Ryan pulled me out of the bullets’ path a moment before they hit me. I only survived because Ganymede’s body was so sturdy, and it took almost two seconds for the flurry of gunfire to rip through his flesh.

  “Fuck!” Forgemaster screamed as everyone dove for cover by the cell block’s exit.

  “What are we going to do now!?” Salieri shouted, almost on the edge of tears.

  I didn’t comprehend any of their words. The sudden, jarring death of Ganymede had thrown my mind into action. There was no time to talk, only time to deal with the problem.

  Probing, my hand reached forward cautiously, and I could feel as it disapparated into nonexistence the moment it touched the mist. It felt just like when I tried to tear my collar off with telekinesis.

  With minimal resistance, one of the nearby cell doors was torn from its hinges. Without leaving cover, I threw the heavy metal door into the bent hallway. Where I was standing, I could see that the gun was no longer firing through the open doorway.

  I removed a quarter from my pocket and imagined an ethereal hand pinching the quarter between its thumb and middle finger as if it was about to flick the quarter. My own hand contorted into that same shape, and the quarter began floating in the air, vibrating with intense potential energy.

  Taking a chance, I stepped out of cover. The machine gun was pointed downward toward the bullet-riddled cell door. It seemed to sense me, and its barrel began to swivel upward as soon as I left cover.

  I flicked the quarter, and a crack rang out as it broke the sound barrier. The quarter - now a splattered lump of liquid metal - struck the machine gun, shattering its internal mechanisms instantly. A deep divot was dug out of the turret’s metal housing, and a deep hole was dug into the concrete behind the gun.

  There was a long beat of silence while I sat in cover and looked to see if anything else was going to pop out.

  Through gritted teeth, Forgemaster said, “Come on!”

  His legs wobbled noticeably as he stepped into the hallway. Once it seemed safe, the other prisoners entered the hallway, and I followed after them.

  Falcon was the most upset by Ganymede’s death. “Shit!” Falcon swore. “He’s always been such an idiot! I told him this would happen! I told him!”

  Awkwardly, Forgemaster said, “Is there, uh, something you can do, Shaman?”

  “I could make him into a pyromancer zombie once all his cells die,” Shaman said, a mirthless grin on his face.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Falcon shouted at Shaman.

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  “You knew him well?” Shaman asked, one eyebrow in the air.

  “He- he was my brother,” Falcon said, trying to hold back the tears.

  “Then he would want you to escape,” Shaman said, and there was no hint of deception in his voice. “First, we’ll escape, and then we can destroy the system that put us in this hole with bombs on our necks just because of the way we were born!”

  Shaman was making an uncomfortable amount of sense. A more inexperienced person would have been persuaded by that statement, but I knew that I was only seeing one side of the system. I would need to see more of the world before I decided who was good and who was evil.

  Forgemaster, Salieri, and Falcon nodded emphatically as Shaman spoke, and I knew the Brotherhood of Evil had just gained three more recruits. I didn’t say anything to deny Shaman because, honestly, I was seriously considering changing sides as well.

  On the other side of the bent hallway was another locked door. After looking around for a few seconds, I realized that there was no way I could open it on my own. There was heavy mist on each side of that door, and I couldn’t get a good shot on it from inside of the cell block.

  “I can’t open this one, guys,” I said, frustrated. That door annoyed me far more than it should have. I felt like a child who had, for the first time, found a shelf that was too high for him to reach.

  “Let me try,” Ryan said, walking up to the heavy locked door. He placed his hand near the locking mechanism, and his expression tensed in concentration.

  “How are you doing that?” I asked.

  “There isn’t any mist in the lock itself,” Ryan said with a smile.

  After a few seconds, a dull thunk echoed inside of the door, and Ryan said, “Got it.”

  The door opened, and I followed Ryan out into a wider hallway with a much higher ceiling. At one end of the hallway, a long elevator shaft rose into the ceiling above, and a staircase beside it stood unguarded.

  To my shock, several guards were lying prone on the ground, groaning in pain or completely unconscious. Standing over these bodies was a woman wearing concealing clothing and wielding a metal baton.

  “It’s Sparrow,” Ryan said with worry in his voice.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “She’s a Hero who works for New Kingsington.”

  I turned around and quickly took stock of my situation. Only Ryan and I had stepped out into the large hallway, and the rest would step out within seconds. If Shaman and the rest were to run into Sparrow, they would almost certainly fight, and either a win or a loss would be bad for me. Either I’d be sent back to prison, or I’d have to add “maiming a superhero” to my ever-growing rap sheet.

  I took a step away from the door to free myself from the Mandeville Mist and took a quarter out of my pocket. I flicked the quarter at the door, and it slammed shut. Three more quarters slammed into the door, and the force caused a heat-weld to fuse the door and the wall together.

  “Sorry, guys,” I said, and a part of me believed it.

  Shaman and the other prisoners attacked the sealed door and began shouting obscenities. I couldn’t hear them as the female Hero approached me.

  “Sparrow,” Ryan said uncomfortably, realizing he no longer had a choice to return to his cell. “What brings you around these parts?”

  “Are you Macro-Kinetic?” Sparrow asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said, subtly preparing for combat. One way or another, I wasn’t going back to my cell.