It takes about ten minutes for business to actually find me, because first Amelia needs to finish measuring my inseam and Lily needs to show me a video of a corgi on roller skates and Tasha needs to lend me her SAT prep books because she's done with them. Which is fair, and true, and good. Because I do need to prep for the SATs. No breaks for wayward super-teens.

  The business finds me, though, eventually. It comes from Lily, who heard it from Amelia, who heard it from Rampart, who presumably heard it through DVD channels, which means the information has been through enough people that it's either very reliable or a very thorough game of telephone.

  "Someone's been hitting pharmacies in Northeast," Lily says. She's sitting cross-legged on the desk now, skates off, socked feet tucked under her. "Not robbing them. Like - going in, smashing up specific inventory, and leaving."

  "Smashing up," I repeat.

  "Destroying. Pharmaceutical stock. A phase-walker, according to whoever reported it - walks through the walls, trashes a bunch of product, walks back out. No cash taken, no controlled substances missing. Just... targeted destruction."

  "How many hits?"

  "Three that Rampart knows about. Could be more that didn't make the chatter."

  Tasha pulls it up on her laptop. "I've got two police reports matching the description. Roosevelt Boulevard corridor. One at a CVS on Cottman, one at an independent pharmacy on Rising Sun. Both overnight, both with security footage showing someone walking through the back wall, and both with the same MO - they go straight for specific shelves, destroy what's on them, and leave."

  "What shelves?" I ask.

  "Doesn't say. The reports just list 'pharmaceutical inventory' as the damaged property."

  "But Rampart thinks it's Jump-related," Amelia says. She's pinning a fabric swatch to her board while she talks, not looking up. "The DVD theory is that someone's going after pharmacists who are cutting Jump into their legitimate stock. Or selling it under the counter."

  I sit with that for a second. "So someone with powers is breaking into pharmacies to destroy tainted drugs. Not steal them. Destroy them."

  "That's the read."

  "And we're... mad about this?"

  Lily grins. "I said the same thing."

  "We're not mad about it," Tasha says, in the voice she uses when she's being the practical one, which is always. "But a phase-walker hitting businesses in NE Philly is going to draw attention we don't need right now. Cops are going to assume it's a powered criminal, the Safer Streets people are going to use it as ammo, and if there really is a corrupt pharmacist network in the Roosevelt Boulevard corridor, that's something the feds should know about through proper channels. Not through someone punching holes in drywall."

  "Or we could just... help them," I say.

  "Help the criminal."

  "Help the person who is trying to do a good thing in a way that's going to get them arrested or killed."

  Maggie has been quiet, which is how Maggie processes. She leans forward now. "Is this something we could actually take on? Like, investigate the pharmacies ourselves, figure out which ones are dirty, and get the information to someone who can do something about it? Take it off the DVDs' plate?"

  "That's what I was going to suggest," Lily says. "Rampart's swamped. The DVD is overwhelmed with paperwork after the Bellwether stuff and all the feds. And this isn't a big enough deal to draw their attention yet anyway. If we can handle a neighborhood-level thing like this, it frees them up for..." She waves her hand. "Everything else. Plus it means Patriot won't cave this guy's head in."

  I look at Tasha. Tasha is the one who tells me when I'm being stupid. It's an important job and she's very good at it.

  "It's low-stakes," she says carefully. "It's local. It's the kind of thing we should be doing. And it doesn't involve sticking our hands into a moving machine while the power vacuum settles." She pauses. "I'd want to know more before we commit. How many pharmacies, what specifically is being destroyed, whether there's actually a Jump connection or if this is just property damage. But in principle, yes."

  "Okay," I say. "Let's pull the police reports, see if we can get more details on what inventory was targeted, and I'll ask around at Station 37 about any weird pharmacy calls. EMTs hear things."

  Amelia writes something in her notebook. Lily's already on her phone texting Rampart. Tasha's running a search. Maggie eats another donut and watches me sideways.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  This is the job. This is what the system is for. Low-stakes, community-level, investigative work that helps people without anyone getting shot at. This is what I built. It's nice. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for right now, it's nice.

  The community center gets foot traffic on Saturdays. Not a ton - it's still new, still building a reputation - but there's a rhythm to it. The kids come through for the afternoon sessions, therapists here, counselors there, social workers using this as a neutral meeting spot. That's the part that I really didn't expect - the, what did Mrs. Jennifer call it, the 'third place'edness? There's a lot of non-powered people coming through because this is just a convenient location between them and their social worker. People wander in for the food pantry in the kitchenette, or the GED prep materials, or just because the building is warm and the chairs are free and nobody asks you to buy anything.

  I'm in the hallway heading back from the bathroom when I almost walk into him.

  He's maybe five-eight, stocky in that way where everything is dense from carrying things. Dark hair buzzed close, narrow-ish almond shaped eyes, tan skin - Hispanic? Or PI? Can't tell yet. Maybe both? Work boots with dried mud on them, Carhartt jacket that's seen a few winters. He's standing in the main doorway looking around the way people do when they're not sure they're allowed to be somewhere, half in and half out, one hand holding the door.

  "Hey," I say. "Can I help you?"

  He startles a little, which - most people don't startle when a teenage girl says hi. He relaxes when he sees me, or at least performs relaxing. "Yeah, uh. Someone told me this place is for - like, people with powers? And that there might be people here who know about Jump stuff?"

  "We have some resources, yeah. Are you looking for addiction support, or--"

  "No. No, it's not - it's for my buddy. From work." He flexes his hands, opens and closes them. The knuckles are thick in a way that might be from years of manual labor or might be from something else, and I catch thick, dense callouses on his fingertips. "He's been taking Jump on the weekends. Not like - recreationally, I guess, but to help with the job. A lot of guys on the crew do. And the last couple times he took it he got really weird. Like, aggressive. Shaky. We gave him his space and got the worksite stuff done but I don't, you know... He's my bud, I don't want him to get hurt. I've seen what bad Jump does."

  The way he says I've seen what bad Jump looks like has weight to it. Not academic. Personal.

  "That does sound like it could be an adulterated batch," I say. My EMT brain is already sorting. Aggression plus tremor plus pupil changes - could be a stimulant cut, could be a dosage issue, could be a lot of things. "Do you know who's supplying? Because if it's a bad batch, it's not just your friend who's at risk. Everyone buying from that source is getting the same product."

  "I don't know the name. Some guy who hangs around the job site. I don't - I'm not involved in that." His hands flex again. Slowly. His knuckles are swollen. He catches me looking and puts them in his jacket pockets. "I just want to know what to tell my friend. Like, what to watch for, when to go to the ER, that kind of thing."

  "Okay. Yeah, I can help with that. We've got some printed guides that Station 37 put together - signs of adulterated Jump, what's an emergency versus what's a bad trip. And if you can get me any details on the supply - where the guy operates, what the pills look like, color, markings - I can pass it to people who track that stuff," I offer. He doesn't need to know that 'track that stuff' is me.

  I'm liking this though. I like when the problems sort themselves to us - it's nice.

  He nods. "Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm Danny, by the way."

  "Sam."

  And then we just - stand there for a second. Because something shifts. I don't know what it is at first, just a weird catch in the air like when you're walking and your foot finds the one uneven paving stone. He's looking at me. I'm looking at him. His eyes do something - not recognition exactly, more like a question forming.

  "Sorry," he says. "Do I - have we met? Your voice sounds familiar."

  I'm already doing the math. Five-eight, stocky, his voice pings a long-forgotten trail somewhere in my brain, NE Philly, construction, former Jump user with stiff hands. The hands. The hands. Kinetic energy redirection plus a shot of Fly for super-strength, and then he folded himself in half after Kate tased him. Spasming, this kid - this man, now, he must be twenty-one, twenty-two - was curled on the ground with his own momentum eating him alive.

  Ricochet.

  His name was not Danny when I knew him. His name was a thing he shouted at himself during the fight, some third-person hype-up - Ricochet - because he was however old he was and high on two different drugs and he'd named himself thirty seconds earlier.

  I don't say any of this. What I say is: "I don't think so."

  But the thing is, I'm a terrible liar when I'm not in costume. And he's looking at me with his head slightly tilted, like he's trying to place a sound.

  A voice. My voice. Because I was Bloodhound that day and the mask changes the shape of it but not all the way, not if you spent twenty minutes listening to someone shout tactical instructions while you were getting your ass kicked, and some part of his brain is going I know that voice without being able to finish the thought.

  "Weird," he says. "Sorry. You just sound like somebody I, uh, met. A while ago."

  Okay so that confirms it.

  My phone buzzes. Tasha, from the other room: who are you talking to?

  "It's fine," I say. "Listen - the Jump resources are on the table by the front desk. Take what you need. And if your friend's symptoms get worse - confusion, chest pain, any kind of seizure activity - don't wait. Call 911. Tell them suspected adulterated Jump so they know what they're dealing with."

  "Yeah. Thanks, Sam."

  He says my name like he's filing it. Not threatening, not suspicious. Just - keeping it. The way you remember the name of someone who helped you once, in case you need to find them again.

  He picks up a couple of the printed guides from the table, folds them into his jacket pocket, and walks back out into the April morning. I watch him go. Carhartt jacket, work boots, slightly stiff gait. He favors his left side a little. Old injury, maybe. Or just the way his body settled after the Jump wore off and everything that bent wrong healed wrong.

  Tasha appears in the hallway. "Who was that?"

  "Guy from the neighborhood. Looking for Jump resources for a friend."

  "Mm-hm. And why do you have your thinking face on?"

  "I don't have a thinking face."

  "You have several thinking faces. This is the one where you've just figured something out and you're deciding whether to tell me."

  I look at her. I look at the door Danny walked out of.

  "I think," I say slowly, "that was Ricochet."