“I’m trying to help the cit-“

  CRACK! was the only sound I cared about hearing as I punched the guy out of the second story window. I flew out the window to examine where he nded; the tall, nky “vilin” nded on his ass in the middle of the street; good thing his little corporate heist plot cleared the street out, because he would’ve left a dent in a car had he hit one. I punched him a bit harder than I should’ve but he should be able to take it. He’s-

  “What can he do again? He started negotiatin’ as soon as I came, I didn’t catch it.” I asked the nearest person while still in the air next to the building. The huddled near the cubicle behind me, scared but couldn’t turn away.

  “Bullet proof, at least.” One said.

  “He’s pretty strong too, he broke the guard’s ribs. He could be Montarine!”

  “Doubt it, the man is white, but understood, get away from the windows,” I told them as I flew down to the street to meet the guy. The guy’s red hair stood in odd pces, whatever mask he had ripped up by his face nding in the street. I couldn’t believe he was wearing such a outfit; spandex and tights had been lost their utility. I didn’t really care what he had to say, in any context.

  “You fuckin’ fake heroes, man!” the guy screamed. “Those fucks in there, the-their insurance policies, their-”

  “Look, brotha, this ain’t up to me to listen to. My shift is over soon,” I told before taking an offensive stance. It was true-our word is quite not allowed to be used as evidence because of “influential stature”, and I can’t bme them. I’d hate for a cop who can lift cars also have power over my jail sentence, or people calling for a vilin to be free because of these “nicer” heroes desires to be self righteous symbols. I just need my money.

  “Fine!” the man growled and he leapt at me attempting to hit me. I decided to let him-I figured I could take a little extra to indulge the fight-to see if he had something behind his punch.

  He didn’t. I barely moved. Annoyed, I wrapped him in a body lock and smmed into the ground, putting in a rear naked choke. He struggles, not enough to deter me, but enough for veins to bulge out of his head. One of his nails comes off as he cws at my skin before he passes out. Restraining his hands, I surveyed any damage to the surrounding area; just a small crack in the ground in the middle of the street from where he nded. Miami has potholes everywhere, but I’m sure they’ll fix a street full of businesses and hotel.

  “Mr. Landry! Mr. Landry.” I turned to see some small, pea headed woman ran towards me, microphone forward like a nce. Did I feel like speaking to some hyped reporter, bent on capturing the same story as st ten thousand rookie reporters?

  Seeing that regur authorities arrived, I walked towards her. Can’t be rude, right?

  “You’re actually giving me an interview?” she said incredulously.

  I sighed and wiped some dust off my knuckles. “Only so I don’t get fined,” I told her, checking the face of my watch. These new phone coded watches are so light. I couldn’t even read the face to tell the time; I started counting down from one hundred and eighty in my head.

  “You’re one of America’s strongest hero officers, yet everyday you choose to help out us with our street-level problems. What is your desire to stay at our level, rather than higher tier government roles, or even the GSSC?” Microphone stuffed in my face. I hated questions like these. CommisionerGraymond had given me perfect answers for shit like this, though.

  160 seconds. “The people at this level often miss out on the ck of anxiety that comes with havin’ powerful entities behind them. It’s better if some of us higher tier heroes-in all areas, paramedics, firefighters, private security, not just the police department-retain the cultural notion that superheroes protect all interests, not just those who can afford it or have operational seniority.”

  “And the GSSC?”

  “I think the Global Superhuman Suppression Corps is an organization built to handle threats that can’t have focus diverted from, and it wouldn’t optimal for my community and city for me to join them. Great team though, Ashlyn Nova and Bze are damn good additions. I haven’t met Mirae yet, but I’ve observed her work, and I think she’s overcome most notions of her alien detachment.”

  “And what does Miami’s favorite neon hero do after he’s done putting vilins to sleep?” the reporter asks with a small flirt in her eye on I could catch.

  90 seconds. Eh, that’s long enough. “He goes home. Back up a little.” She backs up, but still caught some the wind from my takeoff. Most of the noise went away as I flew directly into the air, absorbing the quiet of a completed shift. Up here, no questions, no reporters, no paperwork. Just wind. And me — still trying to believe this superhero means something more than a paycheck.

  / / / / / / / / /

  The door stuck a little, as usual, before letting me in with a groan and a jerk. The house was nice, one story, quaint. I didn’t bother to float — flying in the house always made Ma nervous. Something about “unnatural movement” triggering her vertigo.

  “Armon?” she called from the living room. That soft, drawn-out hum like she already knew something was wrong.

  “Yeah, Ma. Took down a walking foreclosure revenge scam on two legs. Yes, I broke a window, no I didn’t break anything more than one window.”

  Dad let out a whistle from the kitchen. “Second story right?”

  I dropped my boots by the door. “Nothing but net.”

  Their ughter was warm but tired — like the end of an old joke they’d told each other for twenty years too long.

  Nellie was in her usual spot, reclined on the couch with a heat pad tucked behind her back. She kept her eyes on the muted news screen — probably another segment about me, or someone pretending to be me, or someone suing someone for trying to be me.

  “You were on channel 5,” she said. “Again.”

  “Were they nice this time?”

  “They called you ‘America’s urban Thor.’” She gave me that look — the one that meant both ‘you need to slow down’ and ‘I wish I could still run.’

  “I didn’t ask to be needed, Ma, it’s just not many like me.”

  “You don’t ask to be reckless either, but here we are.”

  I sat on the floor near her feet, looking up at her like I used to when I was a kid and thought her back brace was armor.

  “You think I’m doing too much?” I asked.

  She exhaled — that slow, heavy kind that pulled at her ribs. “I think the world loves to watch bright lights burn out.”

  Dad limped in behind her, bancing two mugs with that off-kilter walk of his. “And we ain’t trying to bury another one of us,” he said, handing me the coffee I didn’t ask for but would drink anyway.

  “Ya’ll act like I’m invincible. Or worse Montarine.”

  “You’re not,” Nellie said. “You’re fast. Strong. Just not invincible.”

  I hated when they did that — slid guilt in under love like a knife between ribs.

  “I just… I’m trying to keep us good, alright? The GSSC folks don’t pay outside of benefits, and the city contract is decent, but not enough for a nurse and a wheelchair upgrade every other year. So yeah, I smile for the cameras for little extra promotion time. I punch the right vilins. I go to the city luncheons. I wave at kids who’ll grow up hating me if I don’t save them.”

  Silence.

  Then Ma said softly, “We never asked you to carry us.”

  I looked at her, and for a moment I didn’t feel strong at all. I felt like a kid who built a house of stone around a family of gss.

  “I know,” I said, pcing the mug down. “But you gave me your everything. Let me give you mine.”

  She reached out and brushed my cheek with the backs of her fingers, her hands stiff but warm. “Just don’t let the world eat you trying to feed us. If you break the wrong thing one day, it’s like a switch flip.”

  I nodded. Then stood.

  “Where you going?” Dad asked, already knowing the answer.

  “There’s a party downtown. College kids, old friends. I need to remind myself I’m still twenty-one sometimes.”

  Ma smirked. “Try not to punch anyone through a wall tonight.”

  “No promises,” I said with a grin, slipping out the door before the weight of the room could follow me.

  / / / / / / / / /

  The bassline hit like a body blow the second I stepped in. You couldn’t hear a damn thing over the music, but that was half the point. You come to clubs like this to forget, not to listen.

  Lana and Troy waved me over from the VIP section — the perks of being Miami’s neon mascot. I got to hang with whoever came to Miami to seem important and connected; athletes, musicians, politicians, tech bros. I didn’t even want the attention tonight, but it came anyway. People whispered, gnced, half-lifted phones like they were scared I’d short-circuit the feed just by existing. Just as much were the constant attempts at shaking my hand, buying me a drink or wanting a picture, all in the fuckin’ one minute commute to Lana and Troy’s table. Lana was a singer and Troy was a fourth string running back for the Dolphins. Both were good friends for me; successful enough to understand responsibility, not famous or rich enough to be absorbed in the culture.

  “About time,” Lana called, her voice smooth even over the chaos. She was glowing under the bcklight — gold hoops, deep blue lipstick, a little shimmer across her cheeks like she’d dipped her face in starlight. “What took you so long?”

  “Remember that question when it’s time for me to save you again,” I said, fshing a smile I didn’t believe in.

  Troy ughed and handed me a drink — tall gss, neon green, the kind of bitter that only existed in overpriced bars trying too hard. I downed half of it on instinct.

  Didn’t even buzz.

  I’d have to hit at least five more to feel anything real. My physiology metabolized alcohol too damn fast — one of the perks, or curses, of being built to survive. I needed to drown to get tipsy.

  Still, I stayed. Talked. Laughed. Watched Lana spin some drunk finance type in circles on the dancefloor. Tried not to think about the way my mother looked at me earlier. Or the crack in her voice when she said “bright lights burn out.”

  Then I saw him — tall, gloss eyed, gss in hand, the kind of drunk that mistakes slurring for swagger. He was already clocking me from across the room, narrowing in with the focus of a guy who thinks confrontation is forepy.

  He staggered toward our table, bumping past two women, one of whom clearly said “Don’t” — but he was too far gone for that kind of wisdom.

  “Ayy… you’re that hero cop, right?” he said, loud and grinning. “Neon Nigga-Man—whatever they call you.”

  Lana sat up straighter. Troy’s jaw set. My hand twitched on the gss.

  I held the line. Took a breath. It’s always you’re own.

  “What’s good brother,” I said ft. “Club going up tonight, ain’t it?”

  He ughed like I told a joke. “Man, they say you’re strong as hell, right? Fast? Bet you glow in the dark too. Like some kinda… Montarique prototype.”

  The word hit me sideways. I felt it in my mors. I’m not even Montarine, but its like calling a man a worm.

  I put the gss down — still mostly full. Stood up slow. Raised my hands.

  “Let’s not do this,” I said, as calmly as I could. “You’re drunk, I’m tired, and this ain’t a good headline for either of us, my boy.”

  But he kept talking. Of course he did. Because ego didn’t allow weaklings to recognize their pce.

  “You’re not even real. You’re just another b experiment they let wear a badge. A glowstick with a badge. What’s next? You gonna explode too? Like all them Montarique niggas do?”

  I heard Troy say “Yo,” but it was already too te.

  CRACK.

  My fist met his jaw before I registered the decision. He flew clean off his feet — full-body lift, full body tilt — and nded like a sack of meat on the dancefloor tiles. Tables shook. Drinks spilled. Phones went up like fireworks.

  He groaned on the floor, his mouth leaking blood, teeth knocked sideways like his dignity.

  I walked over slow, crouched beside him while he blinked up like a dropped puppet.

  “I’m human,” I whispered. “So if you got dropped like that by someone not Montarine, imagine how bad your day could’ve gone.”

  Security rushed in, stumbling over chairs. I stood up, hands already raised.

  “I’m cool,” I said. “He slipped.”

  People stared. Lana just looked tired. Troy shook his head once like he wasn’t sure who I was right now.

  “Armon,” Lana said, “You know this is gonna be a thing.”

  “Yeah.” I picked my drink back up and finished it in one swallow. “But at least I didn’t let that slide.”

  And then, like always, the music came back — like nothing ever happened. Miami kept spinning. The club kept pulsing. We kept ughing. The city would write its own version tomorrow.

  But for now, I finally felt a little quieter inside.

  And that would have to be enough.

  / / / / / / / / /

  They rolled up five-deep in two bcked-out vans — gss like ink, no insignia, doors thicker than any high-rise vault. SWAT didn’t usually call me in, but the second “Dust” hits the chatter logs, someone hits my line like I’m a goddamn bloodhound.

  The warehouse sat hunched near the old docks — rusted steel, peeled paint, silence so heavy you could feel it humming behind your teeth.

  “Entry in 90 seconds,” said lead officer Aimes, chin tilted up like I was one of his men.

  I said nothing, just stared at the structure. The building stank of heat and chemicals — I could smell the Dust even from here. It always hit weird. Like copper in your nose and static in your spine.

  The signal popped. Then the doors exploded.

  Gunfire erupted before we even cleared the breach. Muzzle fshes danced through the dark like frantic lightning. I let the SWAT team move in first — tactical, sweeping left and right — while I floated just above the chaos, scanning for something bigger than bullets.

  I found it.

  The man burst out of the shadows like a dropped boulder — 6’5”, easy 300 pounds, shirtless, pupils dited like bck holes. His skin shimmered faintly — Dust glow. Arms like bridge cables, veins bulging like he was about to burst.

  He saw me and screamed — not a word, just raw sound. Mad with power. High off Dust.

  I sighed. “Great.”

  He charged. I didn’t move. Let him close the distance — fists raised, stumbling like a rage-drunk rhino. His first punch hit my ribs and cracked the air like a gunshot.

  I barely shifted.

  He hit again, this time overhead. I caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted, and heard the joint pop. He shrieked. I smmed him into the concrete — once, twice, three times until the floor cratered and he stopped moving.

  Silence.

  SWAT cleared the rest of the floor — bags of Dust scattered everywhere. Syringes. Cook pots. Industrial mixers. Science without supervision.

  I stood, brushing gray dust off my jacket, breathing slower than my pulse.

  “Warehouse secure,” Aimes called over the comms. “We’ve got movement topside.”

  Then she arrived.

  A low hum buzzed overhead as Mirae Marie descended through a lightshaft — no wings, no visible propulsion, just pure will and alien tech. Her silver-white skin reflected the chaos below, and the glowing sigil on her temple pulsed with every step she took.

  A GSSC drone hovered behind her, scanning vials and tagging bodies. She didn’t speak at first — just surveyed the scene like it was beneath her.

  “Nice of you to show up,” I said, wiping blood off my knuckles.

  She didn’t look at me. “The GSSC already cleared this site on the intel level. We’ll take custody of the Dust for analysis.”

  “You’re welcome,” I muttered.

  Still nothing.

  I followed her.

  “What’s it doing to people?” I asked, matching her pace. “This stuff’s new. Stronger. Meaner.”

  “The subject was unstable. Dust does that,” she replied, still not facing me.

  “I’ve hit Dust-heads before. This one was different. Who’s mixing this?”

  Her tone stayed ft. “Cssified. GSSC property.”

  I stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Don’t do that cold GSSC shit with me. I’m the one catching fists out here. Not your drones.”

  She stopped.

  Finally looked at me.

  “You’re out of your depth, Officer Landry. Stay in your ne.”

  I clenched my jaw. My body tensed like it wanted to do something stupid. Something loud. But I didn’t move.

  I turned instead — to one of the captured cooks cuffed on the floor. He was sweating bullets, clothes sticky with Dust residue.

  I knelt down.

  “You know who made it,” I said. “Talk.”

  “I— I just follow orders, man—”

  I grabbed the colr of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. Just enough. Let him feel the difference between us.

  “I said talk.” My voice dropped low — that war-zone whisper cops use when the badge don’t carry weight.

  He squirmed, stuttered, pissed his pants — but he didn’t give me anything new.

  “I swear… just a voice on the phone, payments in crypto… I don’t know no names.”

  I dropped him. Not gently.

  Mirae stood over me now, arms folded. “Feel better?”

  “No.”

  “Well, like I said, Landry….there’s nes for cars like you.”

  She turned, floated back toward her drone, and just like that — she was gone.

  I stood in the dust and ruin of the warehouse, feeling more tired than heroic.

  The guy I fttened hadn’t even touched me, but I felt bruised anyway.

  / / / / / / / /

  The TV buzzed low in the living room, the screen spitting soft light across the couch where I half-id, still dressed, still sore.

  Channel 8 was doing their usual loop — cell phone footage from the warehouse, shaky shots of me walking out with Dust powder on my jacket like war paint. Someone yelled “That’s my hero!” over the static. Someone else asked if I was joining the GSSC.

  I looked straight into the camera and said, “No.”

  They ran it on loop like it was a political statement.

  The anchor smiled with that fake warmth they all use for heroes who haven’t gone rogue yet.

  “Armon Landry, Miami’s strongest officer and community guardian, led the charge on a major Dust b raid today. Experts believe the new strain of Dust may have been engineered from captured Montarine DNA, raising questions about GSSC regution and city-level vulnerability…”

  I muted it.

  Not because I didn’t care. But because I already knew what they were going to say. Praises. Questions. Warnings. Specution. Spin.

  I leaned my head back. Closed my eyes. Let the silence in.

  Footsteps — slow, measured, padded. I didn’t open my eyes until I felt a bnket drop across my legs.

  “You eat today?” Mom asked, voice calm like a ripple on a quiet ke.

  “Protein bar. Gss of something fizzy. Think it counts.”

  “You’re burning through yourself too fast, baby. Gotta put some real food back in.”

  “I’ll live,” I muttered, not really convinced.

  She sat in her recliner, rubbing her knee the way she did when her old brace didn’t fit quite right anymore.

  “I was seventeen when I signed up,” I said, staring at the ceiling. “They told me I’d get to help people. That it’d be hard, but not this. Nobody told me I’d be flying into bs full of overdosed giants and alien diplomats who treat me like a background character.”

  “You were a kid,” she said gently.

  “I’m still a kid, Ma. I just hit harder now.”

  She didn’t ugh. Just nodded like that truth sat heavy in her chest.

  “You ever wish I’d picked something quieter?”

  “Every damn day,” she said. Then smiled. “But then I remember what you said the day you got the badge. ‘I just want to be useful.’ You still are.”

  “Don’t feel like it.” I rubbed my temples. “Feels like I’m patching holes in a ship someone else keeps poking.”

  She picked up the remote and turned the volume back on.

  Onscreen: a street crowd gathered outside the warehouse. People cheering. Some with signs. Kids on shoulders yelling my name. One old man in a Dolphins hoodie said, “He makes us feel like we got a savior again. Like the city’s not all lost.”

  I stared.

  Didn’t blink.

  “Why’d you show me that?” I asked.

  She met my eyes. “Because not everyone has power, Armon. Not even a little. Some of them wake up and just hope they don’t get crushed. You give them breath. Don’t hate them for needing it.”

  I didn’t say anything. My throat felt tighter than it should’ve. I looked back at the screen, people waving signs I didn’t ask for, but accepted. A dichotomy I coupd

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “And they’ll save me, right?”

  She reached over, brushed her fingers against mine — stiff, aching, warm.

  “We will,” she said.

  I nodded. Didn’t speak.

  The screen kept flickering. Somewhere outside, the city kept breathing.

  And for one quiet moment, so did I.

  / / / / / / / /

  MIRAE

  I don’t breathe for necessity. That function was lost generations ago when the Vaeri abandoned reliance on atmospheric oxygen. But still, I perform the ritual. A shallow inhale. Not for survival — for alignment.

  There is value in synchronization. Even with broken worlds.

  The warehouse raid ended predictably. A Dust-charged brute. Insufficient regution. An over-emotional regional officer performing violence for a popution too afraid to question what lies beneath hero worship. All results within the GSSC’s threat-response range.

  I arrived two minutes after the takedown, hovering above chemical residue and broken masonry. Armon Landry stood there — fists cracked, posture defiant, ego unearned.

  He said something I’ve already forgotten. I did not acknowledge him.

  His presence was statistically unnecessary. His interference, mildly disruptive. His expression, however, lingered — as if he expected gratitude.

  Curious.

  Back at Central, the walls folded open at my approach. No resistance. No need. I am Mirae Marie of Vaer — observer, protector, mindform traveler. My existence is credential enough.

  Within the command dome, light hummed across a thousand suspended data threads. News reports, simutions, fg codes. One screen repyed Armon’s refusal to join the GSSC.

  “No,” he said, and they broadcast it as if it were doctrine.

  Humans mistake defiance for virtue. I’ve noticed this.

  Tango was waiting.

  Not physically, of course. His original body decayed years ago. What remains is his mind: uploaded, sharpened, multi-processed. A man who feared extinction so deeply he digitized himself into eternity. A humanoid silhouette of shimmering blue-light strands.

  “You’re te,” his hologram said, voice stretched and doubled with intentional sarcasm.

  “I am precise,” I replied. “Your systems allowed for a 33-second window. I used 31.”

  “Punctual,” he mused, “with a hint of disdain. Must be Tuesday.”

  He extended a digital hand — a net of light and logic, inviting me into the root.

  I did not hesitate. I rarely do.

  Link Established.

  [Neural Space: Tango’s Construct]

  [GSSC AGENT 300SOX MIRAE MARIE VAELARIXHUMANOID CONSTRUCT]

  We stood on a ttice of conceptual scaffolding — wireframes and geometric rivers stretched through simuted void. Beneath us, data flickered. Above, potential futures unfolded in cascading charts.

  “This is what I see,” he said. “My vision. The Suppression Corps as it should be — surgical, precise, impossible to seduce with ideology.”

  I nodded. It was beautiful. And fwed.

  Several strands were a constant pink color. One strand blinked red. A threat node.

  Diaspora Montarines: Activation Probability — Elevated.

  “Still monitoring them?” I asked. A machine obsessed. Or rather it was almost funny how Tango is still just a human posturing as a machine obsessed.

  Tango turned, eyes simuted but sharp. “They’re wildcards. Born of mixed blood, dispced cultures. Not fully Montarine, not fully Human. That makes them dangerous. Or useful. Or both.”

  He stared at me a moment longer. “But this isn’t why you’re here, is it? We agreed to this observer alliance 3 years ago, and you don’t want anything from humanity?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me.”

  I looked out into the digital stars.

  “I joined to travel,” I said. “To understand the worlds beyond screaming. To explore. To map stillness.”

  “You think we’ll ever have that?”

  “I think stillness is rare. But necessary.” Tango would never understand a ck of want for material because he hasn’t truly ascended.

  He didn’t argue. Tango enjoys logic more than hope.

  [Back in Reality: GSSC Central, Subterranean Base]

  The link severed cleanly. No burn. Only the faint residual buzz that reminded me Tango’s mindscape was not built for peace.

  “You alright?” Victor Misaka asked, appearing beside me with that grounded calm that humans seem to value.

  He was different. Human, yes, but enhanced to near-perfect thresholds — reaction time, muscle density, crity of purpose. A product of engineering, but one that retained softness. A rare fw. The Vaeri wouldn’t call it a fw, but amongst humanity…

  “Tango is consistent,” I said. “Though still very… fixated.”

  Victor nodded, half-smiling. “Yeah. That’s one word for it. Come on, I’ll show you the new wing.”

  We walked through Level 4 — the “spine” of the base. Steel, reinforced alloys, automated doors, biometric readers. All designed to contain entities far more dangerous than the humans building them imagined.

  “I read your report,” Victor said. “About the raid.”

  “Then there is little else to discuss.”

  “You and Armon don’t get along.”

  “He is emotional.”

  “He’s passionate.”

  “He is reactive,” I corrected.

  He didn’t fight me. That’s the thing that made working with Victor easy — he’s not here to win arguments. He’s here to hold things together.

  “I think he’s just trying to hold onto something,” he said after a pause.

  “Most beings are. That doesn’t make it wise.”

  We reached the observation deck. Below us, recruits trained against a Dust construct. They failed. Repeatedly.

  Victor watched them struggle. “Do you believe we’re making progress?”

  I thought about the data. The raids. The GSSC’s silence on the scientist who created Dust. The dimensional echoes I keep hearing in the background noise of space. The tremble before colpse.

  “No,” I said.

  He didn’t flinch. He’s used to truth, no matter how sharp.

  Then he asked, “Why do you think the world always needs saving?”

  I paused.

  That was a real question. Not a test.

  “You need evil,” I said softly, “to know what good is.”

  He looked at me, eyes not angry — just… sad.

  “You sound like you’ve given up.”

  “No,” I said. “I sound like someone who’s seen more than one world burn.”

  / / / / / / / /

  By the time I got to SW 7th and L’Onarre, the air was already thick with heat and hostility.

  The street hummed under the yellow haze of overhead mps, the pavement still radiating daytime sun like it hadn’t gotten the memo that night had fallen. Red-white barricades fnked either side of the block, manned by quiet cops too underpaid to argue with what was brewing.

  One side of the standoff stood with posture—Cassandra Jones’ people. They were dressed uniformly but casually: pressed shirts, subtle armbands, hair combed neat. No shouting. No chaos. Just presence. They lined the sidewalk outside the Montarine encve like they owned it—like the world had always looked like this and everyone else was trespassing.

  Across from them, the Montarine diaspora stood just behind the iron gates of LeDralis Commons, their corner of the city. Tired apartments. Faded murals. Fgs painted over windows in gold and deep maroon. And faces—dozens of them. Not afraid. Just… watching. Silent. But burning.

  I floated down, slow, nding just beside a busted bus bench tagged with some kid’s street name: “TlenaNoxl.” The wind carried the stink of salt, oil, cheap speaker static from a car parked somewhere too loud down the block. The kind of night where anything could tip.

  The Montarines saw me.

  “You here for us?” someone called out, voice low and steel-hard. A tall guy—light catching his golden eyes under the buzzing mplight. His skin shimmered faintly. Not Dust. Just heritage.

  I kept my voice even. “I’m here to keep this from turning into another headline.”

  “Means you ain’t here for us.”

  Didn’t argue.

  Didn’t need to.

  Cassandra Jones stood like a statue near the edge of the sidewalk, across from the Montarine side of the street. Her people spaced behind her like chess pieces, quiet but firm.

  She wore white scks, a red blouse tucked with military precision, and a delicate gold chain with a tiny cross — the kind of faith that meant control, not comfort. Her hair was pinned, her hands still.

  She looked at me like I was already on her team.

  “Officer Landry,” she said with that light voice of hers. “We were told you might arrive.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Then the Lord has good taste in dispatch.”

  Her eyes sparkled under the flicker of a bent streetmp.

  One of her men, younger, wound tight with adrenaline and too many YouTube rants, started pushing forward, yelling something about genetic threats and protecting our borders from inside.

  One Montarine girl—maybe sixteen—flinched. Just once. Barely.

  I crossed the street in two strides.

  Grabbed the kid by the colr before his next breath and pinned him against the stop sign so fast his brain didn’t catch up. I didn’t care that I also distrusted Montarines. Wrong was wrong.

  “Don’t make me fill out paperwork” I hissed.

  He froze.

  I heard a phone camera click. Let it.

  Behind me, the Montarines began to pull back. Not because they feared Cassandra. Not even because they feared me. But because they knew how this would be written. And they were tired of reading their names in other people’s mouths.

  Cassandra stepped beside me, as calm as a breeze.

  “You showed remarkable restraint,” she said, eyes still locked on the dispersing crowd.

  “Just crowd control,” I muttered.

  “No,” she said, gently, “this was affirmation. They know now. That we’re not alone. That we are heard. And that when the strong stand with us… perhaps God hasn’t abandoned His design.”

  Her tone never wavered. Her smile never faltered.

  She didn’t scream her hate. She measured it. Sharpened it like gss in a glove.

  “You gave them pause, Officer Landry. That matters more than anything else today.”

  I didn’t answer.

  I turned.

  And walked away.

  The street behind me wasn’t quiet—it was hollow.

  Like a breath had been held and never let go.

  Back at the house, the night had settled over Alinea Avenue like a bnket half-tucked. Neon signs flickered outside the bodega down the block. Wind rustled the hanging undry on the balcony next door. Lana and Troy were already inside, sprawled across the floor, yearbooks spread like archaeological finds.

  “This cover is heinous,” Troy said. “We all look like third-tier background extras in a YA adaptation.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Lana said, flipping pages. “I was the lead.”

  I barely heard them. My mind was still on the protest. On Cassandra. On the way that Montarine girl looked at me.

  I was scanning the shelves half-conscious when my hand hit something cold and metallic wedged behind a stack of tax folders.

  “Yo,” I said, “what’s this?”

  I pulled it out — a steel case. Unbeled. Seamless. Heavy in a way that wasn’t about weight.

  “Never seen that before,” Lana said, squinting.

  Troy came closer. “No hinges. No code. Feels locked.”

  My parents stepped in. Ma rubbed her eyes like she’d just woken up.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  I held it up. “Was in the shelf.”

  Dad frowned. “No idea. Might be from your uncle, maybe. Or old military gear?”

  But they didn’t look like they believed it.

  I touched the surface again.

  FLASH

  Smoke. Screams. Hands pulling me backward. A nguage I don’t know but understand.

  Gold light. A woman crying. A name said in an accent I can’t catch, said like a warning.

  A bde of heat through my chest and someone whispering, “Let him sleep until it’s time.”

  FLASH

  I dropped the case.

  My heart was racing.

  “Armon?” Lana’s voice. Somewhere far off.

  I caught my breath.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  But I wasn’t.

  Whatever was inside that case… it remembered me.

  Even if I didn’t.