The Pine Barrens are quiet in a way that the city never is.

  I've been coming here since I was nineteen - first with friends, then alone, then with Diana when we started dating. She doesn't love camping the way I do, but she tolerates it, and sometimes tolerance is its own kind of love. This trip is solo. Two days, one night, a spot I know well enough to find in the dark. The kind of reset that Diana understands I need every few months, the way she needs her sister weekends and I don't ask questions.

  The fire is small and well-maintained. I know what I'm doing out here. The tent is positioned correctly, the food is hung where it should be, the site will look untouched when I leave tomorrow. These are habits, not thoughts. The conscious part of my mind is elsewhere - half on the light novel I brought, half on nothing at all.

  I'm thinking about the new Kuuga figure that's supposed to drop next month. Whether I can justify the price. Diana would roll her eyes, but she rolls her eyes at most of my hobbies, and then she buys me the things anyway for Christmas. I'm thinking about the leftovers in the fridge at home, whether they'll still be good when I get back or if I should stop for groceries. I'm thinking about the stars, which are better out here than anywhere within fifty miles of Trenton.

  I'm not thinking about anything important. That's the point.

  The smell reaches me first. Smoke, but distant - wrong direction to be my fire, wrong quality to be a neighbor's cookout. I check the wind, estimate the source, run the math I've learned from years of being out here. Wildfire, probably. Someone dropped a cigarette during a dry week, or a spark jumped from a campsite, or lightning struck somewhere I didn't notice. It happens.

  Disasters happen, but when they're slow disasters, you can see them coming. Prepare.

  I stand and look west. There's an orange glow on the horizon, barely visible through the trees, maybe two miles out. Three, if I'm being optimistic. The wind is moving east-southeast, which means it's coming this direction, but slowly. A couple hours before it reaches my position, minimum. Plenty of time.

  I start breaking down camp anyway. No reason to wait when I can pack up now and hike out at a comfortable pace. The tent can stay up while I secure the food and douse my own fire - priorities first. I've done this before, not with wildfires specifically, but with weather turning or schedules changing. You learn to adapt out here. The wilderness doesn't care about your plans.

  The deer changes everything.

  It crashes through my campsite like I'm not there. No freezing, no assessment, no caution - just a brown blur that clips my cooler and sends it spinning. I catch a glimpse of its eyes as it passes, white-rimmed and terrified, and then it's gone into the underbrush heading east.

  I stand very still. I listen. A sound like a gunshot going off, miles away. Fireworks?... In the dry season? Or is it a real gunshot, just like in the Sopranos? In any other situation I'd be eager to do an amateur investigation.

  A fox follows, thirty seconds later. Then two rabbits, almost simultaneously, bolting across the clearing in the same direction. Squirrels drop from trees and sprint across open ground, abandoning every survival instinct that should keep them hidden. A raccoon - nocturnal, should be denned up - waddles past at maximum speed, which for a raccoon is almost comical, except nothing about this is funny.

  The forest is emptying.

  The fire is two miles away. The fire is hours from reaching me. But the animals are running now, running like something is right behind them, and they know things I don't.

  I stop packing. I listen.

  The sound is wrong. Not the crackle of distant flames but something closer, heavier. Movement through underbrush, a lot of it, all heading the same direction. Not toward me - I'm not a destination. I'm just in the path of a general exodus. The wildlife doesn't care about the human in the clearing. The wildlife is afraid of something bigger than humans. I don't know if I have reception, but I pull my phone out and dial 911 anyway.

  Another BANG! I can't see well enough to see if it's fireworks or not.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I should run too. That's what the animals are telling me. That's what every instinct I have is screaming. But there's a paralysis that happens when the situation exceeds your frameworks, when your brain is still trying to process "unusual deer behavior" while your body is already being left behind by things that understood the danger faster.

  The bear comes out of the tree line at a full sprint.

  Black bear. Maybe three hundred pounds. Not hunting - fleeing. The body language is unmistakable: ears flat, head low, muscles bunched for speed rather than confrontation. This is a creature that has decided the fire, or the loudness, or some human hunter with a rifle is more dangerous than anything it might run into, and it's probably right.

  I am directly in its path.

  I have maybe two seconds. Not enough time to climb. Not enough time to run. Barely enough time to understand what's about to happen.

  The bear isn't aggressive. The bear is terrified. Its eyes meet mine for a split second, and there's something there - not malice, not hunger, just pure animal panic. It's not trying to hurt me. I'm just in the way. A bear cub trails behind it, trying to catch up. Momma.

  The best I can do is try to step aside. But have you ever seen a bear paw in motion? Especially when they think of you more as a twig to snap than a meal? The second best I can do is brace, try to get it to aim down, and hope it breaks my ribs instead of smashing my skull into pieces. I instantly do the calculation. Which limbs are worth sacrificing? Which limbs are necessary to get out of here? Ribs or stomach? Just not the head.

  Please. I have a fiance. Probably kids.

  But I look at this bear and I know in its bear brain, in that moment where all thought compresses and extends out into pain, that it's thinking the same thing. And I'm just in the way.

  The SEPTA platform smells like wet concrete and stale coffee.

  I'm standing in the yellow safety zone, bag over my shoulder, watching the train approach through the tunnel. The screech of brakes, the hiss of doors, the press of bodies as commuters shuffle in and out. A woman with a stroller. Two teenagers arguing about something on their phones. A man in a suit who looks like he hasn't slept in days.

  Normal people. Normal lives.

  The scar on my chest itches, the way it does when I think about the Barrens. I don't touch it. Ten years ago. Sometimes it feels like yesterday. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else entirely.

  I find a spot near the doors, standing because the seats are full and I don't mind. My reflection in the dark window shows a tall Black man in civilian clothes - khakis, a gray sweater, sensible shoes. The scarf is in my bag, folded neatly. The beret too. I don't wear them on the train. Captain Devil rides in armored vans and cop cars; Andrew Mitchell takes public transit.

  The train lurches into motion. I check my phone - news first, then the forum where people discuss tokusatsu releases, then my messages. Diana sent a photo of the kids at breakfast, Malik with syrup on his face, Destiny refusing to smile for the camera. I save it to my favorites folder, which is mostly pictures like this. Small moments. The life that exists between the other life.

  The commute takes twenty-three minutes, same as always. I've timed it enough to know the variations - twenty-one on a good day, twenty-eight when there's a delay. Today is average. The train stops at Lombard-South, at City Hall, at each station in sequence, and I watch people get on and off without really seeing them.

  I'm thinking about the day ahead. Briefing at nine. The Kensington situation needs follow-up - there's a kid up there, maybe sixteen, who can phase through walls. Been breaking into pharmacies, but not to steal. To destroy. Fentanyl supplies, oxy, Jump, the stuff that's killing people. Morally complicated. Legally straightforward. I don't know how I feel about arresting someone who's arguably doing more good than harm.

  Jett wants to compare notes on the Tremont & Fairfax situation. The FBI came back with nothing, which is somehow worse than coming back with something. Nothing means dead end. Nothing means we're stuck.

  Miasma has been even more cryptic than usual. I don't know what to make of him on a good day; lately he's been impossible to read.

  And Patriot... Well.

  Normal superhero problems. If you can call anything about this life normal.

  The train reaches my stop. I shoulder my bag and join the flow of commuters heading for the stairs, up into the gray January morning. The cold hits immediately - I should have worn a heavier coat - but the walk to headquarters is short. Past the coffee shop where Destiny likes the hot chocolate. Past the newsstand with headlines about the failed registration bill. Past the corner where a street preacher is already setting up for the day, his sign promising salvation or damnation depending on which side you read.

  The headquarters building looks like what it is: a government office. The superhero stuff is underground; the surface is cubicles and conference rooms and people who have never thrown a punch in their lives. I badge in at the front desk. Marcus, the security guard, nods as I pass.

  "Morning, Mr. Mitchell. How're the kids?"

  "Getting bigger every day," I tell him. "How's Tamika? Temple treating her right?"

  His face lights up. "Made the Dean's List. Can you believe it? My baby girl, Dean's List."

  "That's wonderful. Tell her I said congratulations."

  "Will do, will do."

  The elevator down. The transition from civilian space to hero space. I pull the scarf from my bag and wrap it around my neck, adjusting until it drapes correctly. The beret goes on last.

  The doors open. The situation room stretches before me, screens glowing, staff already at their stations. Somewhere down here, Jett is probably burning off energy on a treadmill. Miasma is probably reading something disturbing. Patriot is probably being Patriot.

  Captain Devil is ready for work.