T: Things are a bit more involved than I’d originally expected. I’m not sure when I’ll be free.

  Me: Its K. Just shopping and exploring some.

  T: It’s not, but I’ll try and make it up to you later.

  Me: Seriously dont worry about it, Im doing just fine.

  T: OK. Call or text if anything comes up. A’s also tied up with more of that thing we talked about the other night.

  Me: Its cool, I’m the odd one out here, Im keeping busy tho

  Me: Go do cool stuff

  T: Meetings are the least cool stuff you can do.

  Me: Its important tho right?

  T: It is.

  Me: Youll have to take my word on it being cool then lol

  T: OK, if you insist, haha!

  An electronic chime toned overhead, and I looked up from my phone’s screen. This was my stop. I made my way off the city bus. It being a weekday afternoon meant that the bus was fairly sparsely populated, not that I minded much either way.

  Stepping off the bus, I looked around to get my bearings. There was a hiss of brakes, and then the quiet whine of electric motors brought the city bus back into motion.

  There.

  A mid-sized multi-story red brick building sat on the corner of the city block across the street from me. There was a spacious parking lot on my side of the street, and an elevated walkway over the street with staircases and glass-sided elevators on each side. Highly visible and color-coded signage pointed out the directions to The New Brockton Bay Museum.

  I hadn’t intended on stopping here, but after seeing some billboards and flyers elsewhere in the city while I was shopping, it had successfully drawn my attention. It wasn’t much of a detour from the part of the city that I’d planned on visiting anyway. Shouldering the backpack I had picked up, I took the stairs up to the walkway.

  It was embarrassing how much effort it took to climb, cross the street, and descend.

  If the parking lots being as sparsely filled as they were was any indicator, the museum shouldn’t be too busy. I made my way to the entrance of the building. Each side of the entryway was flanked by large banners describing upcoming events and displays. A not-insignificant amount of the material was dedicated to cape-related things.

  Based on what I’d learned from Tessa and my subsequent reading, it was sort of to be expected.

  At one point, prior to the Leviathan attack that destroyed the city, Brockton Bay had one of the highest populations of active capes of any city in the United States. Which made it a significant outlier, considering that it was significantly smaller than many of the other cities out there with a comparable number of capes.

  Per capita, the Bay had been one of the most densely-populated cape cities in the country.

  Things had changed dramatically after Leviathan. Now it was the most densely-populated cape city in the nation, surpassing even New York City.

  So the museum being dominated by cape culture wasn’t all that surprising. This was the place to be when it came to parahumans.

  My entry pass was an eye-watering amount of money, more than what I would have expected to pay for a visit to a theme park. Thankfully, it seemed like there were significant discounts available for students, kids, seniors, and informational packets about group and business packages.

  With a museum lanyard around my neck with my pass attached, I looked up at the signage and made my way to what I expected was probably the most popular exhibit section in the building.

  Parahuman History Wing

  The information was extensive, as was the collection of materials. I browsed through the mannequins and mock-up battles between the capes that predated my time in the local cape scene. Most of this was stuff I actually remembered, which was a relief to me. I had been worrying myself that I’d find massive gaps in my memory here, but starting with the very early days back in the 90’s, I was able to follow along and pair things with what I remembered from growing up. These were names I knew, costumes I recognized.

  Things became fuzzier around the mid 2000’s, and then I was left reading over displays and information, and watching videos that the museum had put together. News broadcasts, live footage, eyewitness testimonies.

  I stopped in front of the exhibit for The Undersiders. I looked over the costumed mannequins and the informational panels.

  A tall, muscular figure in black leather with a skull helmet that had black smoke drifting out of holes located around the face.

  Grue. Powers: Control over sensory-deprivation smoke. Hand-to-hand and martial weapon combatant. Active: 2010-2011. Current status: Fugitive.

  A broad-shouldered and solidly built woman wearing a plastic pitbull mask, a CarHard jacket with a fur collar, jeans, and work boots.

  Hellhound (Bitch). Powers: Canine amplification & control. Active: 2010-Present. Current Status: Active, Independent.

  A male with a slight figure, wearing black skinny jeans, a flowing, lace-up shirt with embroidered flowers on the breast, a golden facemask and crown, and a golden baton with a spiky crown on the end.

  Regent. Powers: Central Nervous System disruption. Martial weapons. Active: 2010-2011. Current Status: Deceased: Behemoth, New Delhi, 2011.

  The next figure was a blonde woman with neck-length hair, wearing a purple and black domino mask and a matching Spandeez suit with a utility belt. An eye motif adorned her chest.

  Tattletale. Powers: Thinker/Mastermind, Precognition*. Active: 2010-Present. Current Status: Active, Hero, Protectorate East Northeast**.

  I checked the notes on the informational card. An asterisk for speculative and a double asterisk for Current Cape Name: Insight.

  Another female mannequin, this time covered in tightly-fitting black clothing, with either a large scarf wound around the neck, or a shawl. The black color and shapelessness of the fabric made it hard to tell what it was. The figure wore a white demon mask, mostly blank and featureless, save for a crimson stripe that ran down the middle, and a pair of curling horns on the forehead.

  Imp. Powers: Stranger, Mental Manipulation. Active: 2010-2011. Current status: Fugitive.

  The last figure in the group was the only one I recognized. A tall, lanky female wearing a pretty close approximation to the suit Taylor had shown me, the one she’d said she had made in her dad’s basement by herself. There were a number of what I assumed to be plastic insects dangling from clear threads, so they hovered around the mannequin.

  Skitter. Powers: Insect Control. Martial weapons. Active: 2010-Present. Current Status: Active, Protectorate East Northeast.

  I took a step back in the mostly-empty exhibit space and looked at the group as a whole. Each of the figures was posed in a dynamic way that suited their abilities or tactics.

  I tried to search my feelings, to see if it jogged my memory at all, or made me feel anything.

  Nothing. Nothing at all. I might as well be looking at members of a sports team for a sport I didn’t follow. I took a shallow breath and let it out slowly. I was hoping that coming here and looking at things would give me… something.

  I moved on to the next display. It was a display of the local Wards team during the same time period. These were figures I recognized, but only because I’d researched them somewhat extensively during my extended bed rest.

  Gallant. Shadow Stalker. Vista. Weld. Flechette. Kid Win. Phoenix Strike. Clockblocker. Aegis. Glory Girl.

  Glory Girl had an asterisk next to her name, indicating her provisional status as a member of the team.

  I stepped in front of each of the figures and looked them over, reading over the information the museum had on display. Much like the Undersiders before them, I really didn’t feel anything for any of the figures. I knew what I’d read and what I’d been told regarding my relationship with them second-hand.

  I was about to turn away from the display when something nagged at the back of my mind. I turned back, and the tall, red-and-white costumed figure drew my eye.

  Aegis. He was my team leader during my time in the Wards. He died during the Leviathan attack on the city.

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture him. All I could see was the fresh image of the mannequin and the costume in my memory. But there was… something there.

  I tried to reach out with my mind and touch the nebulous sensation, but like everything else, it was just a vague impression that had the substance of wispy smoke. Nothing I could grab or hold on to. There was a sensation, though. A feeling. Reaching out for it caused it to evade my attempts. So I stopped, and just let it drift around the outskirts of my awareness.

  I probably look absurd, standing here with my eyes closed.

  In the momentary distraction of thinking about how I probably looked like I was dumb and/or insane in public, it was like a bubble burst, and with it came a sudden and intense sensation.

  Sorrow.

  My eyes snapped open, and I saw my expression reflected in the glass face of the display. I looked… shocked, for a better word. Wide-eyed, like I’d been caught flat-footed and surprised.

  A knot formed in my throat, and I closed my eyes and swallowed.

  Just like that, it was gone again, but I was left with the lingering sensation of tightness and an ache in my chest.

  Unreasonable anger immediately took its place. A dense little coal of hate swapped positions with the ache.

  These are my memories, god damn it! Mine! Why can’t I remember them, but I’m left feeling these aftershocks!

  Bile rose in my throat as I stared at the red and white-suited mannequin.

  How am I supposed to live my life? Or any life, for that matter, with this giant hole in my head!? Don’t memories all but make the person? What’s that even make me, then, some kind of half-person?

  I gulped, trying to force down the burning in my throat and chest.

  I shouldn’t have come back.

  No. I shouldn’t have been brought back.

  Not like this.

  Not… Brought back, but… Wrong.

  She did this to me. She must have, there wasn’t anyone else it could have been.

  The anger flared hotter in my chest, and I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw.

  Dragon wouldn’t want to hurt me.

  Would she?

  No, not hurt me.

  Maybe… She’s trying to use me?

  But to what ends?

  I don’t even have powers! My powers!

  I’m just… Broken. Broken and useless.

  A memory. An echo.

  An imitation.

  “Excuse me, ma’am? Is everything okay?”

  The voice shocked me out of my reverie, and I let out a soft “Ah!” as I was startled and shocked out of my inner space. My eyes shot open to see a middle-aged woman wearing a gray and brown museum security uniform. Rather than looking confrontational, she looked concerned and was holding a bulky handheld radio in one hand.

  Brought back to reality all of a sudden, I realized that I had been trembling in place, my hands were cramping, and my forearms hurt. I’d been clutching at my own arms with them crossed tightly against my chest, and presumably standing in front of a display and acting oddly.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I swallowed again, and my voice came out thickly when I spoke. “Oh, um. Yes, sorry. I’m okay.”

  A quick lie would fill in the gaps and serve as an explanation.

  “Sorry,” I told her quickly, “This is my first time here, I didn’t think that the exhibits would bring back so many bad memories.”

  Her chest rose, and she let out a slow, barely audible sigh. She glanced over at the display that I’d been looking at and nodded.

  “You were here for the Leviathan attack?”

  I bobbed my head and rubbed my hands over my forearms where I’d been death-gripping them moments ago.

  “We get a lot of tourists, or people who came here after the attack. Far fewer natives, probably for the exact reason you’re describing. It’s been years, but it’s still fresh enough for some of us to be a painful reminder of everything that happened.”

  I nodded along to what she was saying. I could visualize it easily enough.

  A moment of silence extended out into an awkward pause between the two of us. I still had a sour feeling in my stomach, and I decided that perhaps I’d come back another time, when I was in a better mood. Or with some of my newfound friends.

  “I, uh–” the guard’s face lit up a moment, and she clipped the radio back on to the wide belt she was wearing, then reached into her pockets. She pulled out a wallet and dug through it, then pulled out a battered-looking business card and extended it to me.

  I glanced down at her hand, then up at her, my brow creasing in confusion.

  “I don’t know if it’ll be helpful for you at all, but it really helped me, so maybe try it out sometime, if you’re feeling up to it. It’s–” she paused and licked her lips, then gave me a sad smile. “It’s something that helped me out in the past. I haven’t been in a long time, but I still think about it sometimes.”

  I reached out and took the offered card.

  You’re not alone. Talk, share, listen - or don’t.

  B.B. Survivor’s Meetup

  Molly’s Diner, Tu/Th 7-10P

  187 5th Street

  The card was beaten and battered, with several creases, a corner torn off, and a ringed coffee stain running across the face of it. It looked like it’d been around long enough to change hands several times.

  I flipped it over in my hand to look at the back. Someone had written a short note in blue ink on the back, the penmanship angular and scratchy, edging on barely legible.

  For people effected by powers

  “incidents” or aftermath

  Here for each other

  “I–” I started, then stopped. My first instinct was to reject the offer, to put whatever this was, and what it represented, out of my head. I thought about how random and occasionally volatile my feelings and emotions were. What Taylor had said about her time in therapy.

  This wasn’t therapy.

  But it was something.

  And more importantly, it was something that would be off-the-record, so to speak. Something I could do on my own.

  “Thank you. I’ll check it out sometime. This is still going?”

  The woman nodded her head. “I don’t go anymore, but I keep in touch with one or two of the other members who do.”

  I pulled out my phone and slipped it into one of the slots on the protective case for holding cards and cash, then stuffed my phone back into the waistband pocket of my leggings.

  I faked a smile and thanked the guard. She returned it, although hers actually reached her eyes. “I hope it’s helpful for you.”

  I sighed. “I don’t really have any expectations, or know what I’ll get out of it, if anything, but worst case, it’s an excuse to get some diner food.”

  She chuckled, and I looked back at the display case with all the figures posed inside.

  It was time to go.

  I gave her a quick wave and made my way out of the museum, not bothering to check out any of the more current-era exhibits.

  The next few hours flew past as I went about stuffing my backpack with various odds and ends that I still needed. I’d originally planned on trying to check out some rental properties, but I never got around to it. The sun rose, peaked, and was well on the way toward setting on the horizon before I felt like my energy reserves were running dry and I’d probably need to get back to Taylor’s place.

  I was back on Lord Street and maybe half a dozen blocks from the downtown area. I’d stopped to get a snack and a drink from a food truck parked on the curb.

  It wasn’t anything terribly fancy or complicated, but the greasy pretzel and icing cup was exactly the kind of carbohydrate bomb my system was craving at the moment, and I was washing it down with an iced coffee. It felt like the food was a bit overpriced, sort of like what you’d expect to pay at a shopping mall, or something, but the quality more than made up for it.

  I was sitting at one of the public tables and sipping at the bottom half of my coffee when I started to pick up on the sound of a loud commotion approaching.

  There was a bustle and clang of metal bowls and cookware from inside the food truck, and the person working there hopped out of the back door, hastily pulling in their folding signs and closing the side panel of their truck.

  I blinked rapidly and looked around, then at the truck owner, who was doing their very best to pack their things up as quickly as possible.

  “Is there something going on?” I asked him.

  He shot me an incredulous look, then shook his head.

  “Lady, if you don’t know, then I’m not going to be the one to inform you. I’m getting the hell out of here, though, so seeya.”

  Locking the side panels down into position, he brushed his hands on his apron and climbed into the cab of the truck. The engine roared to life and he eased it over the curb onto the street and took off.

  What the hell?

  I heard music and singing, along with a bunch of random noisemaker sounds you’d expect from a sports stadium of people cheering for one team or another.

  Flashing police lights came around the corner of the intersection, half a dozen police cruisers rolling down the street at a few miles per hour, lights on, but sirens off.

  What followed was the most eclectic and downright bizarre, unorganized mass of people marching down the street.

  There were people wearing religious garb and iconography I recognized. Catholics and Christian sects and denominations. Dark, muted color clothing, crucifixes everywhere, vaguely familiar songs being sung amid the discordant cacophony of the odd street parade.

  Then there were more tightly-knit groups of people I recognized, and not in a good way.

  Skinheads in military and militant-style clothing. Jackboots, barked chants with a distinct cadence one might expect to hear in a military march. Lightning bolts, swastikas, skulls and crossbones. Far more bare skin than the first group, and with plenty of ink on the exposed skin.

  I guess some things in Brockton Bay will never change. We can defeat an Endbringer, but not white supremacist nationalists.

  Things only grew progressively stranger from there.

  I saw a large group of people wearing oranges, yellows, and golds, with flowing clothing, almost bohemian in styling. This group also had a large number of bare heads and tattoos, but the bright clothing contrasted the stylings of the skinheads as much as their lack of coherent iconography did. If there was one thing they had in common, it was a seeming love of odd geometric shapes and symbols. I didn’t recognize any of it at all. They, too, were playing their own music, if you could call it that, in the form of chants and hymns of some sort.

  With the racket, it was impossible to make anything out. Too many voices, too many weird instruments, and the natural distortion of the buildings on each side of the road, bouncing and echoing the rest of the parade.

  Or is it a procession?

  I sat there like a deer caught in the headlights as the parade…thing passed by. There were police walking down the streets on the sidewalks, like retaining walls keeping the people on track and contained to their street march.

  This didn’t stop people from running out to stick up colorful posters and papers on the doors of businesses, on the poles for streetlights, crosswalks, and handing them off to the pedestrians in the area.

  I sat there in a sort of stunned silence and took it all in, while more than a dozen people of all different shapes and sizes ran out from the main body and put papers, pamphlets and flyers down on the table in front of me.

  The greetings were as diverse as the rest of the parade.

  “God loves you!”

  “Salvation is near!”

  “It’s not too late to be saved!”

  “Don’t be left behind when the Rapture comes!”

  At some point during this circus show, there was a notable delineation. It took me a moment to get what it was, but when I did, I found myself suppressing a smirk.

  The back half of the parade was all protesters for the first half of the parade.

  There were similarities between the first half and the second half. The second half was also sticking up and handing out an obnoxious amount of printed material, leaflets, and these square cards with strange geometric shapes covering one side.

  It seemed like the second half of the parade’s biggest goal, though, was to make as much of an unearthly racket as to drown out the first half as much as possible. People marched with random instruments, people blasting tunes on brass instruments, banging drums, spinning howling tubes, and blowing into these long, thin plastic horns that made just the worst sound.

  If I didn’t find the idea of protesting as humorous as I did, I think I’d have disliked the second half of the parade more simply for the sound of all those plastic horns.

  I heard a shrill whistle from above me and looked up.

  The white dress with gold highlights, knee-high white boots, golden tiara, and flowing blonde hair were instantly recognizable.

  Glory Girl was floating above the street, not far from me. She was smiling down and waving at me, and I felt a blush rise in my cheeks. I waved back. Looking around, I spotted other members of New Wave, along with some other capes I didn’t recognize, hovering along at fixed intervals over the crowd. I’d been so locked into to my people watching that I’d failed to notice the obvious capes.

  Are they here to keep an eye on the crowd? Prevent in-fighting, or a riot? Or for their protection? Maybe both?

  Victoria touched a finger to her ear, then drifted over and down to come back to rest on Earth opposite the small table I sat at. She had to raise her voice over the din in the background to be heard.

  “Fancy seeing you here, stranger! Enjoying the show?”

  I took a sip of my coffee and half-yelled back to her, “I had no idea this was going on, or was a thing. I just stopped to get a snack and a drink, then… this." I gestured over to the parade.

  “Yeah! We used to have a problem with these getting really ugly, but with the power of bureaucracy and permits, we’ve mostly got everyone organized and limited to once or twice a month. New Wave was able to secure a nice little recurring gig with the city to help keep the peace along with the city police!”

  “What even is all of… this?”

  She looked like she snorted, but I couldn’t hear it. I saw the mischievous gleam in her eyes, though. “Religious observance parades. Every 28 days we get to wrangle this mob of zealots, nihilists, protesters, party animals, and bored people!”

  “This is… uh. New?” I asked her.

  “What?” She shouted back.

  “Is this something new?!” I yelled back as loudly as I could.

  She shook her head. “No, this is the uh… fourth year? There were some before, but not officially.”

  “And you do this every month!? Do you just eat migraine medicine every time?”

  Victoria grinned and shook her head again. She pulled her hair back on one side of her head and tapped under her ear. She had some kind of black and blue earpiece that looked like it was cast in the shape of her ear. Blue and green lights blinked on the earpiece.

  “Active noise cancelling! Cuts like ninety percent of it out, and it’s got all our communications built in!”

  I mouthed a “wow” at her, and she winked at me and held one index finger in front of her lips.

  I went to say something else, but she tilted her head slightly, then laughed at something. She held one hand out to me, so I stood up and took it. She pulled me in closer to her side so that she didn’t have to yell quite as loudly.

  “Someone’s coming over to see you, just a moment!”

  She turned around and pointed, and I followed her eyes to the tip of her finger and outwards.

  Another blonde woman flew over and dropped down lightly onto her toes next to Victoria. She was wearing an extremely form-fitting gold suit with white piping. Heeled boots with a wide sole gave her a few inches of height, bringing her up to what I guessed was about six feet. She had on a mask that covered her upper face, and two fang or dagger-like extensions from the bottom of the mask went down the sides of her cheeks nearly to the corners of her lips.

  I was doing my very best not to let my eyes betray my feelings, but this woman looked like she was poured into the suit she was wearing, and there was more of her than there was suit. There was an almost obscene amount of cleavage on display with the deep V-cut of the chest of the suit, and she was, somehow, notably more curvaceous than Glory Girl, who was well into the pinup body shape all on her own.

  One of the new teammates that she mentioned? Where do they even recruit these people from?

  The woman flashed me with a dazzling smile and gave a tug on the color-matching straps that were tightly fitted over the outer shell of her suit. They appeared to connect to a tinkertech pod on her back. Then she held a hand out to me.

  I let go of Vicky’s hand and took the one that was offered to me, and she quickly and firmly pulled me into a tight embrace.

  I stood there like a lame, limp fish as I was squished into her chest.

  “I’m so happy to finally see you, Morgan!” Her voice was bright and more than a touch bubbly.

  I felt like she was squeezing the life out of me. She was so strong! I mumbled something, but I wasn’t sure what, exactly. My brain was sort of short-circuiting at the moment.

  Vicky’s voice cut through the background noise, both from the parade and the nearly as disruptive racket inside my head.

  “God, Mom, you’re going to snap her in half if you hug her any harder!”

  What…? Carol…?

  Laughter shook the woman holding me tightly, and she released her tight hold on me and pulled me back, just a bit, and planted a big kiss on my cheek.

  My eyes darted to the side, and I watched Vicky clap her palm to her face and drag it downwards like she was trying to tear out her own soul.

  Carol let me go, and Vicky wrapped a protective arm around my shoulders.

  “You didn’t recognize me, did you!?” Carol spun in place. When she went around in a full circle, she adopted a pose best described as sassy, with one hand planted on her hip and a grin on her full lips.

  “It’s the Lev-Pack! It gets everyone!” She giggled and hooked her thumbs under the straps near her collarbones.

  “I um.” I blinked rapidly.

  Sure. Let’s go with that.

  “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to be flying around!” I said, nodding dumbly.

  Her smile deepened, and she shifted her posture slightly, canting her hips out to one side. “Technology is so amazing nowadays! You’ll have to get caught up with everything that’s changed!”

  She leaned forward and reached a hand out, holding my upper arm in a slightly less salacious pose, and a momentary flash of seriousness crossed her face, one I recognized from a Carol I used to know. “I don’t know if Vicky told you already, but I had asked her to pass on the message,” she said, glancing over to Victoria’s face.

  Vicky, for her part, seemed to stiffen up slightly against my side, but didn’t respond.

  “There’s always a place open for you with us, Morgan. When you get back up to speed and are feeling better!”

  It was like someone threw a pitcher full of ice water in my face. The hormonal fog in my head was blasted away, and a stab of pain hit me square in my chest.

  What does…

  But I don’t…

  Victoria’s hand on my shoulder gave me a firm squeeze. “Maybe not the best place for this talk, Mom?” Vicky ventured, and gears clicked into place with Carol. She smiled, nodded, and leaned in to give me another kiss on the cheek.

  “Get better soon, dear, and let’s catch up when you have time!” Carol turned her face to address Vicky. “You two take as long as you need. Things are quiet right now! I’m going to go check back in!”

  Carol waggled her fingers at the two of us and lifted off without so much as a puff of air and took off over the rooftops.

  “I’m sorry, Morgan! For all of that!” Vicky said into my ear.

  “I’m so lost and so confused right now, more than anything, really,” I admitted to her. “Why… Why is she asking me if I want to join New Wave?”

  A touch of the resentment and bitterness that’d surged in me earlier in the day came back. “What, do you need a secretary, or something?”

  Part of me hoped that the sarcasm would carry through my voice more than the agitation did.

  Victoria gave me a side-hug and heaved a sigh I felt more than heard. “As smart as Mom is about some things, I swear, she’s like an airheaded bimbo about other things.”

  I twisted my neck so I could side-eye Vicky.

  “She’s convinced that you’re just suffering from PTSD or something, and it’s a mental block that’s keeping you from being able to use your powers. She still sees you as, I don’t know, Phoenix Strike, maybe.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded slowly.

  “I um.”

  “I’m really sorry again. Mom’s sort of turned a new leaf, and she’s changed some while you were gone. She can be a lot at times.” Victoria gave me a tight smile.

  “So it wasn’t just my imagination…?” I let the question linger in the air, not wanting to fully voice it.

  Vicky barked out a laugh. “No, and you can just say it, trust me, you’re not going to offend me or Amy at all. It’s honestly almost harder for us to deal with than anyone else.”

  The tail ends of the parade were passing us by, and the deafening noise was lowering in intensity. In its wake, there were papers, bits of trash, and more police cruisers and officers on foot. Under the papers covering the street, I saw fresh paint on the sidewalks and pavement with more of the same slogans that were printed on the flyers.

  “You know, for as much shit as she gave me about propriety and image growing up as Glory Girl, you’d think she’d have some self-awareness, or, I don’t know, guilt, or something. Instead, she bounces around in a costume that she’d never let me wear in a million years.”

  I rested my head against Victoria’s shoulder and let her vent, nodding along and listening to her frustrations over her overly flirtatious mother, who didn’t look like she was a day over twenty-one.

  A thought popped into my head while she was taking a break from her rant. “Where’s your dad, anyway? Is he with the rest of you, watching over the parade?”

  “Home, babysitting. I’d say that he’d be here, but honestly? I think he loves that more than anything, if I’m being honest.”

  I gave her a partially confused look, which got another sigh out of her. She separated from my side and pulled her phone out of one of the pouches on her utility belt. Fiddling with it for a moment, she punched in a number of passwords, then pulled up a photo album and handed it over to me.

  It was a bunch of family photos. There was a Mark Dallon I recognized, along with a pair of young girls in poofy, colorful dresses. One blonde with curly hair, and one with darker brown, straight hair, both looked like they were maybe four or five years old. The blonde was the spitting image of Vicky from her elementary school yearbook photos. The other girl had similar features, but the hair color reminded me of Amy.

  Vicky looked over at me and grinned. She pointed at the blonde, saying, “The two newest members of the family, Sara Dallon.” Her finger moved over to the other girl. “And Trisha. The string of girls remains unbroken, and as much as Dad might complain about it, I don’t think he actually cares about it as much as he does having something to complain to Mom about.”

  “They’re both adorable, Vicky. I’m looking forward to meeting them. Is it…” I hesitated a moment. “Is it weird, having such a large age gap?”

  Victoria blinked at me, then broke into a huge, toothy smile. “You know, I worried a lot about that, but honestly? Not really? I feel a bit more like an aunt than I do a big sis, but there’s sort of a lot of social changes that have taken place, and are still taking place, with all the work Ambrosia is doing. Some of it was sort of disruptive. If you tune in to the congressional channel, you’ll see what looks like a college debate club for the most part. On one hand, it’s sort of weird? On the other hand, it really opened up a lot of dialogue about how pervasive ageist policies were throughout society. Bit of a weird and unintended side-effect, but there’s far less discrimination based on age when it comes to policies. It’s hard to argue that you have to ‘be this tall to ride’ the government rides, when the people holding the office look like they do. Things have become a bit more meritocratic than anything, and that’s a good thing in my book.”

  I was partially stunned by Vicky’s passion for the subject. She grinned a bit sheepishly and scratched her cheek. “Sorry, political me is leaking out, isn’t it?”

  “I um…” I needed a moment to gather my thoughts and assess my feelings. I was smiling. I felt happy for her and a sense of pride. I cleared my throat before speaking. “Taylor told me that you’re going to be a doctor. Does that mean I need to call you Doctor Girl?”

  That got a laugh out of Vicky. “Yeah… the jury’s still deliberating on that one. Mom’s over the moon that I’m pursuing my doctorate.”

  “I’m happy for you, too. For both of you. And for your mom and dad, too. It seems like you’re all doing pretty well for yourselves.” I felt it as much as I was saying it. Of all the giant gaps in my memory, I did remember spending time with the Dallons, and I could recognize at least some of the ways in which things had changed.

  Vicky blushed a rosy shade, and her smile felt like the rays of the sun warming me. She held her arms out, and I accepted the hug. I squeezed her back, but only a fraction of what I was receiving.

  “I know I keep saying it, but I’m glad you’re back. I’m sure things are going to get better for you, too. If you ever need anyone to talk to, you’ve got my ear, any time, any place.”

  I nodded against her chest. It was weird, because I felt small and frail in her arms, but it clashed with memories of a Morgan that wasn’t this short or twiggy.

  When we separated, Vicky dropped her gaze, and a frown broke her previous expression.

  “What happened here?” She asked, tracing her fingertips on my right forearm, where it looked like a handprint was burned into my colorless skin.

  I sighed. “I hurt myself without realizing it. I was squeezing my arm, and now I’m going to have big, nasty bruises because of it.”

  “Amy can fix those right up for you. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help,” Vicky offered.

  I thought about it for several long moments.

  “I think maybe it’s a good reminder for myself. Maybe I’ll ask for her help if I start looking like a rotting bunch of grapes, or something,” I mused out loud.

  “Just… try and be careful, please? I don’t want to see you getting yourself seriously injured by accident,” Vicky’s voice had a slightly pleading tone to it.

  I nodded absently. I couldn’t help but feel that I was likely to accrue more bruises just like it until I wound up getting more acclimated to the reality of this new life of mine. “I’ll try to be careful. I just need to learn what my limits and boundaries are. This…” I gestured at myself, from head to toe, with the wave of one hand. “...Is taking an awful lot of getting used to. Sooner or later I’ll figure out what’s what.”

  Although a look of concern washed over Victoria’s face, she didn’t voice it to me. I was appreciative of that. She just nodded instead. “Well, I need to get going. Let’s catch up again soon, please?”

  I smiled back at her. I couldn’t refuse her. “Yes, let’s. I should get moving, too. I got distracted with all of… that.” I waved at the litter-covered street.

  Vicky gave me one more quick hug, then went to take off, the tips of her bright boots dangling just inches off the pavement. “Oh, and Morgan? Try uh…” She paused a moment. “Try and keep your eyes and ears open, and your mind active. Our crime rate isn’t as bad as it used to be; if anything, we’re doing pretty well, but there’s a lot of villains and other troublesome sorts in the city. Far, far more than what you might remember. I doubt anyone would recognize you, but maybe be careful giving your full name or surname out to strangers.”

  I nodded slowly to her. It’d been explained to me that our civilian identities were exposed, so people knew who the Rivera family was.

  “I will, promise. And I have a number of people on my contact list, if something does happen,” I gave her a wry grin, and she winked back at me in response.

  “There you go. Catch you later, bye!”

  She waved and lifted into the air before darting off.

  I took a seat back down at the table I’d been occupying before all of this, collected up the piles of crap I’d been handed, and stuffed them into my backpack. If nothing else, it’d be useful to get an idea of who was living and operating in the city I called home. I took a few minutes to consider what I wanted to do next, and when I’d made a quick plan in my head, I sent a few texts out and headed on my way.

  As I looked around to gather my bearings and try to figure out directions without the assistance of my smartphone, I absent-mindedly took in some of the video cameras that were mounted on street lights and on the sides of buildings.

  Probably monitoring the parade. Maybe it follows the same route each month.

  I thought back to all the cameras that were mounted in Dragon’s laboratory, and I wondered if she might be monitoring things while she went about all her other business.

  I glanced up at several that seemed to be pointed directly at me, and where I’d been sitting and talking earlier. I didn’t pay them any mind.

  I’m not anyone special. Just some weird-looking, creepy girl with a medical condition. I don’t even have powers, unless you count bruising easily.

  I snorted, checked the time, and forced myself to get moving. I only had a few hours before I needed to be somewhere.