Arthur sat on the couch, the black blanket folded neatly in his lap. Across the room, the grey gym pants and t-shirt he'd left for her lay untouched on the floor.
She'd been real. He knew she'd been real.
So where the hell did she go?
The question circled his mind like a trapped bird. He stood, walked to the bathroom, flicked on the harsh white light. Empty. The shower stall. The cabinet under the sink. Nothing.
He returned to the main room, picked up the untouched clothes, and placed them back in the wardrobe. As if to bring some small measure of order to the chaos, he set the blanket on the arm of the couch.
The silver-haired woman. The one who didn't breathe, didn't blink, tracked him with those liquid mercury eyes. Had she walked out? Climbed out the window? Simply ceased to exist the moment he wasn't looking?
He didn't have answers. Just another mystery stacked on a pile of mysteries.
His phone buzzed in his hoodie pocket, violent in the stillness.
He fumbled for it, a desperate hope flaring. Kira.
He thumbed the screen. It wasn't Kira. It was a notification.
RENT DUE: TUESDAY. 8 JUNE 2083. AMOUNT: ?4200 . AUTOPAY FAILED.
He stared at the message. Three days. He had three days.
The hope vanished, extinguished by dread. 4200 credits. He didn't know where he kept his money. Or if he even had any.
"Perfect," he said aloud, his voice raw. A harsh laugh escaped his lips. He was a blank slate with bills to pay.
He let the phone slip from his fingers. It clattered onto the floor and lay dark.
His gaze drifted to the couch. To the heavy, ruggedized laptop still plugged into the wall, its fan whirring softly. To the data shard still slotted into its side. Another locked door.
he thought, but the idea felt distant, fragile.
He felt useless. A broken thing, waiting to be fixed or thrown away.
* * *
With nothing else to do, his attention moved to the open cardboard box. To the bright, four-color chaos of the comic book covers. He crawled to it and pulled one out at random. The cover depicted a teenage boy, his arm encased in sleek, black-and-grey alien armor.
He sat on the floor, his back against the couch, and began to read.
Time dissolved. He read one, then another, then another. The aged paper felt strange, blessedly real in his hands. He devoured them, not for the stories themselves, but for the ghost of familiarity. He knew he was supposed to know these characters, these worlds. The smiling, hollow-eyed faces in the laptop photos had felt like a lie, but this... this felt like a whisper of truth.
He turned a page, and a single, garish panel made his breath catch.
The boy in the alien suit stood in his backyard. A beam of pure, crackling energy shot from his hand, blowing a smoking, molten crater in a brick wall. The boy was staring at his own hand, his face a mask of shock and dawning, terrifying power.
Arthur's breath hitched. He dropped the comic.
The alley. The sound of the service light dimming. The smell of burnt plastic. The glorious, terrifying rush of blue light flowing into his hand.
The chair. The sharp, metallic of the needle. The blinding flash. IMPENETRABLE SURFACE DETECTED.
He looked down at his own hands. His real, calloused, empty hands.
"I have superpowers," he whispered. The words sounded insane. He said them again, louder, testing their weight. "I have... powers."
A strange, wild feeling bloomed in his chest, pushing back the dread. It wasn't just fear. It wasn't just confusion. It was .
He wasn't just a victim. He wasn't just a blank slate. He was something new.
He scrambled to his feet, his mind suddenly sharp, focused. He walked to the dented wardrobe and rummaged in a drawer until his fingers closed around three small, cylindrical objects. Batteries. Standard AAs.
He placed them on the floor and knelt, staring at them like a scientist studying an unknown specimen.
He focused, closing his eyes, willing his perception to shift—remembering how the chaos had nearly drowned him on the street, letting the awareness come slowly this time.
The world dissolved into its hidden language. The apartment's wiring was a dim blue web in the walls. The laptop was a warm, complex glow. And the batteries... each one held a tiny, faint white flicker of contained energy.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He picked one up. He remembered the acrid smell in the alley, the scorched cable casing. He didn't want to burn his apartment down. The bathroom. Tiles, porcelain, nothing flammable.
He walked to the bathroom and knelt on the cool, tiled floor. He placed the battery in front of him, his heart hammering not with fear but with anticipation.
He placed his finger on the positive terminal.
It was instantaneous. A thin, silver thread of light, barely visible, flowed from the battery into his fingertip. Not the roaring, euphoric rush of the power conduit. A tiny, warm, pleasurable jolt. A sip, not a feast.
He pulled his hand back. The battery was still intact, not scorched. He smiled, a small, genuine smile. "Maybe because there wasn't much energy in it in the first place," he said aloud, his voice giddy.
The feeling had been... easy. Effortless. He hadn't commanded it; he'd allowed it. A warm, pleasant sensation lingered in his hand.
He chuckled, a dry, rusty sound. "Great. A battery junky."
The image flashed in his mind: himself on a street corner, hooded and desperate—
He laughed again, the sound shockingly real in the small room.
"Okay," he said, standing. "Now for the next part."
A few moments later, he sat in the main room, staring at the small, utilitarian folding knife on the floor. The knife he'd used to open the box.
His mind weighed the idea—the sheer, clinical stupidity of it—against the burning need to know.
In the end, he picked it up.
He held the knife in his right hand. He stared at the tip of his left index finger, at the whorls of his fingerprint.
He pressed the blade's razor-sharp tip against the soft skin.
He pushed.
The blade dimpled his skin, but didn't break it. He pushed harder. The skin turned white with pressure, but the steel wouldn't bite. He could feel the blade resting on something impossibly hard just beneath the flesh.
He looked closer, his heart pounding, and saw it: faint, shifting light pulsing in the veins of his finger. A silent, internal aurora.
"Why is it like that now?" he whispered. He pulled the knife away. "When the needle... in the chair... it was a flash. A violent reaction."
He stared at his finger, the answer forming slowly.
The chair. The needle. His tensed muscles. The primal fear he'd felt.
"I was scared," he concluded, the realization hitting him hard. "My emotions. It's tied to my emotions. When I'm scared, it flares up. Like a shield." He looked at the knife, then at his hand. "But right now... I'm in control."
He now had a framework. "I can see energy. I can absorb it. I can use it to defend myself when threatened."
He reached up and pinched the white, glowing strand of hair above his right eye, then looked at his reflection in the dark screen of the laptop. The same silver eyes stared back.
He glanced at the comic book he'd dropped. He grabbed it, then went back to the box and pulled out the others, spreading them across the floor.
Time vanished again. The floor became a tapestry of open pages, colorful heroes and impossible powers. He lay on his belly, propped on his elbows, utterly absorbed—not just as a reader, but as a student.
This one was about a kid who could freeze time. This one, a girl who could talk to machines. This one... a guy who, after an accident, could see the probability of any event.
he thought,
* * *
"Hey."
The voice was soft, familiar, and so close it made him jolt violently. He scrambled to his feet, his heart leaping into his throat.
Kira was kneeling on the floor right beside him, a faint, tired smile on her lips. The apartment's main door was sliding shut behind her—he'd forgotten to engage the lock after checking the corridor earlier.
He hadn't even heard her come in.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her eyes crinkling at the corners. She gestured to the mess of comics scattered around him.
"I, uh..." He pushed himself to his feet, feeling suddenly foolish. "Reading. The... comics. My mom sent them."
Kira chuckled softly, weary, and pushed herself up with a quiet groan. She walked to the couch and sat down heavily, dropping a white plastic bag onto the cushions beside her. The scent of hot, real food wafted from it, and Arthur realized he was starving.
She ran a hand over her face, rubbing her eyes, which looked strained.
"Sorry," she said, her voice muffled.
Arthur looked at her, puzzled. "Sorry for what?"
"For... this morning." She dropped her hand, looking at him. "I was thinking about it on the way back. I was... harsh, Art. You wake up with your entire life scooped out, and I just... I just shoveled it all back in your face. The crew, the job..." She sighed, shaking her head. "I was trying to force you to remember. It was... a shock. For both of us. But..."
Her gaze drifted to the comics on the floor, then back to his face. Her small, tired smile returned, more genuine.
"But seeing you like this... surrounded by this. I dunno. It makes me realize that even without your memories, you're still... Art. The same hopeless geek."
"What do you mean?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the low cargo-case table.
"You love this stuff," she said, gesturing to the comics. "Superheroes. Aliens. Space. All that... hopeful crap."
"Yeah. I... I guess I do," Arthur said, looking at the cover of the probability-bending hero. "But I wasn't just reading for fun."
Kira's brow furrowed. "What, then?"
"I was researching," he said simply. "A lot of these guys... they wake up with strange powers. Control fire. Freeze time. Super strength. And... like them, I have powers, too."
He held up his right index finger. He closed his eyes, focusing not on fear, but on the quiet control he'd felt with the knife, the gentle flow from the battery. He willed the light.
He opened his eyes. His fingertip was glowing, bathed in soft, swirling, prismatic light.
Kira's eyes widened, her mouth parting in a silent "o".
"The first rule when you get superpowers?" Arthur said, a slow, proud smile spreading across his face as the light danced on his fingertip. "You figure out what they do."
The light faded. Kira stared at his finger, then up at his face. Her expression of stunned disbelief melted into something else entirely.
She chuckled. A real, genuine laugh of amusement and relief.
"You are completely insane, Art," she said, shaking her head. "Total amnesia, secret-corpo-tech voodoo turning you into a... a... whatever you are, and your first instinct is to read comic books for a 'how-to' guide."
She laughed again, the sound chasing shadows from the room.
"But... dammit, you make sense. It's the most 'you' thing you could have possibly done." She leaned forward, her eyes glinting with shared energy. "You got any other tricks you want to show me?"
"That's all for now," Arthur said, the pride in his chest feeling warm, real.
"Good. Before you transform into a giant, glowing LED, let's eat." Kira reached for the plastic bag, pulling out two steaming white containers. "Brought food. Real food."
Arthur moved to sit beside her as she unpacked. She handed him a container. Inside, fragrant steam rose from a bed of white rice topped with two savory, perfectly browned soy patties. It smelled incredible.
"Thank you," Arthur said, genuine and heartfelt.
Kira nudged him with her shoulder, a gesture of easy, familiar affection. "Don't mention it, Art," she said softly. "We gotta keep the new superhero fed, right?"
He smiled and finally took a bite. The food was warm, real, and he ate with desperate hunger.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, just the soft scraping of forks and the distant hum of the city. A strange, companionable quiet. A bubble of near-normalcy.
Arthur finished first, placing the empty container on the low table. The practical problems crashed back in like the tide.
