streaming career to the moon and get some answers for her city, answers that might just save it from the Anomalies.

  So Alanna took a deep breath to steady her shaking, cold hands and shot a smile over her shoulder at Nicole. “Did you hear that, viewers? It sounds like we might have found one of our Anomalies already. Let’s investigate!”

  “I am not so sure about that, Alanna,” said Nicole, her voice unusually concerned. “Anomalies are dangerous creatures. It might be wiser to turn around and go home, if the source of the commotion is, in fact, an Anomaly.”

  Alanna rolled her eyes. “Nicole, how many viewers do we have now?”

  “Right now? Approximately twenty. Why?”

  Alanna blinked. Twenty was still small potatoes, but it was four times as many followers as she normally had. Look likes I’ve got an audience now.

  “Then we’re staying,” replied Alanna. “I owe it to my audience, and to New Gold City itself, to find out if the Destiny Corporation is, in fact, connected to the Anomalies. So—”

  Before Alanna could finish the really awesome mini-speech she’d just come up with on the spot, a loud boom came from the plant and something exploded out of the roof of one of the plant’s buildings. The object, whatever it was, flew in an arc up into the air, over the fence, toward—

  “Run!” Alanna yelled.

  She ran along the fence, panting hard Nicole keeping up behind her without issue.

  But Alanna didn’t get far before the object, whatever it was, crashed onto the ground behind her. The blast nearly knocked Alanna off her feet, forcing her to grab onto the ice-cold metal fence with her bare hands for support. Nicole was nearly knocked out of the air as well but quickly righted herself and turned around to record whatever had been blasted out of the plant, turning on her built-in flashlight to provide extra lighting. She had been using her night vision mode to film up until this point, but Nicole seemed to realize that Alanna needed more light to see by than the light from the security lights along the fence.

  Alanna appreciated that. If an Anomaly had flown out of the plant, then this was their best chance to get it on camera. She let go of the fence and turned to see the Anomaly, despite her shaking hands and feet.

  But the being she saw lying on the ground several feet away from her wasn’t an Anomaly at all.

  Rather, it was a young man who couldn’t be that much older than her. He was covered from head to toe in a black bodysuit with glowing red lines, which conformed to the shape of his body, showing off his rather shapely muscles. Most of his face and head, other than his chin and scruffy brown hair, were covered by a mask. His eyes, which were currently closed, were uncovered, though again, they were closed, so she couldn’t actually see his eyes.

  At least, not until the man groaned and sat up. Shaking his head, the man looked around at his surroundings until he spotted Alanna and frowned.

  “What?” said the man—no, teenager, as his voice didn’t sound manly enough to Alanna to warrant calling him a man—in shock. “What are you doing here?”

  Alanna blinked but didn’t miss a beat. “Actually, I was going to ask you that same question. You don’t look like an Anomaly.”

  “Anomaly—?” the teenager looked around in alarm as if searching for a ghost. “Where is it? I saw it just a few minutes ago—”

  “So there is an Anomaly here?” Alanna did a fist pump. “Score one for my journalistic instincts!”

  The costumed teen stared at Alanna like she was crazy. “What are you going on about? This is a dangerous place, far too dangerous for a girl like you. You should leave.”

  Nicole spoke up. “That’s what I told her.”

  “Shut up, Nicole.” Alanna put her hands on her hips and looked at the costumed mystery man. “Pretty rich for a teenage boy like you to call me a girl. Self-awareness much?”

  The costumed boy, as that was what Alanna decided this guy was, rose to his feet and scowled at her. “I’m no boy, I’m a superhero. And as a superhero, I say this place is no place for a normal girl like you.”

  Alanna raised an eyebrow and looked him up and down, taking note of how tall he actually was. “Oh, yeah? Who are you, Mr. Superhero? I’ve never seen or heard of you before tonight.”

  The superhero glared at her. “You want a name? Fine. Call me—”

  Another roar from the plant, this one sounding much closer—too close for Alanna’s comfort—interrupted Mr. Superhero, drawing his and her attention back to the manufacturing plant itself.

  That was when a creature straight out of Alanna’s nightmares rose out from the roof of the building that Mr. Superhero had been knocked out of, spreading its bat-like wings across the sky, silhouetted by the full moon of the November night.

  And glaring down at both Mr. Superhero and Alanna with hateful red eyes.