Sweat beaded on Nick Morgan's forehead as he leaned closer to Jamie. "Come on, Jamie, I need this! Just a couple of hours. Nobody will ever notice," he pleaded, his voice tight with desperation.

  Outside the Slayer Division headquarters of New Rome, the midday sun beat down. The freshly cut grass around the metal picnic tables released a potent scent. Birds pecked at the ground beneath the small, planted trees that lined the concrete walkways—paths that connected the building to the distant main road before snaking out of sight. The flat chirps of the winged animals echoed the sparse midday bounty. Seeing no one else in the break area, Nick steeled himself to press his childhood friend. He didn’t want to be seen begging by strangers, but twenty-two years had taught him a hard lesson: there was a time for pride, and there was a time for humility. This situation called for the latter.

  Jamie Lee Hurricane, friend or not, was a difficult person to ask for favors. She was the daughter of two legends. Her father, Simon Hurricane, possessed incredible strength, speed, and elemental kinesis—the power to command the weather. Her mother, Jane Ward, the Steel Lady, was physically even stronger and capable of seemingly impossible feats of agility. They were founding members of the Guild of Heroes. Now, her mother worked for the government, recruited into the Slayer Division. As for the mighty Hurricane, his fate remained a mystery—a fact Nick suspected gnawed at Jamie beneath her unflinching exterior.

  "This is the government, Nick—the Slayer Division of all places!" Jamie exclaimed, dragging forcefully on her vape. "Trust me, they'll notice! Not only will I get fired, but we’ll both end up in jail for life!"

  Jamie had followed in her mother’s footsteps, joining the Slayer Initiative at nineteen. She was assigned as a guard in the Toy Room—the holding facility for some of the most powerful weapons and technology in the world. Nick had pulled that information from the Slayer servers nine months ago; most people thought those items had been destroyed. He was thankful, for once, that the government were liars. One of those items—the very one Nick was lobbying for—had been invented by his father, Thomas Morgan, the "Original Hero." It was a Rift Field Power Regulator. Without it, there was no way to control the energy output of any device using the volatile rift energy field.

  "Come on, Jamie! We go way back! Our parents were friends before we were born! If the EDA weren't law, you’d be in the Guild! Instead, you're a watchdog for the people who caged your own kind! I don't understand how you could be loyal to them over me," Nick exclaimed, his voice laced with frustration. He knew he was being unfair, but he was desperate enough to use any leverage he had.

  The Slayer Division had been founded after President King took office in 1988. He had campaigned hard against "Supers" who caused collateral damage to American cities, leading to the Enhancement Drug Act (EDA). The EDA prohibited the use of substances or genetics that vastly altered the natural human form or ability. All those permanently changed were either registered into the Slayer Program or detained without due process. Few joined; most were captured.

  "It’s not about loyalty, you idiot! It’s about staying alive and free," Jamie yelled back.

  She was athletic and tall—around five-foot-ten—a fact she’d teased him about relentlessly until he finally hit six feet late in puberty. Though only in her early twenties, her serious demeanor and sleek blue Division uniform made her appear a decade older. Jamie was also among the less than one percent of the population born with powers. Not only that, she was the second of her kind ever born. Even with the suppressants they forced her to take, she was dangerous.

  "Listen… I know we haven't talked in a while, and the last time we did… it didn't end well…" Nick looked at the ground.

  "You can say that again. It was for your mother’s sake I didn't crack your face open," Jamie said, twisting her foot in the grass, a slight blush rising on her cheeks.

  "I know! I'm sorry. But in my defense, Ryan was a juicer who was only with you because of your parents. I should have let you deal with it, but that was five years ago, Jamie. I need this now. This could be the break that gets Rift Corp running again," he said, clasping his hands. "Please!"

  "You think you’re so smart, Nick, but you’re not half of what you think you are. I've seen your files. You've been setting up deals with shady people—people our parents would have put behind bars." She looked toward the main road and took another drag of her vape. “Ryan was a juicer, but he wasn't any worse than the Legion Gang you're flirting with. What's your excuse?”

  Nick felt anger swell. Who was she to tell him how to save his company? Rift Corp was the only thing his mother had left him. "The Guild’s gone, Jamie! All I can do is build machines. Money is the same, no matter who buys the tech. I'm not looking to be a hero. I just want to survive!" He turned his back to her.

  "Spoken like a true idiot," Jamie said, her expression softening into unease. "Don't get me wrong, Nick. You and Karen are the closest things I have to true friends, even if we barely talk. But I can’t do this… even if your reasons were legal."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Fine, I get it," he stated, defeated. He began to walk away. "If things were reversed, I’d do the same. See you around, Jamie. I've got to go find a workaround," he added, his voice stinging with bitterness.

  "Don't do anything stupid, Nick!" she yelled, but her words didn't find purchase in his mind.

  He turned the corner, out of Jamie’s sight, and found the path blocked by a skinny, pale man in a badly fitted Division uniform.

  “Can I help you?” Nick asked, unsettled.

  Nick never heard a response. One moment he was on the path; the next, he was in an all-white interrogation room. He jolted, realizing an hour had vanished from his watch. His animal brain screamed one thing:

  “It’s okay,” a grizzly voice assured him.

  Across the table sat a man he had only seen once in his life in person, and had hoped to never see again; Commodore Wilton—Commanding Officer of the Slayer Division. “It’s been a while, son. I have an amazing amount of respect for your father. If you were anyone else’s son, I would have locked you up hours ago. Instead, we’re just going to talk.”

  Wilton was a tall, bald man with dark brown eyes that radiated a controlled rage.

  Nick scoffed. “And what talk is that, exactly?”

  “Don’t give me that attitude!” Wilton growled. “You’re the son of one of the smartest men to ever live. You tell me—what did you do wrong?”

  “Are you talking about seeing Jamie? I didn’t realize talking to friends was a crime,” Nick said, avoiding eye contact. “Now, you want to talk about crimes? How did I lose an hour of my life and end up in this hole?”

  The Commodore’s face reddened. Under the EDA, he had jurisdiction over "Empowered" people, but Nick was "Normal." Without evidence, this was a legal nightmare.

  “I think you just used up my goodwill, Morgan,” Wilton chuckled lowly. He stood up, leaning over the table until he was inches from Nick’s face. “Let’s talk about soliciting a federal officer to commit grand theft. Or conspiracy to commit treason. Did you really think I didn't have the grounds bugged?”

  Nick stayed silent, cursing his own desperation.

  “You people…” Nick began, then lost his filter. “You all say the same thing! ‘I respect your father.’ If you loved him so much, where were you when he died? Where were you when Rift Corp was gutted by its board of directors? Where were you when my mother got cancer and had to sell our home for medicine? You didn't help her. You just locked up my dad’s friends and perverted his tech!”

  Wilton’s fist connected with Nick’s face like a lead weight. Nick toppled out of his chair. Before he could scramble up, Wilton grabbed his shirt and raised him against the wall.

  “You’re on my shit list now, boy. I’m going to be so deep into your business, I’ll be finding secrets you haven't even lied about yet. Understood?”

  “Yes… sir,” Nick wheezed. His vision swam.

  Wilton released him and walked toward the door, wiping Nick's blood from his knuckles. He rapped on the door, summoning the skinny, pale man from earlier. “We’re done. Get him back to the street.”

  The skinny soldier, sat down as Wilton left. He pulled a leather case from his jacket. “Sorry about the boss. He’s rough.”

  Nick struggled to his feet. “My name is Nick.”

  “I know who you are,” Blink informed Nick, unzipping his leather kit with a slight, nervous haste.

  As he pulled it open, the contents made Nick’s stomach turn. The young scientist was disappointed in himself for not recognizing the signs earlier. Blink removed a large vial of M.J.—Monster Juice—and a syringe sporting a heavy-gauge needle.

  “You’re an addict. I thought the Slayer Division only took in stable powers,” Nick blurted out, his tact failing him in the face of the needle.

  Blink seemed unfazed. He continued to assemble the tools of his addiction with practiced hands. He drew back the plunger, and Nick watched the bright, translucent green substance fill the chamber as Blink held it up against the harsh white fluorescent lighting. It was the most potent, concentrated form of the substance Nick had ever seen.

  “There are exceptions to every rule. I’m one of those exceptions,” Blink said, his voice trailing off as he readied the shot. “Due to the nature of my abilities, I need the highest purity of the Monster, or I’ll shrivel up like a raisin and die. Quite honestly, I’ll probably die either way. Might as well die the way I lived, you know?”

  He lined the needle up with his heart. Then, in one hard, sudden motion, he slumped over as he forced the metal deep into his chest.

  The man who called himself Blink lay motionless for several seconds. The silence in the room was absolute. Nick began to inch forward, his breath held, wondering if he was watching a man die. As he approached, Jacob suddenly jerked upright with violent force. He gasped for air as if he had just surfaced from the depths of the ocean, the sound so sharp it sent Nick staggering back.

  Jacob looked intently at Nick with wide, dilated eyes. Within his corneas, an unbelievable prism of colors swirled. Nick was entranced, unable to break the gaze. He saw things—things he couldn’t explain. People, places, and objects appeared unfocused within the light, moving, coalescing, and then separating again in a rhythmic, haunting process. It was breathtaking, even as the man behind the eyes looked to be at death's door.

  Just as Nick felt he was about to understand what he was seeing—that he might finally decipher those bizarre lights—he blinked.

  The white room was gone. He was standing on the street, several blocks away from where he had first seen Jamie. He looked down at his watch; another hour had vanished. His situation had plummeted from horrible to disastrous in the span of a single morning.

  The walk back to his home was long, and he spent every step lost in his own head. Nick pondered science, Rift-Corp, the government, and above all, his long-dead father. Under his breath, he whispered, “What would he do faced with all this?”

  Nick reasoned that his father would have persevered. He would have found a way and made the best of a bad situation. Then, an unwanted memory flashed through his mind: the grainy news footage of Thomas Morgan sacrificing himself in a massive explosion for New Rome.

  The memory was a cold reminder that Nick wasn't his father. In fact, it was his father’s "heroism" that had left him and his mother in this predicament. he thought.

  Nick would never know. All he could do was try to imagine it as he walked home through the shadows of a Rotting city his father died to save.