Walk about town

Resigned to waiting until Val was done with her second shower of the day (who the hell showers before a run?), I gave a quick wave to mami Jua who was watching TV in the living room, and headed into my own room, closing the door behind me.

Since I was already sweaty anyway, I figured I might as well make the most of my wait time, test some other things out.

Whipping off the sweatshirt, it hit the laundry bin with a satisfying whomp. Nothing but net.

I dried my hands on my sweatpants, and got down on the floor. Stretching out my legs, back and shoulders. Felt good, but I found no noticeable improvement in flexibility.

I hit myself in the stomach, carefully, and there was definitely some sort of defensive reaction. The skin seeming to harden on impact.

A couple of push ups confirmed what I already knew. Lifting my own bodyweight now came about as easily as breathing. A light tap against the ground sent my upper body into the air, and I landed comfortably on only my right arm, roughly centered under my body. One-armed push ups came just as naturally, at least if I widened my stance a little.

I rolled carefully up against a spot on my wall where there wasn't anything I could easily ruin, and lifted myself up into a handstand. I pushed off and tried to stay still in one spot without support. That was still difficult.

My balance needed plenty of work, but it was much easier to make small adjustments when you weren't already straining under your own weight.

"Honey, can you -"

My door opened unexpectedly, and I immediately lost my balance at the distraction.

My back hit the floor with a loud, if harmless, thump.

Mom looked horrified, even though the only sound I'd made was a surprised grunt, and immediately rushed forwards to help me up. "I'm so sorry, Mason, I heard you moving around and I thought it would be fine, I -"

"I-it's fine, mom," I promised, averting my eyes quickly while I let her help me up. Her dress was barely half-on and showing way more cleavage than I was used to. God. "I was just surprised."

She looked great. Her make-up done to perfection, eyes dark and smoky, her lips painted red. Ready for a day out on the town. Museums and art galleries were probably Mom's favorite date nights.

"Are you okay?" She touched my cheek tenderly, turning my head to look at her, and ran her hand through my hair to check for bumps, I assume. The concern in her icy blue eyes was touching, but unwarranted. Still, she stepped around me to run her hands delicately over my back, seeing as I'd landed on it. "Anything that hurts?"

"No, really, I'm fine - it probably looked worse than it was." I assured her, blushing slightly in embarrassment, "Did you need help with anything?"

"Thank god. Oh, yes." There was just a moment of pause before mom responded, coming back around me, and presenting her bare back. She adjusted the gorgeous dark blue dress she was wearing and asked, "Would you help zip me up, honey?"

"O-of course," I agreed, swallowing back unwanted nervousness.

I'd always been aware that despite my moderate good looks, I was the ugly duckling of the family.

But lately, I'd started becoming uncomfortably aware of it, despite or perhaps because of my own good fortune.

Mom's alabaster skin was blemish-free and smooth, her body soft and yielding under my fingers. I drew up the zipper of her dress, then stepped away, flustered. "There you go."

"Thank you, Mason," Mom spun around with her trademark warm smile. She took up a confident pose with her hip quirked out and her hands on her hips. "How do I look?"

"You look perfect." I said, cracking a smile too. Her dimpled grin was contagious, and she laughed merrily as she closed the distance between us, and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

"You and Juanita both spoil me." She chided, wagging a finger at me and not meaning a word of it.

She sauntered towards the door, but hesitated in the doorway.

"Sorry again about not knocking." There was just a touch of guilt on her face. "We're heading out in a little bit, but there's leftovers in the fridge if you want lunch. Will you be home for dinner?"

I had no idea.

Which felt like a problem I should get a handle on, but spontaneity came much easier that planning.

"I'll text when I know, does that work?" I ventured.

"Sure, honey."

***

I got some more tests in after mom and mami headed out, but it was more of the same. My flexibility and balance were baseline, or close enough that I couldn't tell. Would probably be able to improve both more easily than a regular guy, but it'd take putting in the effort.

There was still plenty of hot water, and I enjoyed the hell out of my shower.

Afterwards, I had a bit of an odd plan. I don't know why I'd never actively sought out powered people before, but it seemed such an obvious thing to do now that I had a better understanding of my skillset.

Sure, I could drop in at Avenger's Tower or the Baxter Building, but I didn't think that'd be very appreciated.

Or very surreptitious for that matter. I have to assume that there's a good reason why every significant super you ever hear about is either military, hero certified, or a downright villain. None of that really appealed, and the fourth option seemed to be staying off the radar for as long as I could. From the media, the government, but also the major hero teams.

Not sure how I'd pull that off, but I felt the Voice and my absorption made me uniquely qualified.

If I had to crash a superhero base to keep moving up, maybe I would, but... Hell, these folks had meet and greets. Press conferences. I could do better than getting kicked out of Tony Stark's tower.

I thought about getting a press job, that seemed a natural way to go if I wanted access to those things. And I still might do that, at some point. For now though, my plan was stupid and simple.

I had time to kill, and meta-humans to find. Why not hop on the subway? I always got flashes of mutants on my senses when I was travelling around. So the plan was just hop off when I felt one, and then track them down.

I was sitting on the A-line, towards the center of the city, with the _clunk-clunk-clunk _of the tracks providing an almost meditative background noise below the murmur of conversations I wasn't listening to. My eyes were closed and my mind focused inwards, on the aura-sense.

Someone in the next car had an F-grade power, but that was barely a blip on my radar. I think they could make bubbles.

About one in a thousand people was a meta of some kind, though more than half of those were F-grades, according to government's best projections. They got progressively more rare, higher up the ladder. S-grades were said to be 1 in 2 million. Still quite a few, many more than the ones we saw on the news, but obviously most of them were in Asia, and quite a few of them off-planet.

Some were probably tech-based, inventors like my sister with an extra kick of powers, or powerful healers, long-range teleporters. S-grade, sure, but not cut out for full-time hero work.

I had high hopes.

Supers were severely over-represented in Manhattan, judging by the trouble we kept getting pulled into.

A strong flash of aura passed my senses, harsh enough to make me twitch, but giving no indication on where it had come from or where it had gone. Too quick to be the subway, so probably a speedster. I'd have no hope of catching up with one of them.

I let myself sink back comfortably in my seat again, humming a little to myself as I let my senses stretch as far as they would go.

***

I wasn't expecting any trouble, but I'd chosen to wear tight-fitting clothing that I could move easily in, just in case.

The cold still bothered me, but not enough to be a real nuisance.

The first couple of higher grade Powered folks I'd picked up on had been duds, sort of, but I could see how they'd be useful in specific scenarios. One was an overweight guy in his twenties that I found in a Starbucks, looking nervous, waiting for someone. A quick taste of his power from a distance confirmed him as a C-grade techie, surveillance focused.

Considering his nervousness, I started the conversation with a judicious application of the Voice, convincing the guy to trust me and hand over his contact details during an uncomfortably long handshake. The guy had sweaty palms like you wouldn't believe.

The pissed-off looking middle-aged woman in expensive clothes that interrupted us, asking who the fuck I was, made me think blackmailer. As did the pretty obvious exchange of items I observed from across the street after I'd politely excused myself. But that was none of my business. Poor guy was probably going to get snapped up soon anyway if he was doing exchanges in person, rather than through a dead drop.

I caught up with Carl Stoffler as he was leaving, making sure to drain him almost dry before passively finishing replication as I escorted him to the subway, or as near as I could get. He'd be fine. Probably. He'd have his power back at full strength in a few months, maybe half a year, I think. It seemed to take longer the more I drained, but it depended on the person too.

It got real weird after that. I was accidentally tapping into camera feeds, disoriented, seeing electrical connections and visual representations of nearby data storages randomly overlaid my vision. Ended up just sitting at the station and practicing for about half an hour, just to get it to stop activating accidentally.

I caught-up with a D-grade in Central Park, an elderly woman feeding pigeons, who had enhanced hand-eye coordination and slightly improved reflexes. Nothing extraordinary, but don't mind if I do. Hadley Snider seemed lonely, happy to talk about her week, troubles with medication, all sorts of things. No family locally.

I actually felt bad by the time I had to move on. I left her with half her abilities, and a promise to visit next week. Didn't want to be the cause of an old lady breaking her hip, so draining her was out of the question.

I moved further south. Some blips on my internal radar I hadn't been able to find again after I got off the subway. Some were high up in skyscrapers, a few even appeared to be deep underground, deeper than the subway.

I noted down the approximate locations just in case. I switched subway lines. While I waited for the next train, I'd set up alerts for pretty much every hero in the country on a site dedicated to tracking PR appearances, in case something came up locally.

No hits yet.

I stopped for a late and large lunch in the East Village, and through pure luck stumbled upon another. A bit of jogging to catch up later, I found a young mother and her kid out shopping. The kid was a D-grade biotic, untrained probably, since she was about six years old, and amplifiers couldn't safely be implanted until puberty.

But that didn't really matter for me. Sure, without mods - which I wasn't so sure I could get anymore after my physical enhancements - I'd probably need something like 5 or 10 D-grade biotic powers to be considered combat capable. But I also didn't feel anywhere close to finding my absorption limit.

"Hey! We're friends, right?" A light application of my verbal talents and about ten minutes of playing with the kid later, I said goodbye and ruffled Liza's hair, making her giggle adorably as she dodged out of my reach. I left her much like the tech guy, nearly tapped - she wouldn't be using her powers for years yet, in any case.

So I was headed back towards the station and about ready to give up for the day anyway, when my omni thrilled an incoming call. Jessica.

"Hey," I responded, "How are you doing?"

"Not great. Just spent another two hours answering questions down at the station." The PI sounded more exasperated than exhausted, so there was at least a decent chance my attempt to give her a good night's sleep had worked. "Are you free to drop by? I really need it."

Her breathy tone of voice at the end left little to the imagination about what Jessica needed.

"Yeah, I can definitely do that." God, life was good. "Give me about half an hour."