With everything else that had gone down on the day of the practical exam, the incident on the train that preceded it had fallen to the wayside a bit. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’d forgotten it entirely, but in my mind it had been a solved problem that I didn’t need to devote any further attention to.

  Maybe that was a dick move. It probably wasn’t a minor incident at all to Alanna, and in a way I had to admit it wasn’t a minor incident for me, either. Quite aside from earning me Tempest’s thanks—to the point he’d offered to sponsor me into AA himself—it had also been the first time I’d faced a supervillain in real life.

  I had to admit, the occasion had gotten away from me. After so many years of dreaming of being a superhero, acting like one had maybe gone to my head a bit, and I’d spent far too long playing around with the villain when he had an injured civilian at his feet. With more training, with more self-awareness, I would have acted as soon as possible.

  Even though I knew she wouldn’t want to hear it, I felt obligated to say, “I’m sorry about that whole thing on the train.”

  Sure enough, Alanna blinked at me. “Yeah, I’m sorry too. Don’t know what you’re apologising for, though?”

  I grimaced. It wasn’t my proudest moment. But if I was honest with myself, it was still up there, even with the fact I’d overdone it a little. “I didn’t act fast enough,” I told her, then held up a hand to stall her budding protests. “I’ve not been agonising over it or anything. It worked out in the end. But I could have got him away from you much faster than I did, and I don’t have a good excuse for not doing so.”

  “Without you and those other guys, I might not have got away from him at all,” she said wryly, but I could see something fragile in her eyes. She’d brought her treadmill to a stop, and she was now leaning against the handle nearest to me, gripping it with both hands. “So fucking embarrassing. Some second-rate hack gets the jump on me and messes me up less than an hour after shouting at my dad that I didn’t need security.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “He thought you needed security?”

  “Yeah, and evidently he was right.” She sighed, reaching up to run a hand through her blue hair. “In my defence, he had no idea someone was actually going to target me, specifically. He just worried I’d get recognised by some opportunists or something.”

  “Are you particularly recognisable, then?”

  “I don’t think so, but the risk is there, I guess. Evidently.” She paused, gesturing over her shoulder with her chin. The guy on the next treadmill over from her, I noticed, was built like a brick shithouse—that wasn’t unusual for anyone in this place, but I realised he was running in such a constant rhythm that it couldn’t be at all natural. He was staring ahead blankly, so blatantly oblivious to his surroundings that I got the impression he was very aware of what was going on around him.

  Most telling of all, the faint whisper of a power signal. Nothing too strong, but there. No power sign to indicate what he was doing, though, and I didn’t want to delve too deep to figure it out.

  “Does your dad think someone else is gonna target you again?” I asked, frowning. The idea of villains directly targeting family members of superheroes did not sit well with me at all.

  “That Slash asshole was part of some group or other,” Alanna said with a roll of her eyes that seemed almost too casual.

  “Right,” I said. “I remember he mentioned some kind of plan or something. There were distractions, simultaneous attacks.”

  “Some guy had a lame manifesto he was going to put online, but some investigative heroes got to him before he could post it,” Alanna said. “But it seems like they’re worth taking at least a little seriously. They put together a plan to distract the Olympians, and apparently there were more attacks than just on me that day.”

  “I thought it was weird that I didn’t see much about that incident on social media.”

  “It’s the kind of thing they wouldn’t want to blast everywhere. Incite panic or whatever.”

  “Right.” I nodded grimly. I had direct experience with that. “And they also don’t want to give villains air time to give other idiots ideas about how they could make a name for themselves. Don’t want copycats.”

  “Hm. Yeah. Dad told me about you,” Alanna said abruptly. “Said he’d put me in contact, if I wanted. Thought we’d be able to relate, or something.”

  “You said no?”

  “I’m sixteen years old. I don’t need my dad tracking down contact information for me.” She shrugged, affecting nonchalance again. “Figured I’d end up seeing you at AA anyway. I decided to take Dad’s sponsorship, and there was no doubt in my mind you’d get in.”

  “Did he tell you I’m F-rank? Literally Level 0?”

  “He did,” Alanna said. “That didn’t matter on the train. Why would it matter at AA? I knew you’d figure something out.”

  I looked away, turning my attention to my treadmill. I started fiddling with the buttons, setting myself up for a 5K. “How about you? Tempest doesn’t seem the type to nominate you without good reason. What’s your power?”

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  “I’ve only got my foundation and one aspect right now,” she said. “Overall, I’m just gonna say my power is lightning. It’s, uh, not easy to control right now. Needs more Aspects. Otherwise, I would have fucked that Slash guy right up.”

  My treadmill started moving, and I stepped on, keeping it to a walking pace to warm up. “That’s a pretty strong power. I’m guessing you were scared of hitting other people on the train.”

  Alanna didn’t reply, but I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.

  “That’s admirable,” I said. “I think most people would have panicked in that situation, maybe done some collateral damage.”

  She scoffed. “Man, do not praise me for that pitiful fucking showing. I just froze up. That’s the humiliating truth of the thing. All the training, expensive tutors and shit, and when push comes to shove in the real world, I stand there like an idiot while some psycho bastard slices my chest open. All my life I’ve dealt with this kind of shit, watching people risk themselves to protect me from whatever asshole of the week wants to get to my dad through me, and I’ve been saying for so long that I don’t need them to protect me, that I can handle myself. And the first time I’m alone…”

  She’d been getting steadily louder as she spoke, but never quite reached shouting volume. A few looks still turned her way. Breathing heavily, she started her own treadmill back up. I didn’t comment. Figured she wasn’t looking for pity or reassurance.

  “The fact that like five other people immediately rushed to fight the guy almost makes it worse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful as all hell for every one of you. You’re real heroes already in my books.” She took a deep breath. Her left hand was still on the treadmill’s handle, and I could see she had it in a white-knuckle grip. “But no one is ever going to have to do that for me again. Next time, I’ll have a hundred goddamn aspects, and I’ll be able to fry anyone who attacks me from the inside out without hurting a hair on anyone else’s head.” She glanced to her right. “No need for bodyguards.”

  “I’ll look forward to seeing it,” I said with a smile that I hoped didn’t look forced. “Maybe we’ll team up.”

  Alanna snorted. She let go of her treadmill’s handle as it started to pick up pace, and soon she was jogging. When I’d first arrived, she’d been at an all out sprint. She didn’t seem inclined to get back up to that pace. “We’ll go after that fucking group of supervillains together, yeah? Assholes.”

  “We’ll bring Ashika. She’d love to have a go at them too, I’m sure.”

  “Ashika Reddy? The momentum girl, right? I looked her up afterwards, and she’s already a pretty big deal in certain circles.”

  “That she is,” I said, my smile turning genuine. “She’s here today, too. I’ll introduce you after my run, if you like.”

  “That’d be cool. I need to thank her too, and praise her for that punch. She really got Slash good. Though I admit it would’ve been much better if she’d nailed him with that shot at the end,” Alanna said.

  “She would’ve got in deep trouble if she hit him with that much strength,” I warned. “She’s much, much stronger than she looks.”

  “So I hear,” Alanna said. “But… Man, I don’t want to sound like a bitch here, but it would’ve been real nice to know Slash got real fucked up. Something debilitating, and then I would’ve got Dad to pull strings so his ‘healing’ didn’t go right.”

  “That’s… not a nice way to look at things,” I said, even though I completely understood. The exact same sort of thoughts had run through my own head, once upon a time.

  Who am I kidding? Once upon a time. They still come up regularly now.

  “I know. I’m not completely serious,” Alanna said with a sigh.

  She totally was. But I didn’t blame her.

  “Where’s Slash now, do you know?”

  “All I know is he’s in Max Sec. I didn’t want to learn more, to be honest. If I knew where he was, I’d go and research it, and I’d start thinking about ways he could break out. It’d fill my stupid obsessive fucking mind for weeks.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling more and more like I’d found a kindred spirit. “Yeah.”

  There was a moment of silence, before Alanna spoke softly, barely audible over the pounding of feet against treadmills and techno music blasting through speakers, “I figured you’d get that.”

  I just nodded.

  Both of us settled into silence for a little while. Her treadmill was still at a light jog, and I kept mine the same—she was giving off the vibe that she still wanted to talk. I didn’t have to wait long before she came out with it. “So, what’s with you? I know you’re Level 0, but what does that actually mean, in practice? No power at all?”

  “Pretty much,” I said after a moment, and I shocked myself with how little that admission stung. Not so long ago, it had been perhaps one of the sorest possible subjects you could bring up with me, and it’d send my mood plummeting down towards oblivion, firmly ending the conversation with whoever had brought it up. Here, it barely seemed to affect me.

  “That shit really surprised me. I assumed you had some kind of cognitive enhancement, letting you see through Slash like you did, figuring out his power.”

  “Proper research is a power in and of itself,” I said, feeling a little smug despite myself. “But yeah, until recently, there was a question mark over whether I was even able to manifest any power at all. My Shimada rating is as low as any power researcher has ever seen, and at times it even goes down.”

  Alanna stumbled, but quickly caught herself. “What? That’s a thing?”

  “For me, apparently,” I said, skewing a sideways look at her, just catching her wide-eyed stare before she forced her gaze forward. “But I’ve recently made some discoveries that I reckon are going to change things.”

  “That’s… cool. Good to hear.” She paused. “What discovery, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  I thought about it. “Well, the short version is I have a meta power. Lets me really dig in deep into power signals, my own somewhat included.”

  “Power signals?”

  The note of confusion in her voice forced a sigh out of me. “All powers give off signals. It’s how they measure you for the Shimada Scale. Most people can’t feel them because their own signal drowns out any others, and then their brain adapts and tunes it out. Or so the theory goes. My sense for signals is a little different. There’s more depth to it.”

  “Interesting,” Alanna said. “Do you think you could analyse mine?”

  I smiled. “Sounds like a great idea.”