The Sharp Edge Of Yesterday: A Rollover Novel

1: The wise accept command

March 19, 2017, near Louisville, Kentucky

Jack saw the billowing column of smoke the instant he materialized in Wilton Ridge, Kentucky—and that was all he saw before being blinded by the afternoon sun glaring down on the teleport pad. He moved to the edge of the raised concrete circle to clear the way for his partner’s arrival, reaching into his suit jacket for his protective glasses as he went.

The dark lenses dimmed the light to bearable levels, and he took in the scene below the smoky sky: a narrow road full of moving cars and moving people.

Sirens wailed, adding high notes to a rumbling background hum of raised voices and revving engines. A crowd was gathering in front of a retail strip hugging the side of the road.

He bit back a curse. He’d hoped the emergency dispatcher from Intake was exaggerating when she delivered her sketchy mission brief, but no. He’d seen plenty of clouds and crowds like these during his hitch in the Marines. His current employer’s record for disaster prevention was about to take a hard hit.

The Department of Public Safety called all spontaneous power onsets hot rollovers, but Jack would bet his upcoming hazard pay the person at the center of this evacuation was a new pyrokinetic talent. And when someone’s rollover status unexpectedly shifted from potential to active in a fire-related ability, matters could get out of hand fast.

His partner Heather was going to be peeved. She grabbed every weekend shift she could because Intake reserved difficult cases for weekdays. Or as Heather put it, The brass don’t like missing tee times or brunch reservations, so they make sure the barn’s closed up tight by end of business Friday.

As her trainee, Jack didn’t have any choice about his assignments, but he’d had no complaints until now. They both had promotion exams coming up, and the hours between quick clean-up retrievals were great for studying. It was overtime with an automatic hazard bump too.

This time, though, collecting a citizen overdue for DPS reassignment wouldn’t be fast or easy. Today they were going to earn every penny of that extra pay.

This will be like closing the barn door after the cow has burned down the barn and the rest of the farm too.

He couldn’t go anywhere until Heather arrived, but he could get his bearings. Visualizing the map he’d been shown before transit, he checked the coordinates stenciled on the teleport pad. His temper flared as soon as he oriented himself in relation to the incident site.

Seriously, you fuckers? Two miles out?

The snarled words alarmed a nearby group of retreating civilians. They veered off the sidewalk, scattering across the parking lot to avoid him, and Jack kicked himself for losing control. This was no time to be scaring the nulls.

Still. Two miles? The DPS teleport crews never got him and Heather as close to assignments as he would’ve liked, but this was a new record. How could they neutralize threats to the public in a timely fashion, with compassionate discretion and in accordance with relevant federal regulations when they never arrived anywhere near their targets?

DPS regulations limited agent drops to official transit pads. That was why.

Jack knew that, but the knowledge didn’t stop him from hating rules that got the way of doing the right thing. Any half-competent Marine Corps ‘porter could’ve landed him within ten yards of the dispatch address. And they could’ve put him there with his sunglasses on his face, a detail the DPS ‘porters seemed unable to master.

A Corps-style blind transit might’ve planted him partially underground or left him twenty feet in the air on arrival. But he’d be within sight of the poor P-series newbie accidentally incinerating their surroundings right now, and that was what mattered. Why couldn’t the DPS make exceptions for people who could handle a bad drop?

Hell, he was built for rough landings.

When he rolled into his T-series power ten years ago, he’d ended up eight feet tall in his socks, strong enough to bench-press a car, and tough enough to stop bullets with his bare skin. His senses also extended well beyond null human norms, he regenerated fast enough to survive almost any imaginable injury—and that was in resting mode.

When his adrenaline got flowing—like, say, now—his body channeled energy into boosting his physical abilities. He tongued the tip of one elongating canine tooth and tasted blood, clenched fists until the thickening claws pricked his palms. All pumped up and nowhere near the action. Stupid rules.

He suppressed the urge to hit something. It wouldn’t help, and he would have to face an Administrative Board for property damage. Besides, he wasn’t being fair. The vast majority of DPS employees were powerless nulls who couldn’t survive being encased in something solid for a few minutes. The rules were designed to protect them.

But it also wasn’t fair that Perry Franklin—age 52, asset manager, home address in Saint Louis, Missouri—was facing the worst day of his life and endangering everyone around him for an unknown range without support. Jack could be giving him that help right now if anyone on the civilian side understood the concept of ASAP.

It might be an institutional problem. The DPS was tasked with identifying and isolating at-risk citizens before their mid-life superpowers arrived, and that was a long, slow process by design.

Diagnostics built in ample time for appeals, challenges, and re-testing between the date someone was classified a rollover risk and the date they began safety internment. No one liked sitting on a DPS camp bunk with their life on hold. The uncertainties of rollover made it necessary, but everyone wanted to be sure, first.

Current blood tests could not predict what kind of abilities someone would develop or exactly when rollover would arrive. But once someone’s R-factor numbers began climbing, they gave an accurate picture of how intense their power would be.

The higher that level, the faster people ran out of appeals and challenges before Intake sent a collection team to their front doors. That skewed nearly all missed-rollover incidents to the lower end of the power spectrum.

Emergency Intake teams handled that deadly sliver between nearly and all.

How long since he’d arrived? How soon would Heather reach him?

Her talent for bystander-safe teleportation usually balanced out the conservative DPS transits. Her range was under a half-mile, and she could barely carry Jack one blink a day, but that was usually enough to get them straight to a dispatch address from the drop. Not today. And Jack couldn’t do anything until the DPS ‘porters got their asses in gear and sent her here.

They could’ve sent Heather with him, but no. Regulations prevented that, too. The rules were made by nulls for nulls, and they called for strictly-separated arrival times.

Never mind that Heather’s kinesthetic senses protected her from arriving in an occupied space no matter who was ‘porting her. One full minute between ‘ports—that was the rule.

Jack ran the numbers in his head.

The incident clock would have started when the Wilton Ridge police called for Department of Public Safety backup. The message would’ve taken a minute to filter through channels to the regional office in Elgin, Illinois, where he and Heather were based. Figure another two minutes between the alert reaching the ready room and them getting to Transit. A minute for transit prep, and two minutes more to run through these absurd arrival protocols.

At best they were six minutes into the red zone. The chance of mass deaths was getting higher by the second. Casualties could rack up fast when someone’s power came on hot.

He counted off seconds with impatience boiling up in his veins and brightening everything in his field of vision. Come on, Heather, come on. Move it.

She popped into existence on the target pad, facing him, wings spread wide to correct her balance as her body solidified from thin air. The wings curved over her head once she folded them back. Her bright-yellow avian eyes, the golden-brown feathers covering her visible skin, and tufted plumage where most people had ears completed the impression of an eagle stretched into human form.

Hi, Junior. She hopped off the two-foot drop from the pad to the sidewalk, tugging at the hem of the specially-tailored gray blazer she wore over a blue blouse and gray trousers. Why the big frown?

He pointed to the sky above the trees behind her. That.

And I hate it when you call me Junior. He didn’t say that aloud. He couldn’t deny the accuracy of the nickname. Heather was the senior agent, plus she was nearly thirty years older than he was. But he didn’t appreciate the implication that he was immature and reckless.

When he was feeling brave enough to tease back, he called her Beakybird. It probably wasn’t helping change her mind about the immaturity.

The pupils of Heather’s eyes pulsed in and out as she took in the height of the smoke column. Nuts. That looks like a literal hot rollover.

Yeah, and we’re here, not there.

Her wing feathers rustled as she planted her fists on her hips. If you make one more complaint about Department ‘port regs, I will leave Limburger in your locker.

That was a potent threat, and he knew from experience she would follow through. You complain about the ‘porters all the time.

That’s professional criticism. You’re whining. Heather looked down her nose, which was a neat trick considering she was looking up a good two feet. Apologize, or we go nowhere.

Senior agent. Training agent. Jack sighed. Sorry. Now can we please go?

Sure. Hang on. Heather grabbed Jack by the arm and raised her wings, then grimaced and folded them back. Rats. We’re two miles out.

I could’ve told you that. And I know you can’t haul me there. I’d be sprinting already, but I had to wait ‘til you got here safe. ‘Port on ahead, I’ll catch up.

No. We stick together start to finish. Regulations. She pointed one taloned finger at him, And do not say a word about it. Let’s get moving.

She turned and started walking. The extra weight of her wings and the keel-like sternum anchoring their muscles made her gait awkward and slow. Jack clenched his teeth and passed her in four steps. His body density was too high to travel fast without putting a boot through the concrete, but long strides added up.

Heather made a rude noise at his back. Displaced air popped loud, and she reappeared ten yards ahead, at the corner onto a neighborhood street full of houses. Excess energy dissipated in a sunrise-colored flash, and a puff of cold, mint-and-rose scented air wafted back past Jack.

Every time, the scent was different. Heather had no idea why. Neither did anyone else, just like no one knew why some R-active people could see energy fields and others could not. Over half a century since First Night, mysteries still outnumbered the explanations.

When Jack passed her again, Heather said, There’s no point in rushing. If it’s gone as critical as it looks, the Marines are there already.

So what? You know what else is in those safety regs? ‘The DPS is responsible for direction and support during Mercury Battalion deployments.’ Jack left her behind. If we used Corps protocols, we would be on scene now.

You're a civilian now, she called after him. Get used to it.

No. His temper bubbled, seething hot. He turned. Look. I know I never got much schooling, and you have more life experience than I’ll ever have, but you are wrong about this. I’ve been on the other side of it.

He’d rolled at a neighborhood baseball game, surrounded by family and friends, and he’d only been a kid. In the rare cases when powers came early, they always arrived without warning and manifested in destructive ways. Early-onset rollover also led to an early death, but that was a different problem.

The important part was that the DPS had arrived five minutes too late to save his father.

Collateral damage was the first military term Jack had learned, long before the DPS sent him from safety internment straight into the Marines. He’d never blamed the Mercury response team. He’d flattened three people before they arrived. If they hadn’t acted, he might’ve mowed down dozens more in his pain and panic.

But if someone from the DPS had been there, maybe his dad wouldn’t have tried to defend him from the Marines.

Heather stood there being silent and judgmental, so Jack asked, "What if it was your husband rolling up there, huh? What if it was your kid? Would you be yanking my chain then? Would you be walking?"

Power thumped in his blood, ached in his spine, begging to be released. More bad memories jabbed at him, and his vision went red at the edges. The R-powered Marines in Mercury Battalion were trained to protect the general public, not to help the unlucky souls caught in the throes of a power’s untimely, uncontrolled arrival. They took fast, decisive action unless otherwise ordered.

While he and Heather were arguing, his old squad mates or soldiers like them might be acting as executioners because the DPS valued the lives of its agents above the lives of the people they swore to serve.

Safety first, my ass. He turned and started running, pavement be damned. He didn’t have a family because the DPS put rules before people. He was never going to have a chance to get old, and he would rather lose his whole damned salary to fines than think about the past or the future.

Pop. An icy blast of fruity air blew into his face as Heather arrived in front of him. He wrapped his arms around her and skidded to a halt, carrying her forward. The tops of her wings tickled his face, and the sidewalk buckled underfoot.

Energy from her arrival streamed away like bright mist as Jack set her down. She glared up at him, and the feather-tufts that marked her ears slanted back. Low blow, Junior.

Truth hurts. He brushed a stray feather off his cheek. Do you have any idea how many people die because Mercury is lousy at wait-and-see ? Too many. I don’t want more deaths on my conscience, and the whole system is rigged against me, and it makes me want to scream.

I know. I’m sorry. If it was up to me, I’d do things differently. She shrugged, wings and shoulders both. But I can’t change the rules any more than I can walk faster.

I can go faster. Jack went to one knee. If you won’t blink ahead, then hitch a ride.

Her eyes went wide, and the pupils pulsed in and out. Seriously?

Careful of the suit. Some Tees had mixed feelings about being ridden. Most of his dorm mates at Camp Butler had bitched nonstop during exercises where they had to carry other troops. He couldn’t understand the fuss. Pretending he wasn’t big enough to handle a rider or two wouldn’t make him any smaller.

Heather put one foot on his belt and stretched to grab the shoulders of his suit jacket. Both taloned hands gripped tight. Once her feet were secure, Jack rose and took off at a flat sprint. Heather shouted in his ear over the crunch of his footsteps. They’re gonna charge you for that pavement if you’re wrong about this.

I’m not wrong. The incident clock was closing on nine minutes. Chances were good they were too late already. Block after block passed in a blur of people and cars moving the other direction until Heather shouted, Get ready!

Jack stopped moving. Heather tightened her grip on his shoulders and swept her wings up. Displaced air boomed when she snapped them down.

The world vanished. It was like falling through the night sky—plunging through endless, ice-cold, windy blackness.

Reality came back in a whoosh of icy brightness. The abrupt shift from dark to daylight made his eyes ache. His feet hit pavement, and a roar of sound assaulted his ears. The air tasted like ashes.

Close enough for you? asked Heather.

She’d brought them to the edge of the bullseye. Ahead, only a cluster of emergency vehicles and a narrow stretch of lawn separated them from the burning skeleton of a one-story brick building.

The Marjorie Miller Community Center—the name of the place according to a decorative brick sign by the sidewalk—was a total loss. A wide doorway and two rows of windows glowed like orange holes in the thick black smoke obscuring the building’s remains. When the wind gusted, bits of melted metal beams poked out of the spinning cloud. Flames blazed high above the shell of the building and far out to the sides, lashing through the smoke. The top of the column was so high now that prevailing winds were flattening out the top like a thunderstorm.

The noise of it was deafening.

Fire sites were always loud. That detail never ceased to surprise Jack. They also stank in a particular way. The stench of burning plastic and concrete mixed with the odors of diesel fuel and fearful people: that was the signature smell of a pyrokinetic coming into power without warning.

No one was screaming. That was a good sign. So was the unnatural nature of the blaze. The bushes and playground equipment beside the building were gray with falling ash but not seared. Sheets of colored paper skated over the ground, dancing in the wind created by the heat, not burned to cinders. None of the neighboring suburban tract homes or landscaping had been touched by flame.

Fire personnel shouted orders to one another, wrestling with hoses and directing water onto the closest roofs. They wouldn’t be in full prevention mode unless they were confident about the main fire. That was another good sign. The fire department’s talents weren’t holding things in check, though. A few of the crew displayed the tell-tale auras of R-active power, but none wore a licensed active-practitioner’s badge.

The Mercury response unit had to be doing the containment, but where were they? A pyro rollover rated at least a squad-level deployment, and this was Gateway Company’s back yard. Gateway’s roster ran heavily to Tees, and it was hard to hide a group of Tees in the open.

Where are the Marines? Heather asked, echoing Jack’s thought as she slid off her perch on his back. No liaison?

They must have their hands full, or they would’ve sent someone around. Jack looked up into the haze-clogged air. "Unless they’re up top. We—they monitor crowded sites from the air if they have flyers or K-primes on the roster."

And this is a crowd. No press, though. Can’t hate that. Her crest flattened. Oh, crap, press coverage. Somebody needs to call in a PR team.

Not me. He didn’t pretend disappointment. Trainee rank did have a few benefits.

She waved her hands. I know. It can wait until we check in.

Police cruisers, doors blazoned with Lafayette County Sheriff, blocked the street at both ends. Deputies were wrangling a mob of spectators behind a tape line near the end of the block. Nothing drew a crowd like a dramatic emergency, but this one was larger than average.

Some of the people carried signs that read, God won’t save you, Science will! Love Means Letting Go, and Keep Families Safe! They were being herded down the street away from the scene. Others were carrying placards that proclaimed Prayer not Prisons, Citizens For Choice, and Freedom Not Fences. Most of them were being loaded into police vans.

A camp protest? Heather picked up one of the pieces of paper littering the sidewalk. Yup. Flyers with today’s date. Just what this situation needed.

Jack glanced at the hostile proclamations. The kind of person who objected to rollover quarantine was also the kind of person who would appeal their camp assignment to the fullest extent of the law, even if they endangered themselves, their families, and the general public.

Probably what caused the situation, he pointed out.

Good point. Oh, the delicious irony. Heather crumpled up the flyer. That guy over there looks official. He might know what’s up.

A tall, lean man wearing a suit and a sheriff’s badge on a lanyard was approaching from the police line. His thinning black hair was lank with sweat, and he stank of fear. Jack couldn’t blame him for that. He was clearly a null, with no hint of an energy aura. If the containment did fail, he would be dead before he knew it.

Dedicated, defenseless first responders like him surrounded every scene like this. They were the reason military response teams were authorized to end catastrophic rollovers if necessary, by any means necessary.

On paper, the Department was responsible for making those elimination calls. But as Jack was learning, the DPS gamed the system so that the Marines ended up with the burden of guilt.

It made him furious again when he thought about it, so he shut it out of his mind.

The sheriff introduced himself. Jack promptly forgot his name. Heather pulled her DPS badge from her jacket pocket and flashed it for him. After offering her name and Jack’s, she said, This site is under Public Safety jurisdiction as of now. Evacuation and containment are in progress?

We called a quarter-mile perimeter soon as we heard it was a pyro, and we’ll keep pushing out until we get an all-clear. A buncha tro— the sheriff’s eyes flicked up at Jack, and he swallowed the word troll —er, T-series Marines—dropped straight in a couple minutes back. The fire hasn’t spread an inch since then, but the flames and smoke are getting thicker.

That’s not good, Jack said. It meant the pyro was pulling fuel from the air and the earth below the building. "That’s really not good, Heather. Water table protection is a priority. If you don’t veto lethal measures right now, we might not have anyone left to detain."

Cool your jets, Junior. I’ve got this. Heather pulled her radio phone from its holster on the back of her belt. After collecting the local channel codes from the sheriff, she engaged the speaker function. All receiving, DPS Intake Senior Agent Gardner assuming scene control. Op-four restrictions are now in force. Mercury, please confirm and identify.

A familiar voice came over the speaker. DPS, Staff Sergeant Amy Goodall confirming for Mercury Response two-sixteen out of Gateway. Copy non-lethal measures, exceptions for imminent breach or direct attack. Any help for us from your side?

Heather’s wings flicked out and back. I am too flammable for this event, but I have a reserve Mercury lieutenant I can detach to you. T5-Y Jack Coby?

Hell, yes, send him in! Any info on the firestarter will help too. He’s communicating but combative.

Heather’s ear tufts flattened. Copy that, DPS out. She holstered the radio and nodded to the sheriff. You heard her. We have his name. Diagnostics & Tracking got a facial recognition hit from a witness snapshot. Can you give us anything more?

Not much to tell, sorry. The sheriff ran a hand over his hair. Most I can say about the guy is that he’s not from around here. None of those no-good radicals will admit knowing him. Patio out back was ground zero. Local kids were doing a family support fundraiser. Protesters came from someplace over by Louisville. No casualties reported yet, but it’s early.

That’s more than we had before. Thanks. Heather made a shooing motion at Jack. Go on, help get him cooled off so we can get him away to a camp. If we’re quick, we might even get in and out before any reporters arrive.

2: Hatred stirs up conflict

March 19, 2017, somewhere near Louisville Kentucky

Jack took off running. Heather was an optimist. They would never get this situation resolved fast enough to avoid the press. Reporters descended on scenes of blood and violence faster than flies got to dead bodies.

The firefighters waved him past without challenge. Looking like a storybook troll did come in handy at times. No one questioned his presence in places like this.

Given a choice between preserving his civilian clothes and getting around the building faster, he cut in close to save a precious minute or two. It would take a lot more than fire to destroy his Mercury-issue underlayer, boots, and protective glasses. Those covered the essentials, and that was what mattered now.

The putrid smoke obscured his sight, and he barreled through a wash of flame that charred his suit and shirt in seconds. The Department would cover the cost of replacement. He hoped.

His skin sizzled and popped too, but regeneration outpaced the damage well enough to keep the sensation to a tickle. It would take a much hotter fire than this one to penetrate his baseline armor, and he was already pushing rollover energy into his body as fast as he could to build it up. And with any luck, he would catch an energy boost from the Tees up ahead any second now.

Between one step and the next, the sizzling sensation in his lungs and skin vanished, replaced by a rush of exhilaration. There they are.

The Tees in the nearby Mercury squad were already pumped up to maximum power. The energy inside him recognized theirs and lifted him to their readiness level in a single heartbeat.

Null biologists called it a pheromone reaction. The physicists said it was energy transfer. Whichever it was, Jack had sorely missed sharing in it these last few months.

Smiling down at civilians and getting them safely through Intake was fulfilling, but action was easier than advocacy any day. It was also dangerous and sometimes excruciating, but at least when a crisis was over, it was done.

He should have argued harder when the brass suggested he leave the ranks and experience the world before his condition killed him. So far, he was not enjoying civilian life enough to make it worth the aggravation. Who would’ve guessed how much he would miss putting himself in harm’s way?

A few more steps brought him around the back corner of the building. Smoke still obscured the view as he crossed a silvery line of melted fencing, but dots of rollover power appeared one by one ahead of him, too intense to be blocked by the haze. The spacing was a familiar pattern: seven tight points of energy bracketing one gushing fountain of it.

And then he was into the clear again where he could get a visual on them.

Off to his left was a rolling playfield big enough for multiple soccer games. Craters marred the grassy surface. Two of the Marines must have landed there on arrival.

Clusters of people watched from the far side of the field, where the park met a line of houses. Reflected firelight glinted off rows of camera lenses, and boom microphones waved above the heads of the crowd.

Journalists were defying the evac order as usual. Was it courage or insanity to sneak into an area that might be incinerated at any moment? Jack had seen reporters do it a hundred times, and he still wasn’t sure. He also wondered how many news outlets would feature his image tomorrow. Here’s hoping it’s on a happy story this time.

The points of power in the thinning smoke ahead of him resolved into the visible forms of seven Marines in Mercury combat gear. They were bracketing a blob of fire shaped like a tall, pear-shaped human being. That would be Perry Franklin, probable conscientious objector, who ought to be questioning his life choices right about now.

The man’s blazing pose radiated belligerence along with heat, and the shell of the building behind him blazed furnace-bright.

The four Marines on Franklin’s far side were outwardly identical to nulls. Only the intense glow of their power signatures gave away how high their rankings must be. Their series designations weren’t obvious either, but their uniform flashes gave Jack the essentials: W1-X, two H2-As, and an S2-J. The prime wildcat’s X variant meant her exact power would be unique but useful. The importance of the two water callers was obvious. The presence of the strongman—strong woman, to be precise—was more of a puzzle.

An S2 might have the muscle power to wrestle Jack to a standstill, but strength didn’t get someone into Mercury Battalion. The corporal’s J variant must make her tougher than she looked. That wasn’t too high a bar to clear. She looked like Jack’s tiny, fierce foster mother, who was seventy-eight years old and frail with osteoporosis.

The three closest Marines had the usual Tee features—dorsal spines, horns, massive muscles protected by turtle-like subdermal armor plating, and skin colors never seen in a null human. The biggest one of them moved to intercept Jack.

Rampage energy had added a good two feet of height to Sergeant Amy Goodall’s twelve-foot baseline, and the cranial spines jutting through her custom helmet rose well above that. The spines were painted with glittery polish as usual. Pink, today, which Jack would never tell her looked garish against her gold-toned skin.

Jack didn’t recognize the two other Tees, but their badges provided him with their classifications, ranks, and names: T2-J PFC S. Bisbee and T3 PFC A. Creswell. And the puppy-like way they were watching Amy marked them as a pair of shiny new boots, not transfers into Gateway or detached from another unit for this operation.

Even the shorter of the two newbies was head and shoulders taller than Jack. That was weirdly comforting. There was nothing like being around other Tees to remind him that he wasn’t nearly as scary as nulls thought he was. His power ranking was at the low end of the scale, and his Y variant slot muted many of the typical series characteristics.

Amy was grinning from ear to ear when she reached Jack. She punched his shoulder hard enough to rock him on his heels, better than a hug any day. Jackass! Not dead yet, and rocking a sweet set of abs, too. Both those things make me happy.

Count on Amy to kick a painful topic to the curb straight off. Jack grinned back, flashing fangs without concern for the first time in weeks. I’m gonna live forever unless this site goes critical while you drool over me.

The other two Tees shifted uncomfortably foot to foot. Not used to people dissing the goddess in charge of their world. Amy’s smile fell away. No worries. Janet—my wildcat, there—has him boxed six by six in a forcefield, and she still has eight-plus minutes of juice.

That’s impressive. Holding elementals in check took a lot of energy. Janet had a phenomenal talent. I was afraid we would get here too late to veto a takedown.

Thank the lab coat brigade. We take Bell readings on arrival, these days, and he was close to cracking the limit. Current doctrine says fall back and minimize interference. It works. He’s still not stable, obviously, but if he burns out now, he’ll only kill himself.

Better than the alternative. Elemental powers had a nasty way of consuming their wielders during rollover. If Franklin had hit the Bell limit, he would’ve spontaneously combusted and made a big glassy crater out of this block in the process. The recently-identified Bell series of power signatures was saving a lot of lives. The world owes Kris a big one.

I call her with a big thank-you after every field trip, Amy assured him.

The limit was named after Grace Bell, the woman whose fatal transformation from human being to splatter of magma led to the breakthrough. But their squad mate Kris Stanislav was the Marine whose helmet camera provided the critical data. She’d recognized the significance of the recordings while recovering from injuries she sustained during the incident.

Jack’s debt to Kris was a more personal one. He would be dead if she hadn’t taken his place on that mission. How much time can you give me to talk him down? he asked.

Five minutes on the outside. Amy said, But I don’t like your odds. He keeps calling us murderers and homewreckers. What’s his damage?

Jack passed along what little they knew about Perry Franklin, including his opposition to internment. I’m not hopeful, he admitted, but I have to try.

Go for it. Janet’s forcefield will pass you in. It’s a doozy. Variable and gas permeable. Even if she could choke him out, she wouldn’t. It’s too early to tell if he’s a T-variant, and—

—no one wants another Tucson, Jack recited along with her. Got it.

Until the late fifties, denying out-of-control pyrokinetics access to oxygen and combustibles was considered the ideal containment strategy. When they fell unconscious, they either stopped burning or burned up. Either way, problem solved.

Tucson changed all that. The response team had deployed their telekinetic forcefields as usual, and the target pyro had passed out and combusted to ash. Everything was going according to plan until the instant they released containment and let air re-enter the hot zone.

The resulting explosion fused four square miles of desert into glass.

Biologists and doctors added a new variant to their P-series charts, and Mercury units developed a series of field maneuvers using a similar flashover effect. The mechanics of it still stumped physicists, which was a sweet bonus.

Jack studied his target. A real martyr wouldn’t still be standing there. He would’ve come at the Marines already. What else has he been saying, specifically?

He’s mostly been shouting bits of the Constitution and daring us to shoot him. Amy snorted. As if a bullet wouldn’t melt.

Frightened, desperate bluster. Jack could work with that. And if I can’t talk him down?

Amy walked forward with him. We run over you. Or Command scrapes up an area-of-effect ‘porter and takes the conservative option.

Jack was damage-resistant, not invulnerable. Being ‘ported to the bottom of the ocean or into orbit would kill him along with Franklin. Guess that’s why I get the big bucks. Define run over.

On Janet’s final ten count, me and the boys will charge while Jim and Jam hose him down. If the dogpile doesn’t put him out, then Bev—her J variant makes her heat and cold resistant, among other bennies—moves in to knock him cold. Ugly but workable.

She and the other Tees might end up in sickbay after direct contact with a pyro this powerful, but Franklin was unlikely to survive being pinned down by three Tees and clocked by an S-series.

Amy gave Jack a pat on the shoulder. Go make us unnecessary, will you?

I’m on it. He squinted at the pyro’s blinding-bright form and thought of one last detail. Heather needs to know about the voyeurs across the field.

You didn’t hear? Oh, right. No clothes, no phone. Amy stepped back. They’re leashed. DPS Regional Ops gave site exclusive to WLGN’s hardened news team—which currently includes your two favorite local celebrities. They’ll be popping in any second. Wrap this up with a bow, and you can have a nice reunion.

Oh, no.

His favorite celebrity was Elena Moreno, a thousand pounds of trouble in a perky, one-hundred-pound package. She was sweet sixteen, as photogenic as the day was long and twice as stubborn. And she had a talent for putting herself in harm’s way on camera.

Fuck. The personal stakes had gone way up. Jack moved toward Franklin with both hands spread wide. Power and fear pulsed through his blood. When he was close enough for the heat to blister his arms, he sat down—no point in looming over a man wrapped in a firestorm of his own making.

The news also gave him an angle to play. "Listen up, Mr. Franklin. I’m DPS Agent Jack Coby, and I’m here to lend you a hand getting out of this. I gotta tell you, if you thought you were in trouble before, you are in big trouble now."

Franklin said, I won’t let the government drag me away to rot in a camp. If you’re going to murder me, do it here in the open. I’m not afraid to die.

I respect that. Jack swallowed hard to keep from chuckling. Why did he want to laugh? Damned nerves. But how do you feel about a live television interview with a pretty teenaged girl? Because that’ll be happening in about two minutes.

What? No! Who would send a child into this? Darkness rippled through the flames obscuring the man’s body. Not even the Department of Public Safety is that depraved.

No, sir, they are not. Jack looked over his shoulder. Amy gave him a thumbs-up. Containment was holding. "No one sends Elena into trouble. The hard part is keeping her out of it. She’s interning with Brian Grimm, which means you’ll end up talking to them both."

Brian Grimm from TV? Franklin’s face showed through the flames, forehead wrinkled, lips pursed. The late-night guy? The one who got outed as R-poz?

That’s the one.

Elena’s null status had been exposed at the same time as Grimm’s, not that she’d ever been shy about admitting it. Their confidential R-test results were published by a major news outlet—along with those of several thousand other people with high public profiles—after a malicious data breach. That was how they’d met.

Brian Grimm. Franklin sounded awe-struck. Coming here for me?

Yes. Gotcha. Radicals loved nothing more than publicity. If you power down and play nice, I can guarantee they will give you a chance to complain about the DPS to a national audience. Isn’t that what you want?

Even if Elena wasn’t eager for a chance to talk to this jerk—which she would be—she owed Jack. There were some advantages to friendship with someone who had a knack for getting people to point cameras at her.

Hey! Fire crackled. A jabbing finger emerged from the smoky column. I know you, too! You were at the Middle School Massacre! Is Elena the little girl who was in that photo with you? She’s the one who makes speeches about poz rights and rollover accommodations.

Maria Elena Moreno. That’s her. That damned picture.

The image had won its photographer a Pulitzer. There were seven people in it. Why did people only remember him and Elena? Because she’s unforgettable and you’re huge, he reminded himself. And she’ll be here any minute. Come on, man. Let the firestorm go and come in quietly. I promise no one will hurt you, but you have to shut this down, for safety’s sake.

Don’t tell me what to do! Flame roared up, licked outward. Jack tensed, nerves singing. He was turning to dive aside and clear the way for Amy when Franklin’s voice rang out again—anguished, not angry. "I can’t. If I stop, you’ll drag me away to die. I can’t go to a camp. I can’t."

"Are you sure? Tell me, where