Growing up, Ethan always wanted to be an astronaut.

  Of course, very few people ever actually become astronauts, so when people picture themselves becoming astronauts, nobody pictures themselves going through the rigorous training process to endure the rigors of outer space. People never think about how hard they have to diet, train, and study throughout the decade-long process of going to outer space, let alone consider the risks involved.

  Similarly, whenever Ethan was down in the mine and he passed the time by imagining getting powers, he usually, if unwittingly, skipped over the part where he’d have to learn to control something nobody else on the planet could do. Luckily, Alex had some experience in the matter of learning to control superhuman abilities, and after she had finished her patrols throughout Ascension she spent nearly all of the free time she had over the past three months getting Ethan in shape to become a Protector, running him through a series of training sessions to help him gain a sense of control over his teleportation abilities.

  Ethan had spent nearly every night in the past three months either training with Alex in the forests surrounding Ascension as fall gave way to the brisk winter nights or, when he was lucky, shadowing her from a distance as she patrolled the city, watching as she occasionally responded to incidents where Altered were either desperate enough or misfortunate enough to cross her path. Normally, those encounters fell into two categories: either an Altered was trying to steal something valuable, like Vider, or a couple of Altered would occasionally target each other, making a power play for territory in a different sector of the city than they typically operated in.

  As Alex explained it to him, the Altered largely knew by now what Protectors controlled each sector and they would fight against each other for territory in a weaker Protector’s sector, potentially allowing for more successful operations. The stronger Protectors, like Titan, guarded sectors of the city that had more population or more valuable targets, like the state house or sports stadiums, and the lower powered Altered mostly avoided those wealthier, higher traffic areas.

  As Ethan trained with Alex, he realized it paid to be in Sector Two, the same one he watched over last night: it was close enough to Sector One that the Altered largely steered clear, instead targeting the lesser defended sectors four and five. Lately, he hoped to be placed in Sector two, guarding the Ace’s stadium and, conveniently, allowing him to watch all of their games, as mediocre as they may be. He pissed off Vider, who threatened retribution, but Ethan figured he could handle them, even if he had to call Alex for help. After all, she’d only be a few streets away if he was given a role in protecting sector two.

  But, of course, that was just a dream until he actually passed his evaluation, and his training had been rocky to say the least. Ethan hadn’t teleported himself directly into a mountain as he had feared he would, but he also hadn’t managed to land a single punch on Alex on the nights they’d sparred. Not that he necessarily wanted to, of course, considering he watched Duclaw nearly shatter his forearm trying, but even a tap would’ve been nice after three whole months of trying.

  What also would’ve been nice, as the sun rose above the eastern plain just a few hours after his all-night stakeout and encounter with Vider, was a few more hours of sleep before his evaluation later that morning.

  But as a shrill voice rang out through the chilly morning air, Ethan realized that wasn’t happening, either.

  “Hey, you’re not supposed to be here!”

  Why can’t anything ever be easy, Ethan groaned. He slowly opened one eye towards the direction of the woman’s voice, assessing if she was serious enough to necessitate opening his other eye, or if he could mercifully fall back asleep. With one partially open eye, he noticed the woman, wearing the tell-tale black jacket, matching pants and utility belt of a security guard. Ethan could just make out through his blurry vision a name badge that read Amber. She strode over to him angrily, boots stomping on the tile, confusion plain on her face.

  “What are you doing up here?” She demanded to know first, then: “And how did you even get up here?”

  Ethan understood the confusion; it probably wasn’t every day that she found someone sleeping on the rooftop deck of the Ascent hotel, commandeering a few of the lounge chairs and turning them into a makeshift bed, complete with a mess of pool towels as a very poor substitute for blankets. It was probably even rarer to find someone up here in January, when the deck had been locked and the pool closed for the winter season. There was no access from the inside of the hotel, but luckily for Ethan he didn’t exactly need to use the front door to get where he wanted.

  “One question at a time,” Ethan groaned, pleadingly, “I’ve had three straight months of rough nights and I was just about to fall asleep, okay?” He yawned loudly, stretching out on the pool chair and pushing himself onto his elbows. He brushed some snow off his towel blanket, then motioned for her to proceed.

  “What are you doing up here?” She asked again, more urgently this time.

  “Sleeping,” he answered, gesturing towards his arrangements. “Or at least I was trying to until you showed up.”

  “Why on Earth would you be sleeping up here? It’s January!”

  Ethan suddenly shivered, confirming that it was, in fact, a freezing winter morning, further evidenced by the sheet of lily white snow reflecting the early morning sun off the Lavender Mountains in the distance. His newly buzzed haircut wasn’t helping to keep him warm, and his white Apex trainee suit was thinner than he’d like it to be. Ethan would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t miss the warmth of his bed, but the truth was he didn’t quite feel welcome home and, not having any friends aside from Raz, he had been staying on the hotel’s roof deck for the better part of a month without incident.

  His current situation was, in a word, miserable, but at least he didn’t have to go home.

  “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?” Ethan asked.

  “I want you to leave!” She retorted.

  “Short answer it is. My name is Ethan Havoc, you may have seen it in the news lately.”

  “Oh my God,” Amber took a step back, reaching for what Ethan hoped was only a taser clipped on her belt. The suit, Alex assured him, was not bulletproof, and he had no intentions of proving her wrong. “You’re the person who blew up that mine in Stillrock!”

  “I did not blow it up,” Ethan corrected her pointedly, “I only collapsed one tunnel. It exploded on its own due to reasons that are highly classified but also not my fault.”

  Apex had, to the best of their ability, covered up the accident that gave Ethan his abilities, but Ethan suspected that Oscar the superintendent had leaked his name to the press as retribution for Rainey telling him his house had caught fire, allowing them to sneak into the mine. Apex quarantined the site, but they couldn’t stop the news from reporting that Ethan had, in fact, been in the mines when it collapsed and that he may or may not have played a role. Which, of course he had, but he didn’t like Amber’s tone about it.

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  She sputtered, her grip tightening on the black handle. He rolled his eyes, sighing heavily. He, of course, was leaving out a few key details, mainly why the tunnel collapsed in the first place, but she did opt for the short answers.

  “So you’re wanted?” Amber asked. “Is that why you’re sleeping out here?”

  “No. At least, probably not.”

  Exactly what Apex thought of Ethan was, even after three months, unclear. Alex never told him directly what Amory Webster, the creator and leader of Apex’s Protector program truly thought of him, but despite demanding he stay out of the spotlight, she at least tolerated his existence and hadn’t outright tried to kill him. For now, anyway, though with his evaluation looming, that was subject to change by the end of the day.

  Amber pulled up the walkie off her belt, presumably about to call for backup with real weapons, something Ethan would love to avoid. Realizing that was the wrong answer, Ethan pivoted. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Titan? Legendary Protector of Ascension, the reason we’re all still alive?”

  Amber’s eyes widened, her grip easing. She nodded.

  “She’s been training me for the past three months, and I’m about to take my evaluation to become a Protector of Ascension, joining the illustrious group she started a little more than a year ago. Should I survive the grueling gauntlet they’re undoubtedly planning to throw at me, I’ll be patrolling one of the sectors of the city, making sure vagabonds like me aren’t sleeping on your hotel’s roof. Or, you know, preventing real crimes.”

  Amber eyed him suspiciously. “Trespassing is a real crime,” she spat.

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Protectors only get involved in Altered-related incidents, not the day to day misdemeanors like miscreants sleeping on your roof. That’s where people like you come in.”

  “If you’re a big-shot Protector, why are you sleeping outside on the roof of a hotel you do not have a reservation for?”

  Ethan sighed, falling back into the lounge chair. He motioned for Amber to take the chair next to him. When she remained standing, he shrugged.

  “Blowing up that tunnel…also blew up my personal life,” he explained. “Apex provides all Protectors with apartments in the city, but I’m not exactly a Protector yet, just one in training. That also means I’m not exactly getting paid yet, either.”

  “So you’re kind of doing like…an internship?”

  “Sort of, except I get beat up a lot. And they still might deny me employment at the end. Does that make sense?”

  Amber shook her head. “No. Why would anyone sign up for that?”

  Ethan grimaced. “Well, as it was explained to me by Titan, Apex is in charge of evaluating anyone affected by the Surge. If you have powers, they need to know about it, even if its as simple as being able to change the television channel when you blink.”

  “Nobody watches TV anymore,” Amber pointed out.

  “Fair enough. So, if you want to become a Protector and actually get paid, you have to train for three months with a mentor and mine just so happens to be Titan.”

  “And what happens if you fail?”

  Ethan shivered again. He hadn’t really had time to think about what happened if this didn’t work. He couldn’t have gotten powers for nothing, and he Apex’s permission to continue using his powers so he could pursue Rainey, assuming she still planned to kill Alex. Which, she seemed pretty hell-bent on last time he asked.

  “I guess I’ll find a different hotel roof to sleep on,” he answered quietly.

  Amber shook her head. “Why, exactly, are you up here in the first place if you have such a big-shot mentor?”

  Ethan sighed. “Well, since I don’t have any money, me and my best friend, Raz, aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye right now, and we’re living together with my sister in her apartment. He’s supposed to be my PAL, my Protector-Assigned-Logisticator, but right now he’s less of a pal and more of a colleague who hates my guts and won’t stop leaving me passive aggressive sticky notes all over the room we share. I’m trying to give him space to cool off, so he takes the bedroom, and I take…mostly this hotel’s rooftop.”

  “What’d you do to him?” Amber asked, her tone more softer now compared to her other questions.

  Ethan paused, then shook his head. “You can break anyone’s trust, if you try hard enough. So now I sleep out here.”

  “Why here?”

  Ethan shivered violently against the wind, realizing how cold he truly was. “I’m going to do something,” he cautioned Amber, “and I’d really rather you didn’t shoot me with anything, okay?”

  “Does this have anything to do with your eyes being purple?’

  “This has everything to do with my eyes being purple.”

  Amber hesitated, then nodded. Ethan smiled, pushing himself out of the chair, stretching briefly and noting the stiffness in his neck from an ill-timed dodge that ended up with Alex’s steel hand whacking him right in the neck. He pulled up his right hand and opened his palm, summoning a floating void at shoulder height, extending to the ground. The void was oval in nature and had the color of shimmering purple, specks of black and silver catching the sun, glittering in front of them. It was eerily quiet on the deck as Amber silently took a step back, her mouth agape.

  “What the hell is that?” she demanded to know, her voice shaking.

  “Truly, no one knows. But it’s the first step into how I summon the portals that I can use. I’ve come to think of it as using a mirror in the dark. See, it’s there, but it’s blank, almost useless until…”

  Peering over the pool, Ethan spied Alex’s apartment just across the street on the same level as the deck, curtains and closet door left purposefully opened. As if he was standing right in front of the closet, he summoned a portal, connecting to the one in front of him. Now, the first portal reflected the position of the second.

  “The second portal turns on the lights, so to speak, and now I can use the first portal to reach through the second.”

  Ethan’s closet was plain in front of him and, reaching his left arm through, he grabbed his thickest black coat and a new, freshly washed training shirt provided by Apex, then pulled it back through the first portal. He shut his fists, closing the portals with a pop, pulling the new white, mesh shirt over his head and pulling on his jacket, zipping it up to his chin.

  “This rooftop is close enough to home,” he answered, burying himself into his jacket, “without me ever having to actually go home.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Amber said, folding her arms and who, judging by her body language, had finally deemed Ethan less of a threat and more of a loser. She was speaking faster now. “You can teleport?”

  “Anywhere I can see,” Ethan nodded. “I’ve visited a ton of mountain peaks. They all suck, by the way, so don’t bother going. Way too cold and windy. One time I got headbutted by a frightened bighorn too.”

  “So you could go anywhere in this city, hell, the state, and this hotel rooftop is where you choose to take yourself? Shouldn’t you be doing something…better?”

  “I’m trying,” Ethan bristled. “It’s not that simple, Amber.”

  “Doesn’t look like you’re trying to me,” she shook her head, “given you’re hiding on this roof by yourself instead of trying to repair your relationships.”

  Ethan walked dramatically to the edge, glancing out towards the Lavender Mountain Range. “If you find someone sleeping on your roof, don’t call me.”

  Amber shrugged. “I don’t really think anyone else would be sad enough to do this.”

  Ethan’s shoulders dropped. Wordlessly, he opened a portal in front of him and set off away from Ascension, out towards the mountains.