That night, I turned off the lights in my apartment and looked out of the window, my silhouette hidden by darkness. The city was quiet, covered in the white blanket of snow. The Orange electrical light of the street lamps was beautifully intimate. There wasn't a soul outside for miles around.
I spent almost an hour standing there, looking, until I finally noticed a small red dot inside one of the cars parked outside. It floated in the darkness, slightly shifting, and then was gone.
Someone was smoking inside the dark car. My Ability allowed me to manipulate light to a certain degree, but I couldn't see in the dark, so there was no way of knowing who it was. I knew, though, that it was one of the Protectors. They were watching my building, too.
I got dressed, locked the doors behind me, and came to the stairs. Instead of going down, though, I went up, and up, until I reached a small hatch leading to the roof. It was chained shut, with a heavy padlock guarding the way, but I managed to twist its mechanism with the Ability and hear a click.
It was cold outside, icy wind hitting me in the face with a silent threat, as though demanding to go back, into the warmth of human dwellings. But I wasn't human, not really. So what was the point?
Light pollution has robbed city people of stars a long time ago, but here, sixty or so meters above the ground, I could see a few, shining in the dark sky. It was a moonless night, perfect for the kind of thing I was about to do.
Stupid, really.
I walked to the side of the building opposite to where the smoking Protector was, struggling through the piles of snow, and stopped near the edge. One look down, and my head spun, making me take a step back. Oh God, it was so far. What was I thinking?
Focus. Breathe. You have a mission.
I awakened my Ability, slowly uncoiling it in my mind. Then I spread it through my body, enveloping it. It felt like water streaming down my skin. Finally, I created the first Affect, making myself a little bit lighter, less possessed by the pool of Earth. Then I repeated that Affect fifteen times, becoming lighter, and lighter, and lighter, until I had to grab the railing, afraid that the wind will throw me off the roof, and then lighter and lighter still.
When I reached my limit, the familiar pressure of sixteen Affects boiling in my mind, I climbed other that railing, turned around, and fell.
This was how I broke my leg in kindergarten. Only back then it was a tree, not a twenty-storey building. If I make a mistake now, a leg won't be the only thing I break.
I reached with my hand and grabbed the drainpipe, fingers slipping on wet metal, my fall slowing. The wind hit me in the back, trying to crash me into the side of the building, break my bones. I might have reduced the weight of my body, but its density remained the same. I didn't have the protection of mass to defend it against the forces of nature anymore, and the force of the wind was enough to make the possibility of impact potentially deadly.
I was still falling.
My muscles tensed, trying to keep me away from the brick surface of the building. The drainpipe was my only lifeline, my only means of controlling the fall. At first, it was like floating down through water. But with each second, the acceleration increased, and soon the wind started to howl in my ears. I strengthened my grip on the pipe, knuckles white with strain, slipping down, down, accelerating, too fast, losing control.
When the ground was just a few meters away, I pushed myself from the building and spun, releasing the Affects one after another.
For a second, I was in free fall, flying through the darkness. My mind screamed, because for it, free fall was danger.
Free fall was death.
Then I landed in the snow with a thump, swung wildly, and managed to remain on both feet.
Cold satisfaction.
I couldn't quite believe what I just did.
Now, while the PA thought that I'm sleeping peacefully in my bed, I was free to do whatever I wished, unobserved.
That night, I met Mickey, and we concocted our plan.
Climbing back to the roof turned out to be more straining than falling from it, but I managed. When the dim twilight of dawn colored the streets grey, I looked out of my window once again. The car was still there, and now I could see an unclear shape of a person sitting inside.
An hour later I emerged from the front doors of the building, like nothing happened, and went to work. My entourage followed me at a respectable distance.
#
I quit my job at the bar. The boss was furious because I'd given no notice, but the staff was sad to see me go. They threw me an improvised farewell party, which warmed my heart a little. We drank shots, gossiped, and remembered embarrassing stories about my time as apprentice bartender. At one point, Nikki pushed a glass of whiskey in my hand, and said:
'I'll miss you, Matthew. You're a good kid.'
I thanked her, half-drunk already. She smiled brilliantly.
'Hey, what happened to that girl of yours?'
I gave her a look of complete incomprehension.
'What girl?'
'The pretty one? Dark hair, loves heavy metal, carries a giant box around? She came here looking for you, and I gave her your address. Top-notch wingman, that's me!'
Nikki laughed, and I realized she was talking about Claire.
'Oh. We're friends, that's all.'
'Sure you are!'
She downed a shot, winced, and cried:
'Oh man! Oh that one hit the spot!'
Then she looked around, leaned close to me and said:
'By the way, have you heard about the wraith?'
I blinked, waited a second.
'What wraith?'
'The one who killed all those people in Seattle. Do you know they still haven't caught it?'
I didn't reply, and she shook her head in bewilderment.
'I just don't understand what the PA is thinking. Why don't they just, like, put them all in cages, right? Those creatures?'
I smiled, and nodded, and didn't say anything.
The next day, I landed a job as a barista in a chain coffee shop. I put on an apron, smiled at the customers, chatted with them about this and that when needed, wrote down their names. I was charming, friendly and easygoing.
'... Oh yeah, I'm in a band.'
'Really? What it's called?'
'Coffee Bandit.'
'No way!'
'... Wow, is that the new model?
'Yeah, it is.'
'Dude, that's so cool. How did you get it?'
'Don't even ask, man. I stood in the line for three days.'
'Respect! I hear it's amazing.'
'... Yeah, I would recommend the blueberry muffin. Some people go for donuts, but me? I'm a muffin guy myself, through and through.'
'Are they fresh?'
'Right from the oven.'
'I don't know...'
'You know what? Have one on me. They taste like clouds, I promise.'
The coffee shop was situated in the business district, in front of the glass tower that held offices for some of the most prestigious firms in the city. Somewhere in there, there was a law firm with three names in golden letters written on the door.
And somewhere in that firm, there was a desk with a nameplate that read 'Tanya Duncan' on it.
From my vantage point from behind the counter, I had a perfect view of the entrance to the tower. I saw her come to work in the mornings and go home late in the evenings. Just as Protectors, I never looked at her directly, never focused my attention on her, instead allowing my peripheral vision to do the work. For someone like me, whose mind was disciplined by the demands of the Ability, this technique turned out to be not that hard to master.
If Zero was to show up here, he would have trouble getting past me unnoticed.
And if he somehow managed to find her home, a small brick cottage in an upstanding neighborhood uptown, he would have trouble getting past Mickey, who had somehow managed to hack the neighborhood's security system and gained access to a camera pointed directly at her door.
Basically, we were able to watch her almost 24/7, and the Protectors, who were, in turn, watching us, were none the wiser. They weren't stupid, but we managed to fool them completely. During the weekends one of us would give them the slip and follow her and her husband at a discreet distance. Ironically, we were taught how to remain unnoticed by the PA surveillance teams that were spying on us.
Tanya led an active life. She went to theaters, art exhibitions, charity dinners and other events of that sort on a regular basis, sometimes with her husband, sometimes with her girlfriends. They ate in fashionable restaurants, shopped in boutiques with foreign names on the sign and danced in nightclubs with red rope at the entrance. She and her husband weren't wealthy, but they had enough. They seemed happy.
I knew that she would not talk to us if we were to try and approach her again. We were a threat to that life she somehow managed to build for herself, and if pressed, she would only recoil in fear, just like she did at the party. We needed a different, less aggressive, subtle approach.
I've decided to let her approach me herself, on her own terms, in her own time.
Working in the coffee shop nearest to her office, it was only a matter of time until we met.