I looked down at my hands and saw that they were marked with brown and blue bruises. My palms were coated with a persistent bruise as if I had clenched my hands too hard for too long. The back of my left hand carried a painful blue circle where I had blocked Electrozilla’s beam, and I could tell that my index finger was broken. I was able to open and close my right hand, but it trembled as it moved. Clearly, I had overexerted my telekinesis during the fight. Silver lining, I now knew the limit of my power.

  Slowly, I removed my earbuds as Sparrow approached me. In an instant, her arms were around my shoulders, and I had to stop my knee jerk reaction of attempting to kick her off the roof. After a second, I realized she wasn’t attacking me.

  “You did it!” Sparrow said, hugging me. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

  Cautiously, I lightly tapped Sparrow’s shoulder with my less-damaged hand. Over her shoulder, I could see the harbor where the upper crest of Electrozilla’s head still jutted out of the water. As I looked, it did not move.

  Good, I thought. With my hands the way they were, I could fight, but I would have to wait another few weeks before I could squish another kaiju.

  “Careful, I’m injured,” I said, and Sparrow pulled away from me.

  “What happened?”

  I showed her my hands, saying, “When I push out on the world, it pushes back, apparently. It’s news to me.”

  “Oh, Seraph can fix that?”

  “Who’s Seraph?” I asked.

  “She’s a Hero in the city who can heal any wound. Seraph wouldn’t help a small fish like me, but I’m sure she would heal you.”

  A superpower that could heal any wound? The idea put me on edge. If she could heal people, I suspected she could change their bodies however she wanted. In superhero fiction, the healers were always secretly the most dangerous.

  “No thank you,” I said, turning down the offer as calmly as I could manage. I made a mental note to stay as far away from Seraph as humanly possible. Images of disgusting, writhing flesh monsters flew through my mind.

  I took several steps away from Sparrow as she looked over toward the harbor. Even through the hood and mask, I could tell that she was smiling.

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  “It’s a miracle. There has never before been a kaiju attack that didn’t result in mass destruction of infrastructure and thousands of deaths.”

  I did not respond immediately. Instead, I allowed a long beat of silence while I kept my eyes locked on Sparrow. In a low voice, I said, “So, what now? Do you plan to take me to prison? I really wouldn’t recommend trying.”

  Thoughts of neutralizing Sparrow sped through my mind. If she attacked me, how could I stop her nonlethally? Could a mutant survive falling from a forty-story building? I could probably throw her onto a neighboring rooftop and then fly away on a chunk of concrete. She would end up with some bruises but would be otherwise okay.

  “What?” Sparrow said, legitimately confused. “You just saved the city! Nobody would think of arresting you now!”

  “Right,” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

  Sparrow held a hand up to the communicator in her ear. After a few seconds, she said, “The Speaker of the House says she wants to thank you in person. Governor Sutton also wants to meet with you.”

  There would certainly be hundreds of cameras at the meeting as well. If I went to the meeting, I would definitely be used as a political tool. At that particular moment, I wasn’t interested in being used.

  What if Sutton decided I was a threat? I looked down at my hands and figured that I could use less than 50% of my total power at the moment. He was a Level 3 Genius. A fight against him would require all of my power.

  “No,” I said firmly. “Not right now. If they still want to talk to me in a few weeks, I’ll do it then.”

  “Why not!?” Sparrow demanded.

  “Unlike you, my skull is just as vulnerable to bullets as anybody else. If Kingfisher decides I’m too big a threat - by the way, I am - then he might just shoot me. If he catches me off guard, that’s it.”

  I turned my back to Sparrow and carved a large piece of stone out of the wall. If I used my power very carefully, I could probably use that piece of stone to fly through the air.

  “You don’t have to trust Kingfisher,” Sparrow said with anxiety in her voice. “Just trust me. Don’t run off. Come with me.”

  I paused, rubbing my fingers against my neck. How long until the government turned against me and I ended up in prison again? I sighed and came to a decision.

  “Okay.”

  Back in the Albatross, I changed back into the clothes I was wearing when I appeared in the middle of New Kinsington. The large floating vehicle flew west deeper into the city.

  After a few minutes in the air, I spotted a massive wall that reached high into the air, dwarfing the small buildings around it. The Albatross landed on a platform built into the side of the gargantuan wall, and a dozen metal spider-like appendages reached out and clamped the vehicle to the platform.

  Sparrow and I stepped out of the Albatross and entered a large room that was built into the wall that surrounded the city.

  “This is my home base,” Sparrow said, gesturing to the rest of the room. Heavy pieces of industrial equipment and racks holding dozens of electronic devices were scattered around the room. It met my expectations for the workshop of a Genius.

  “Sorry to intrude,” I said. “Do you live here?”

  “No,” Sparrow said as she disappeared behind a shelf holding thousands of magnets of various sizes. “This is just my workshop. I live nearby.”

  She stepped back out into view, and I was shocked by what I saw.