12 Years ago - Before the Silent Scream, but inching closer. Months away.

  “Anything?” Pinn asked, checking the time. Two minutes to noon.

  Nothing came from his earpiece. Pinn frowned, but his mother came to his rescue before he had to say anything.

  “Rocky, you have to answer him when he talks to you!” Serena hissed on the call.

  “He knows I would say something if there was something to say. There’s also all the prying ears around.”

  “The only reason I’m not there is because you assured me you could replace me! I don’t care about the danger! If you won’t take the job seriously, then I’m coming right now!”

  “There is nothing to report, son,” Rockwell said, his tone equivalent to eyes rolling in sockets.

  “Thanks, Pa.”

  Ranger Park was clear of civilians, and Pinn sat on a bench on the sidewalk across the street from the playground. Fortunately, the park was empty of children and families. Unfortunately, that was because Pinn called in a bomb threat pretending to be Boli and it was swarming with police. They had noticed Pinn in his strange getup, but were congregating around Rockwell on a bench a street down from him. Officer McNaulty tried to both interrogate and start casual conversations, but Rockwell always replied with one of three options: Silence, a grunt, or a scoff.

  Rockwell hated cops, constantly drilling Pinn not to speak to cops if he could avoid it. Pinn wasn’t sure exactly why. At the rate the conversations went, his father would be arrested for annoying McNaulty and the other officers. And though he’d never admit it with his father present, Pinn was happy that police would be there to witness the drones the moment they arrived.

  Face pointed toward a newspaper, Pinn was wearing a motorcycle helmet to cover his face. Following an extensive and somewhat awkward change of clothes in the cafe’s small restroom, his family decided to save time by just concealing his face. Clothes could be replaced on every outing.

  Pinn didn’t even know his father owned a motorcycle, but he produced the helmet from a box in the garage and they got to testing it. With some tape and finagling, they attached Pinn’s new earbuds inside an insulation to the helmet itself so he wouldn’t have to worry about pulling them out before turning on the flame. Pinn could sustain the Lightcrown under it, but it would completely blind him with the white fire until he pulled the helmet off. And he had to pull it off quickly, otherwise the helmet slowly melted away.

  “Eyes up, son.”

  Pinn snapped his head to the sky, just in time to see a speck above. If his dad hadn’t mentioned it, he might not have realized the small dot was approaching. It whirled at an odd angle, like it wasn’t designed for flight but was giving its best shot regardless. Adjusting and readjusting in the air, it spun slowly on its descent. Then, four more distant images peeked into view from behind it.

  “See it?”

  “I see em, Pa.”

  Exploding into a head of flame, Pinn tore off his helmet and Enhanced his strength and vision. Spinning in place, he chucked the motorcycle helmet hundreds of feet away, where his mother would be available to retrieve it for the next outing. A dozen firearms pointed his way, but Pinn’s eyes were zooming in on the bots. The bots were getting larger, more sophisticated. Where did Boli get his money from?

  “Put your hands up! Now!” Officer McNaulty shouted over a megaphone.

  Pinn raised two arms, and lightning erupted from him involuntarily. Shouting in panic, three officers fired at him. Enhanced, Pinn could easily dodge them, but he didn’t have the spatial awareness to know what was behind him. Frustrated, he put up a fist to block them. Instead, they twisted at odd angles and snapped to his other palm.

  Then, the guns were all wrenched away from the officers, several badges and keychains flying along with them. Turning his full focus on the oncoming barrage of trinkets, Pinn forced his arms downward, crashing them hard into the ground with a burst of air. A tree spontaneously combusted on the other side of the park. Pinn couldn’t even keep track of his powers anymore, uncertain if combustion was new or maybe a lash of lightning.

  Spiraling even more chaotically, the bots lost all sense of traction in the sky, spinning head over legs with arms out like a shuriken. Into the center of the park, the bots smashed into the ground, then leaned toward Pinn and face planted. Their heads tracked him as they all fell to the grass.

  “Magnetism?” Boli asked through a speaker on the lead bot. “That’s new! Hey, by the way, did you listen to the h8r boi album? It was fantastic!”

  Without warning, two bots raced toward the officers like feral animals. Pinn blasted off the bench toward them while the other three droids tracked him with their heads. Kicking out, he threw an erratic blast of blue light at the unmoving ones. It missed, burning the air between them and melting monkey bars.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Focusing ahead, Pinn wasted no time tearing off the head of the first drone, then using it to bash the rest of the body into a crumpled mess. Looking up, Pinn saw the other attacking bot bash a fist into an officer, a nasty crunch sounding off his arm. Crying out in pain, the officer fell to the ground, and the bot loomed over him. Snapping into action, Pinn took the crumpled bot and threw it with all his Enhanced might, cutting through the air and cleaving the attacking machine in half.

  Launching himself forward, Pinn burned the downed bots with his flaming head.

  “Th… Thank you! You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Don’t thank him after he disarmed you! He’s a vigilante, arrest him!” McNaulty screamed.

  Jumping away from the grateful and confused policemen, Pinn flipped in the air. Feet leaving a crater in the ground, Pinn craned his neck to track the trajectory of his leap and land atop the next bot. Blinking, he was surprised to find the bots had left the center of the park. Snapping his head around, he spotted that all three of them were running and stumbling toward a news van. The panicking cameraman was filming from the passenger seat and the driver was speaking rapidly into the microphone as they approached.

  Frustrated that they didn’t even try to run, Pinn attempted to fly forward with Enhanced speed, but moved in slow motion. No, regular speed. Enhance didn’t kick in, and water sloshed around his ankles, spilling out of his pants as a side-effect. More powers going off at random. Crying out, Pinn pushed himself at a normal sprint to close the distance.

  Loud screaming became clear as the first bot tore the door to the van open, and a second drove its hand through the opening and crushed the camera. The cameraman howled, his hand smashed while gripping his equipment. Without following up on the victims, both robots turned to Pinn, leaving the news crew alone.

  Head flaming strong, Pinn felt like a lightbulb went off in his head. Boli only wanted his bots to record their escapades. News about “Lightcrown vs robots” was front page material every time. And that meant Boli was getting paid by the news outlets to record the crimes that he was committing. Plus, he got the bonus revenue for the clips he edited on to ViewCube.

  The threats were real too, the bots were clearly capable of breaking limbs and did so without issue. If Pinn didn’t show up, things would go worse.

  “Stop this!” Pinn demanded.

  “I can see you’re upset. How about we pick this up next Friday?” Boli’s voice replied.

  Screaming, Pinn closed his hands tightly in front of the bots. Like a black hole manifested at their core, the three crumpled down into little more than scrap metal. Then, the van started to implode as well.

  “Get out!” Pinn screamed.

  “The doors are stuck!” the newswoman called as the doors folded over themselves.

  “I can’t get out!” the cameraman slapped at his seatbelt with his broken hand.

  Heart in a drumming panic, Pinn Enhanced himself and blasted forward, crashing through the shrinking car. As he passed through, he burned through the seatbelts and yanked the two passengers from their seats. Bursting through the other side, Pinn and the news crew rolled on the ground, heaving in exhaustion. With a screech, the van collapsed in on itself, a ball of metal with four tires poking out.

  The newswoman was on her knees as soon as she got her bearings, crawling with open cuts across her forearms and eyebrow. She wasn’t much older than Pinn, her brunette ponytail in a spiky tail after being thrown through a car. Eagerness in the eyes behind her sharp glasses, it may have been her first job.

  “Lightcrown! Joanna Slattery with Hammerton Channel 34 local news! Can we get an interview?”

  Blinking, Pinn sat up and stared. “You need to get those cuts closed up.”

  “I can wait.”

  Pinn frowned behind his flame, watching a stream of blood flow from her head and close an eye. “I don’t think you can.”

  “Do you know anything about the bots that attacked Ranger Park today?” The microphone tilted from Joanna to Pinn.

  “No. Some guy named Boli makes them, but I don’t know where he is.”

  “But you know him well enough to be on a first name basis?”

  The question sounded like it doubled as an accusation. He wondered if the audio was airing live.

  “He doesn’t know my name.”

  “And what is your name?” Joanna’s microphone leaned dangerously close to his fire.

  Pinn felt like he shouldn’t be talking to her. “No. Thank you. End of interview.”

  “Are you working with the man who makes the bots!”

  “No! Obviously not! I just destroyed them!”

  “We saw you disarm all the police even though only a select few opened fire on you.”

  Pinn knew it wasn’t a question, but felt compelled to give an answer anyway. The mugger that tried to kill his parents flashed through his mind.

  “Look, it was self-defense from what they would do after the first shots. Plus, we’d all be better off if Hammerton didn’t have guns, okay? Not that I was trying to make that point right now, but it still stands. I just didn’t want them to shoot me.”

  “Would we say Lightcrown holds a clear stance on gun control?”

  “No, I don’t like this. This interview is done, okay? I feel like you’ve got plenty to go with and I need to go prepare in case the madman makes good on his promise again,” Pinn said.

  Joanna straightened up, pulling the microphone back and nodding respectfully. “Okay. This was Joanna Slattery with an exclusive interview with Lightcrown. Thank you for speaking with us.”

  Pinn was surprised by how easily she backed down the second time he asked to end the conversation, almost certain she would push for more information. Nodding back, Pinn dashed away without any powers but the flame on his head. The Lightcrown was the only power he confidently trained to burn without side-effects, so it always remained. But the random outbursts of other powers were getting harder to control.

  A week before the next attack. Boli set up the days to give him time to build new bots to send after Pinn.

  He needed to be stopped before something seriously deadly could occur.