The sun breached the cloud cover for a minute, brightening the park and tipping me off that it that was, while still morning, late morning. I got up to stretch my legs.

I was leaving my table unattended, and people might start wanting an early lunch soon. I decided to make a sign. Lacquered wood, two faces at an acute angle so it could stand on the table next to the menu. I used my power to etch the words “On break” into the surface.

Wait. Better idea.

I healed the damage to the sign and started the etching over.

I placed the sign on the table, conjured a pack of index cards, positioned them on the table, and then made a pen. I used a thin chain to attach the pen to the table, on the side my power covered, so that nobody would walk off with it, then I picked up the cards and the pen and left them on the visible side of the table.

The breeze threw several of my index cards off the top of the stack. I scrambled to collect them, picked up the stack from the table, then gathered the ones that had blown away while I was collecting the first few to blow away.

Right. I had my power make a binder clip to hold the cards together, then I left my table unattended. I still had a vivid picture in my head of the interior of my dome of light, even as I ditched it to wander the park.

The density of the crowd gave me a good idea of where Extraordinaire was, even though I couldn’t actually see her in the midst of it. There wasn’t a great way to push through all the people, so I didn’t bother making the attempt. I went to the stage instead, where people were viewing their options and making notes on bid sheets. Ten seconds of searching found me who I was looking for.

“Clara.”

“Huh?” She turned, studied me for a moment. “Oh. ‘Lucy,’ right?”

“Yeah. I got a break, so we can chat now, but not here.”

“Okay. Lead the way.”

I saw a flash of movement, and belatedly realized it didn’t correspond to anything in front of me. I found the notecard with my power’s view of the inside of the dome. It had landed face-down, but I could read it anyway. I sent a burger down the conveyor belt, then disintegrated the notecard so I wouldn’t accidentally make the same order again.

“Lucy?”

“Sorry. Distracted. I may have exaggerated when I said I was on break.”

“You- What?”

“This way,” I said. I started to lead her off the stage. “Where’s Jade?”

“Trapped in that zone, I think,” Clara said, pointing to the crowd around Extraordinaire.

“Ah.”

I kept serving lunches remotely while we walked. We arrived at the bell tent, which was empty apart from the sofa. I took a seat, but Clara didn’t. She didn’t stand still, either. She walked to my right, out of my field of view, and eventually walked back into sight from my left. Loops around the tent.

“When did you get a superpower?” she asked.

“Thursday. Friday? It could’ve been after midnight, I guess.”

“This Thursday?”

“Yep.”

“You got a superpower two days ago.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Holy cow. What happened? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I don’t know, and… uh, secret identity, remember?”

“You don’t know?” Clara stopped, stared at me, and then started walking loops in the other direction. “Doesn’t that bother you? I thought powers came from, you know, dying. If you died and you didn’t even notice, how aren’t you panicking about what might happen next? Did you pass away in your sleep? How? Why?”

“Clara, I’m fine. It’s not a health issue or anything. I just don’t remember what happened. I think I got hit in the head, or something.”

Clara’s footsteps stopped again, while she was somewhere out of my sight.

“Or something!?”

“Best guess,” I said. “It’d do the trick, and it’d probably explain the memory loss a bit. I know coming back to life heals you, so I don’t have a concussion, but if you forget something while concussed it doesn’t always come back when you’re better, right?”

“Why aren’t you worried?” Clara asked, grabbing my shoulders firmly.

I shrugged, prompting her to let go. “Worrying doesn’t do anything.”

“What do- But… Oh, come on.” I heard her pacing resume. I guessed which way she would circle around.

From the left.

I was not correct. Darn.

“So, hang on,” Clara put her hands on the sides of her head. “I know I said I’d… I’m not going to blow your secret identity on purpose, but this is wild. You know this is wild, right?”

“A wild situation,” I said, taking a moment to fill another lunch order.

“Think about what you’re telling me to keep a lid on, here, Crystal. I mean, seriously, how do you want me to- When you say hit in the head, what’s- Was there any sort of clue, there? Did you fall?”

“Fell into the river. Dropped, probably. Hiding the evidence. Like the bat, that was on the shore too.”

“Like the bat!? You got hit in the head with a bat?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I said.

“So you were murdered, then. You just told me that somebody, and we don’t know who, two days ago, killed you and threw your body in the river, and I’m just supposed to go about my day knowing that? I’m not supposed to tell any- I’m not supposed to tell everyone? About the murderer on the loose?”

“I mean, ‘on the loose’ is kind of a loaded-“

“Kind of a loaded term, is it kind of a loaded term, really?” Clara spoke over my protest. “I think it’s a pretty appropriate thing to say about an unknown murderer!”

“Watch the volume, please,” I said, gritting my teeth. “This tent isn’t exactly soundproof.”

Clara stopped circling again, turning to make eye contact with me. “I will try to stay calm later, but you can’t just drop this on someone and expect them to be unphased!”

“That is why I was, y’know… not telling you,” I pointed out. “Until you found out on your own.”

“I’d- It’s- Ugh!” Clara shook her head and started walking yet again.

“Clara, really, I don’t think it’s worth getting stressed out,” I said. “I’m sure it was spur of the moment.”

Without slowing down while circling the tent, Clara looked at me like I was insane.

“What?” I asked. “It’s not like there’s some… some mastermind with, I don’t know, a vendetta, which I don’t even know why they would have against me. And you don’t plan a murder these days without accounting for the fact that they might get back up. I think they panicked, tried to get rid of the evidence however they could, did kind of a shitty job of it, and then moved on.”

“The evidence,” Clara stopped, clapping her hands together. “You said you saw the bat! The murder weapon?”

“Oh. Um.”

“What?”

“I sort of, kind of… cleaned the blood off it.”

Clara frowned.

“And, uh, possibly whatever other trace evidence was on it. In my defense, I was holding onto it for self-defense on my way home, and I didn’t want to get caught with a blood-speckled bludgeon by some night shift beat cop.”

“You destroyed… the only key evidence. In your own murder case.” Clara finally joined me on the sofa, collapsing next to me and holding her head in her hands. “You got rid of our only lead. I can’t believe it. He’s going to get away with it.”

“He?”

“Statistically speaking, yeah. I mean, come on. A baseball bat, Crystal. You think I’m wrong?”

“I think it doesn’t matter, because like I said, if they wanted me dead they’d keep me under watch instead of getting rid of me as soon as they could. They just don’t want to get caught, and that means they’re probably going to avoid the person who, for one thing, should be able to pick them out of a police lineup — not that I can, but they don’t know that. And more importantly, if I’m still alive after they killed me, then they know that I have powers, and you don’t pick a fight with someone who has powers without your own powers to make it fair.”

“Choppin’ Chandler picks fights with people with powers,” Clara said.

“Okay, but that guy’s a fucking maniac.”

“We are talking about a murderer, Crystal!”

I sighed. My points weren’t getting through to her. I could bring up the fact that a hell of a lot of murderers got pretrial bail postings because they generally weren’t considered a danger to society at large, especially if they knew their victim. But that wasn’t the kind of info that would actually calm anyone down. And, to be fair, it was a bit different when the victim in question was, uh. Not dead. Someone awaiting trial for murder couldn’t go kill the same person again, but someone awaiting trial for attempted murder could try, try again. I wasn’t exactly sure what the modern legal standard was for where someone whose victim came back to life fell on the scale from attempted murderer to actual murderer.

So instead of arguing further and starting to split hairs, I just decided to make a stupid promise.

“Clara, it’s going to be okay. I messed up the lead I had on hand, but it’s not like there wasn’t any other evidence, right? There’s gotta be a way to figure it all out, and fretting over my safety doesn’t buy us any clues.”

She dropped her hands into her lap, sat up, and glanced my way. “…We’re going to figure it out? How?”

“I don’t know, yet, but, um. It can’t be that hard.”

“Isn’t the clearance rate for murder cases like, under forty percent?” Clara asked.

“Never tell me the odds!” I said.

She elbowed me in the ribs.

“Look, that’s just for the normal police anyway,” I reassured her. “Aren’t we less than a football field away from one of the best detectives on the planet?”

“Extraordinaire’s on the case?”

“Sure,” a voice cut through the air in the tent. Clara and I were both on our feet in a second. Extraordinaire walked in, with her cape and Jade trailing behind her.

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