Chapter 5 - Breakfast with the goddess

Bob Null wakes up with the smell of bacon. It's not a bad way to wake up, the only problem is that there shouldn't be anyone cooking it.

His daughter couldn't cook even if her life depended on it. Did he bring anyone home last night? No, he's pretty sure he didn't, he slept alone this time. He gets out of bed and grabs the baseball bat he keeps under it, then drops it.

"Yeah, great idea Bob, somebody must have broken in to steal cash and got hungry. Did I lend the keys to anyone? Nori's gonna kill me" he thinks.

Walking slowly to the kitchen he's speechless for how clean everything is. There's not even a single shard of glass on the floor; after the windows shattered the night before, it was everywhere.

There's a woman with red hair in the kitchen. She's wearing orange pants and tube top, no shoes, she's floating a couple of inches from the floor, and she's humming.

she asks cheerfully.

Bob answers, flabbergasted; the apartment was a disaster area, but now it looks perfect. That's not the only thing he's looking at. Vesta is floating towards the table, humming a cheerful tune, looking absolutely perfect.

she asks.

she says nervously.

It doesn't take much to get to Noriko's room: with his salary, he can't afford a decent place.

Bob is used to find a mess in her daughter's room; it's what you expect from a teenager. But what he finds is excessive even for her.

She's sitting on the floor, in her underwear and the same T-shirt of the night before, tinkering with some electronic parts. She has dismantled a TV, a cell phone and her alarm clock; the remains are scattered everywhere together with dozens of sheets of paper, filled from top to bottom with formulas and diagrams.

She's even torn the posters of her favorite bands from the wall, drawing some kind of spherical machine. Bob doesn't recognize the design, but the amount of details she came up with is insane.

Noriko answers, not looking up from the device she's building.

she answers, pointing vaguely towards the drawing on the wall; now that he thinks about it, Bob can see that the drawing is the cutaway of the spherical rock on the floor.

Marbella, Spain

Hours ahead of the cold New York morning, the sun is shining on a magnificent beach.

Tourists in bathing suits are watching an African-American throw rocks in the air, then seemingly shooting at them with lasers coming out of the palm of his hand.

For Max Black, this is the best day of his life. People are cheering, thinking this is some sort of performance, but he's doing much more: he's learning how to use his newfound power.

As far as he can tell, he can turn his body into energy. It didn't take long to understand how to turn a very small part of himself, much less than a drop of blood, into pure light.

Too bad he doesn't speak more than three words of Spanish, because he would love to shout at the top of his lungs that he's the world's first superhero now.

His cell phone starts ringing, singing the theme song of a cartoon show. He almost forgot about it, but it's in his pocket. He excuses himself from the applauding crowd to answer:

says his sister Kayla.

Max puts the call on hold, grabs the shirt from the sand, and turns his body into light again.

Chicago, Illinois

Kayla is tapping her foot. It's just like her brother to scare her half to death and then disappear.

Somebody knocks at the door. She lowers the volume on the TV, where they're showing the walking disaster area that is New York City, and looks through the peephole.

she shouts opening the door.

Max is just outside, shaking the sand out of his shirt before putting it on again.

she says bluntly, walking in. Just from the way she walks, it's clear she's upset.

Kayla's death stare is more than enough to convince Max to reconsider his statement.

Kayla's jaw drops watching her brother's body turn into light, floating on air, with a gleeful smile.