Approaching a pair of younger HUE members chatting, they stood up straighter when Sami walked up to them. The girl on the left, Beth, half raised her hand like she was going to salute him, then lowered it in awkward hesitation. Sami was pretty certain they should have already been comfortable and on a first name basis after their deployment together, but she seemed nervous. The boy on the right looked stiff, like he was waiting to be yelled at by a drill sergeant. Sami glanced over his shoulder to make sure Apex hadn’t appeared, confused by the impression that was being made by the two.

  “Hey, I’m Sami. I never introduced myself to you. Or, maybe we met, but we haven’t really gotten a chance to chat.” Sami tried to reach out his Shadow Hand to offer a handshake, but nothing appeared. Shaking his head to himself, he held out a hand.

  The young man took it and shook firmly, hand trembling.

  “I’m Milo! Pleased to meet you!” he said loudly.

  Sami grinned at the two. “Can I ask about your powers? I know you each have one. Beth, I think I saw you use a power during the ambush, but I can’t remember it at all.”

  “Yeah, I call it Restore. It’s kind of like healing people, but I have to know what’s wrong. I can’t just clap my hands and Restore someone that’s in pain unless I know where it’s located. Or what’s causing it. If Claire wasn’t paying attention, I wouldn’t have been able to Restore you and Steve at the lot.”

  “So, like you could heal a twisted ankle, but not a cold?” Sami asked thoughtfully.

  “Umm… Yeah! Kinda. I’m pretty sure I could do sicknesses too, but I’d have to study them a lot. Maybe if I became a doctor like my parents wanted…” Beth looked to the ground, embarrassed.

  “That’s a really cool power, I wish I had something like that.” Sami smiled sincerely.

  “Yeah. It’s nice. I like being able to help people,” Beth agreed.

  “And I have psychic communication!” Milo saluted him.

  Sami smiled. “Stand down dude, I’m not even close to a superior. How does your power work?”

  Milo lowered his hand nervously. Black hair rolled just past his ears and split open at his eyes which trembled as he watched Sami closely. Swallowing hard, it looked like he was talking to his executioner.

  “It works like this.” A voice echoed in Sami’s head that sounded about three octaves deeper than Milo’s.

  Sami widened his eyes, placing a hand on his forehead. “Whoa. Super cool. It is just one way?”

  “I can only transmit one way at short distances like this, but if you grab my hand, the effect lasts much longer. We can mentally speak to each other for about an hour.” Milo’s voice changed again, this time sounding more like an old man.

  Sami reached out a hand. “Does the voice always change?”

  “Yeah, every time.” This time it sounded like a middle-aged woman.

  “Whoa, that’s trippy. I’d never be able to tell it was you if I didn’t already know,” Sami expressed, wondering what his voice sounded like in their heads.

  “Actually, that was my sister. We already connected earlier. You joined something like a three-way call.”

  Sami looked between them, noticing the resemblance. “Beth is your sister?”

  “Yep.”

  If Sami didn’t see Beth nodding, he wouldn’t have been certain whose voice the last response was. Shaking his head slightly, he decided to speak aloud to avoid the confusion of the rapidly-changing voices.

  “Kinda disorienting. It’s confusing to have it keep changing, but I like the utility of it. Does it have a range?” Sami asked.

  “Like a thousand feet, from what we’ve tested.” Milo replied in his head. It was odd to watch him gesticulate with a stretch of his arms, even when his mouth remained shut.

  Sami worked his jaw, trying to think of a polite way to get out of the three-way mental call.

  “If you want to remove someone from the mental connection, can you do that?”

  “We have to wait it out every time.”

  Again, Sami was left uncertain who replied mentally. He wondered if he got out of range whether it would sever connection permanently, or only so long as they remained out of the thousand foot radius. Resigning himself to mental shenanigans for the next hour, Sami sighed before sharing his own powers to be polite.

  “My powers are Shadow Hand and…”

  “Power Sense, right?” Milo asked earnestly, lowering his head slightly in nervousness.

  “Yeah. I guess my info has gotten around.”

  “How much can your Power Sense detect? Does it know exactly how someone’s power works? Or, can you tell how many people are connected to my psychic call?”

  “Nah, nothing that cool. Right now, it just tells me the number of powers and whether they’re active.”

  “Right now?” Beth asked mentally with a tilt of her head.

  “Yeah, we can work out powers by using them more often.”

  “I know that, but how would something like Power Sense become stronger? It either tells you something or it doesn’t.”

  “Maybe I can learn more?” Sami shrugged.

  Milo seemed to look nervously thoughtful at the idea, likely wondering how much more he could expand his power.

  “Good to meet you. I’ll come back this way if I ever have an injury. Or, maybe you’ll get to me first.”

  “Bye Sami!” Two voices stacked mentally as they both waved.

  Echoes bounced around him as Sami moved on to talk to the guy that could make pictures from memories.

  “He’s nice. I think he’s a great member of the team.”

  “Beth, he can still hear you.”

  Sami heard a slap to a forehead behind him as he stood in front of the young man, reaching out a hand.

  “You’re Photographic Memory guy, right?”

  “Ulysses. You’re Sami, right?” Ulysses shook with a firm handshake.

  “That’s me.”

  “Can you help me out? I heard you offer help about people’s powers with Power Sense.”

  Sami raised both eyebrows slightly, surprised that he had a reputation at all. “I don’t think Power Sense has a lot to do with it. I just like to think of applications of powers.”

  “Okay, that works fine. How am I supposed to use my power?” Ulysses asked, waving a sticky note like a polaroid and presenting Sami a picture of the moment his shadow arm was being cut off by Dawson.

  Sami winced slightly as he looked at it, witnessing the frustration written on his face. “Well, you could definitely make someone regret their actions. Maybe even depress them.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “That doesn’t seem practical.”

  “Okay, well…” Sami looked up at the tall ceiling of the warehouse as he shifted his jaw back and forth. “What can you apply your power to?”

  Ulysses raised a pack of sticky notes. “Paper.”

  “I meant something other than paper. Can you apply it to anything else?”

  “I could change Steve’s clay dummies back at tryouts, I guess. Change the color. I even added a frowny face. But that’s not really an attack.”

  “Sure, but what about like a graphic t-shirt? Or! What about like a car? Could you be in a car chase and change the hood of your car to disguise yourself after going around a corner?”

  Raising his eyebrows in thought, Ulysses looked down at his own shirt and slapped his palm against it. The fabric blurred and fuzzed before coagulating into a single image of a young man with a brilliant white flame radiating from his head. Lightcrown. Ulysses looked up at Sami with wide eyes, an opened mouthed smile on his lips.

  “Thanks! I gotta go find a car to try this out on!” Ulysses spun on his heel and jogged away from the group of HUE members.

  Smiling to himself, Sami made his way to Francine, the last of the group he had yet to speak to. Halfway to the sparring match between her and Kutso, a door from a hallway slammed open.

  To Sami’s shock, Naomi was storming out, looking more energetic than he’d ever seen her before. Steve was two steps behind her, a deep V of sweat on his chest as he begged her to slow down and held out her thick calorie drink.

  Naomi’s head swiveled around the open area rapidly. “Where is he?”

  The HUE members looked at one another, stunned by the force in her voice. Sharing an understanding by the look in her eyes, they knew exactly who she was referring to and collectively pointed to the dorms that Dawson ran off to.

  “If any one of you so much as thinks the word ‘No’ when Steve gives you an order, I’ll have Apex himself disintegrate you!” Naomi shouted, then stormed to the dorms across the open warehouse. “And no more streaming in HUE Headquarters!” She added, not looking back to them.

  “It’s really fine, Naomi. He was just excited about his little video.” Steve stumbled, dabbing his neck of fresh sweat. “You should slow down. Please.”

  “After we have a chat with Dawson.”

  “At least take your drink!” Steve pleaded, extending it further with clay to wiggle next to her head.

  Naomi ignored the bottle shaking next to her face, eyes locked on to the doors across the hall as she barged through them. Sami looked at Gutshot, Gan Wen, and Claire with a surprised expression.

  Claire folded her arms smugly. “Well, at least we don’t have to deal with that nonsense anymore.”

  “I’m glad my dad went to go talk with Dawson. He’ll know what to say, even if Naomi is mad at him,” Gutshot said knowingly. Claire facepalmed.

  “Your surplus of father figures confuses and troubles me,” Gan Wen said to him contemplatively.

  Gutshot scratched his stomach in confusion. “What do you mean, surplus?”

  Exhaling in amusement, Sami made his way to Francine. Standing aside, he waited patiently as balls of flame streaked around a blade dancing between them. Like a ballet of violence, the skirmish was surprisingly beautiful. The flames reflected off the blade like a light show, and the blaze was so radiant that it made Sami’s face feel hot even from a few feet away.

  Kutso’s blade flipped twice in the air, narrowly ??avoiding flames and coming down fast at Francine. Eyes glancing somewhere else in the warehouse, Francine shot a flamethrower upward while she rolled out of the way and darted forward. Kutso’s floating form chased after her, dragging behind Francine’s impressive speed. Blinking in surprise, Sami noticed she was boosting herself with fire at the back of her feet, like small jet engines in her shoes.

  Coming to an abrupt halt, Francine held a flaming fist toward the ground and turned back to the floating sword with a grin on her face. She was standing over Kutso’s unconscious body. The sword clattered to the floor and Kutso’s soul came back to her body, holding up her hands and sputtering.

  “All right, I yield.”

  “Why?” Sami asked, moving to the fallen sword.

  Kutso glanced at the small fire dancing in front of her face, then back to Sami with a flat look.

  “I don’t have a Shadow Hand to absorb the blast.”

  “Couldn’t you jump into Francine’s shoes and make her face plant? Or her sleeve and force her arm to turn back toward her face?” Sami twisted his palm toward his face in a twitching manner, like it was possessed.

  Francine and Kutso changed a curious glance, Francine depowering her flame. Extending an arm to help Kutso to her feet, Francine looked thoughtful.

  “Could you actually do that?”

  “Yeah, but I’d have to fight your own strength to turn your arm. I don’t know if I’d win that battle of strength before you’d burn me.” Kutso stood, patting her body down.

  “You wouldn’t win that fight. But here’s another thought for another scenario. What if you made a shirt tighten around the neck?”

  “And strangle someone from their own clothes!” Kutso said, sounding somewhat disturbed.

  Straining loudly, Sami hoisted Kutso’s sword and lost balance as he brought it toward her. Stumbling and righting himself, he presented the blade to her. She grabbed it with ease, sheathing it with none of the struggle Sami exerted. Either she had practiced using the sword a lot, or Sami needed to get on her workout regimen.

  He turned to Francine, grinning. “I’m Sami. I don’t think we’ve met before. How does your power work?”

  “Francine.” She eyed him warily. “Why do you want to know about my power?”

  “Why not? We’re on a team. I thought it might be useful if we’re deployed together.”

  Francine’s eyes continued to narrow on him, enough that Sami felt like he had said something wrong. Puzzled, he looked to Kutso for support.

  “Francine thinks we have a mole.” Kutso shrugged.

  Francine closed her eyes and exhaled in annoyance. “It doesn’t help to spread that information.”

  “I don’t think Sami is cunning enough to pull off being a mole,” Kutso said.

  “It’s true, I’d be terrible,” Sami nodded amiably. “But why do you think we have a mole?”

  Francine sighed, looking somewhat upset with Kutso. Then, pulling her ponytail over her shoulder lightly, she looked at Sami contemplatively. Sami waited patiently for her silent assessment, scanning her Power Sense bubble for some more information. It was red. Like fire? No, Kutso’s was red too. Color had to mean something. Maybe something with how their power first formed? That might make sense of why some of the least compatible powers shared the same color.

  “Can I trust you?” Francine asked.

  “Apex trusts me.” Sami nodded quickly.

  “In what way?”

  Sami grinned. “If I told you, it’d ruin the trust.”

  Francine scoffed, looking at Kutso. Kutso squinted at her, looking impatient.

  “I already told him you suspect there’s a mole. I don’t think it’s a secret as to why.”

  “Fine.” Francine said, looking over her shoulders to see if anyone else listened in. Satisfied at the distance they stood from everyone else, she leaned in to Sami. “Our deployments keep getting ambushed. My fire fighting missions are often raided by black-mask wearing hooligans. And I think your traffic deployment went the same. Plus, your recent one, right? And the headquarters! How would they know where to strike?”

  Sami thought back to his fight at the intersection, followed by his most recent one. The first one seemed like it made sense at the time, when they mentioned they were looking for a particular person, but it did strike him as odd how quickly and organized they showed up. And the second, he had no idea how they would know they were going to a parking lot. Maybe there was some merit to a mole.

  “Do you have any idea who it is?” Sami asked.

  “My theory is it’s someone at the front desk,” Francine murmured. “But I can’t be certain, so I don’t want to make any claims. I still suspect anyone here, yourself included.”

  “All right, but I’m not a mole. Why would I call people to kill me on my own missions?”

  “They didn’t harm you, did they?”

  “Because I fought them!”

  “I’m just saying it doesn’t clear you of suspicion.”

  “What would?”

  Francine tilted her head to the side in thought. Snapping, she summoned and blew out a flame as she thought. Sami thought it was both cool and strange that she was showing off. Then he remembered she never answered the specifics about her power. He could be satisfied in just thinking “fire” was her power, but he was hoping for more details. Maybe when she was feeling less reserved.

  “I don’t suspect you all that much after you ran in during the headquarter ambush, if I’m being honest with myself. Keep an eye out and let me know if anyone seems out of place.”

  The three pairs of eyes glanced toward the dorms.

  Sami shook his head before anyone made the accusation aloud. “Dawson would be a terrible mole. Worse than me.”

  “He’d blab about it for the smallest crumb of clout,” Kutso agreed.

  “Or he puts on the facade to deceive us,” Francine said, suspicious.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Sami promised halfheartedly.

  Satisfied at having exchanged names, Sami waved and made his way back to Claire. If he couldn’t train while Shadow Hand reformed, he might as well ask Claire about her talk with Apex. She looked at him smugly, arms folded knowingly. Confused, Sami picked up his pace, then realized what she knew the moment before she spoke.

  “So. A mole? We should get that figured out,” Claire said, looking around at the other members of HUE.

  “Are you talking about my mole? It’s not that big, just on the back of my arm,” Gutshot said, covering an arm with a hand.

  Sami looked to him with a half open mouth, but ultimately ignored him, turning back to Claire. “You were listening in?”

  “On every conversation,” Claire confirmed.

  “At least she didn’t hear everything,” Sami thought, knowing the mental conversation remained private.

  “Huh?” Milo mentally asked in a prepubescent voice. “Who was that? Beth? What didn’t you hear?”

  “Milo, are you talking to me, or is this Sami?”

  Shaking his head, Sami sighed. Maybe the mental link wasn’t as cool as he initially thought. Still, he was satisfied at having met every current member of HUE.

  Except for one that some others had talked about. He wondered when he’d have the chance to meet the Rank 3A, Hannah.