This absolutely has to continue. Tim’s heart races with excitement of all the possibilities laid out before him, thoughts going a mile a second, unintentionally tuning the paramedic who looks over him completely out.

  “You are either very lucky, or have some sort of guardian angel.” The EMT says as he finishes looking Tim over. “Not a scratch on you, and they found you under a layer of concrete.”

  “What?” The mention of concrete finally snaps Tim to attention. “Oh, uh… yeah, right. Not big on religion so, gueeess it’s luck.” He shrugs, patting impatiently on the ambulance floor he’s seated on.

  “Can't say I’m religious either, but you’re giving me some second thoughts.” He chuckles as he puts his equipment away. “You think you’d at least have scrapes with how torn up your clothes are.”

  “Eh, crazier things have happened.” Tim giddily smiles as he zooms his vision in on a seagull passing overhead.

  “Maybe… Well, take care of yourself.” The EMT pats Tim on the shoulder and makes his way off.

  Tim bobs up and down, focusing his vision in and out until he spots Lance amongst the dispersing crowd. He hops onto his feet to approach, before he picks up a set of familiar scents in the air. He sighs and turns, frowning as his mother and sister approach him.

  With such a crazy emergency they were obviously going to get called, but Tim was hoping neither of them would answer the phone. That his mother was busy trying to make deals with regular buyers or his sister was talking to someone new, but he apparently used up all his luck on getting his powers.

  “Bubuh, oh my god.” Delilah ran over to him, scooting him back to the ambulance and sitting him back down.

  “Deleelee I’m fine, the actual professionals already looked me over.” Tim rolls his eyes.

  “Your clothes, they’re...”

  Tim sees his sister's mind begin to work, his enhanced perception picking up her expression in ways he never quite realized were present. While he didn’t consider most of his family all that intelligent, aside from his brother, they are definitely street smart, so if given the time to think things over they might throw a wrench in his future plans. He needs to derail Delilah's train of thought, distract her. Best way to do that? Play into her, and their mother’s, greed.

  “I bet you could sue them for money.” He says, maybe not the best strategy in the long run since he wants to work at Arch, but better than them giving this any more thought.

  “We should see if Bobby knows any lawyers.” His mother says, taking the bait.

  “It’d be weird if he didn’t.” Tim half frowns, and his sister giggles.

  “They’d have to give at least a few thousand, my baby could’ve been killed!”

  Tim rolls his eyes and hops back off of the ambulance, walking off to Lance’s last known location.

  “Where are you going?” His mom calls after him.

  “To check on my friend.” Tim puts a hand up and gives a slight wave.

  “No,” his mother steps in front of him, “We’re leaving, I have a lot I need to do today.”

  “Lay around and shoot up?” Tim asks.

  “Do not start with me.” She narrows her eyes at him.

  “Just go mom,” Tim sighs. ”I don’t need a ride, I’m sure the buses will still come by to take people home.” He steps around her, having lost sight of Lance. “Maaaan.”

  “Don’t you want to change your clothes?” Delilah says. “Come on Bubuh, you can talk to your friend later.”

  Tim wants to argue, after all, finding Lance wasn’t just about checking on him, Lance had seen him. He’s obviously going to use his powers to become a superhero, and with that comes a secret identity. While he and Lance seem to have become fast friends, its not like Tim knows him, so he wants to make sure he knows not to say anything to anyone.

  Unfortunately, Tim has completely lost track of him. Even with his super senses, it's not like he knows what Lance smells like to find him out that way. So unless he says something, and Tim can manage to pick it out amongst the numerous other voices, it's a lost cause for now.

  “I guess I’m a bit raggedy.” He looks down at the torn clothes and gives a silent thanks to Mortimer. “You still owe me snacks by the way, can we stop for carne asada fries?”

  “That’s not a snack, but sure.” His sister smiles as they head back to the car, Tim turning back and scanning over the area, pausing as the cool ocean breeze whips through the air.

  What was that explosion? What was with how deep that elevator shaft went? He’s not sure how far or how long he and the mutant emu fell, but it wasn’t an insignificant amount of time, especially since they weighed several tons. Speaking of the emu, did Seymour survive? If he had, he’d surely be a danger to those who came across him, but Tim didn’t hear breathing coming up from the shaft after the loud thud of the poor bird's body.

  Tim hesitates, staring at the building, but there’s nothing he can do to pursue answers for now. No, he’ll come back eventually, after he figures out the ins and outs of his powers, maybe as an intern, and investigate then.

  ***

  Tim’s mouth watered as soon as they got remotely close to the Mexican food shop, and as they arrive home he’s practically drooling. He takes the warm, Styrofoam box filled with treasure in his hand and heads to his room, finding Jane sitting on the edge of his bed. She springs up as soon as she sees its him and practically tackles him in a hug.

  “Holy shit, I’m so glad you’re ok!” She squeezes him tight.

  He squeezes her back, being careful to not use his new strength. So far he didn’t need to put any thought behind how much power he put into any one individual movement, touching, pulling, and lifting things as he always had is simple enough. Still, better to be careful when he’s hugging the person he cares about the most.

  “I’m ok.” He presses his face into her shoulder, smelling the salt that lingers on her face from dried tears.

  “I was freaking the fuck out dude.” She keeps holding onto him, Tim patting her back.

  “It's ok, I’m ok.” He gives her a squeeze, “Hungry, want some fries?”

  “Mhmm.” They sit by each other on the edge of the bed and take turns using the plastic fork to dig into the cheesy gooey goodness.

  “So,” Jane says as she swallows a mouthful “Did you see the explosion? The news said it was from a bomb or something.”

  “Yeah, I was pretty close to it.” Tim answers, considering how to approach the conversation

  Tim doesn’t just want a secret identity because its a superhero trope, there’s innumerable good reasons to have one. Obviously hiding his face when fighting anyone was a good call, people like to hold grudges and if they can’t hurt you, might as well go after someone you care about. There’s no way he’s the first or only super powered person around either, and if he had to fight someone else that made steel seem like tissue paper he’d rather not let them figure out his name. Then there’s the fact that vigilantism is illegal, not to mention that if any property damage happened in a necessary fight, he’d surely get sued for it.

  None of that of course is a reason to not tell Jane, or Rowan and Alex for that matter. The most damage it can do is make them worry right? Tim’s enhanced eyes settled on Jane’s cheek, some salt crystals still lingering there, sparkling. How much damage can worrying cause?

  “Was it cool? See anyone get vaporized?” She tries to joke as he stares at her, “What?”

  “Hm? Sorry I’m just spacing out.”

  “You didn’t get hit in the head or anything right? Your clothes look fucked and… wait… What happened to your bruise?”

  “My bruise?” He blurts out, not knowing how to salvage her already noticing. Distracting his sister and mom was easy enough but Jane isn’t going to be.

  “Yeah your bruise,” she grabs his face and turns it, “it's totally gone.”

  “I didn’t notice it this morning, I just figured it healed overnight.” He tries with a shrug.

  “Never seen a bruise heal that fast.” Her brow furls in confusion. “How the fuck?”

  Tim shrugged “I dunno man.” and in an attempt to leave it at that, scoops up a bite of meat and cheese on their fork and shoves it in Jane’s mouth.

  “Hey!” She reels back and starts to chew, frowning.

  “So did you leave school early?” Tim continues to push the shifting momentum in the conversation.

  “Yeah I practically sprinted over here, your mom and sister were already hopping into the car and didn’t let me go.” She says with her mouth full.

  “Makes sense, I could’ve been vaporized or something.” He nudges her.

  “Shut up.” She nudges him a little too hard to have fully found it funny.

  “What? I’m obviously fine.”

  “Blah blah, I’ll kick your ass.” She huffs and takes another bite.

  “You’ve had like three, it’s my turn.” Tim narrows his eyes and Jane quickly stuffs another bite into her mouth before handing it back.

  “I’ve had four actually.”

  Tim snatches the fries from in between them and places them to his side.

  “Anyways, get out so I can change.”

  “You’re just going to finish the fries.” She pouts at him.

  “I promise I won’t.” He rolls his eyes.

  She huffs, “Fine.”

  Afterwards the two hang out for a few more hours before Jane’s father pounds on the door and takes her home, leaving Tim to finally ruminate alone. Be a superhero, the impossible dream, made reality, there’s so much he can do now, so much he wants to do, but where to start?

  He stands up on his bed, impressing himself by not stumbling on the uneven terrain. He presses the on button on his old CRT TV, slots in a disc into a DVD player he and Jane had come across some time ago and presses play. A documentary on Arch flickers onto the screen, one Tim hasn’t seen yet. He hits the fast forward button, skipping over segments until he finds an interview with the company’s founder and lead scientist, Doctor Grant Connors.

  A Texan with a full, pepper grey head of hair and beard, he speaks with a southern drawl that oozes the charisma of a confident businessman and genius geneticist. Tim always respected the man, looked up to him for all of his massive accomplishments.

  He’s flat out considered one of the best scientists of all time, right up with the Williams and the heiress to the Jones Corporation, significantly speeding up the progress of technology. His work has brought back dozens of species humans had wiped up, brought back entire ecosystems, plus no small amount of humanitarian work.

  So what’s up with the endless pit under his flagship facility?

  “So, Doctor Connors—” The interviewer begins.

  “No no, please, just Grant.” The CEO chuckles.

  “Grant then,” the interviewer nods, “I hope you don’t mind, but have a few hard hitting questions for you today.”

  “Not at all,” he chuckles, “I’m used to them. My work breeds controversy after all.”

  “So it does, and speaking of, despite all of your achievements the notion of cloning, of de-extinction, is something that certain groups take issue with, finding it unethical. How do you—”

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  Grant interrupts him with a chuckle, “Unethical? Bringing back species that we ourselves wiped off the face of the Earth, it isn’t just ethical, it's responsible.”

  Tim nods along with the response, while he intended to comb through the interview sections to see if he can gleam any answers to the mystery box he’s stumbled upon; he can't help but get a little swept up in Connors’s honeyed words.

  “Responsible.” The interviewer nods, “a key word I think. While you have shown how responsible that side of your work is? What about the others? You’ve stated multiple times that a dream of yours is to bring ancient animals, dinosaurs, back from the dead and display them, not unlike a certain movie franchise, and we all saw how that went.”

  Tim rolls his eyes, even an amateur like him can make plenty of foolproof plans to make sure a Jurassic Park style escape could never happen in a dinosaur park. Moats, metal bars, not having the main security of your park be electricity running through metal that a dinosaur can just walk through with minimal effort—just to name a few.

  Connors goes through some similar motions in his answer. “Security, in all honesty, would barely prove a challenge. It’d be the animals' welfare that is our main concern. Besides, science is all about advancement, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Believe me, making cloned dinosaurs—true clones, not genetically engineering them, is pushing what’s possible.”

  He puffs out his chest, smiles confidently, definitely giving Tim the impression that Connors already has it all figured out by the time of this interview. Still, true cloning of dinosaurs is one thing, blowing someone up with lime flavored energy that lets them change into dinosaurs is another.

  “Or kiwi, I like kiwi more.” He corrects the fruit out loud.

  As much as he wants to crack this mystery box open, the creak of his sister’s door opening reminds him of something far more important. He turns the tv off and focuses on his sister’s room, doing his best to ignore all the rest of the stimuli in the house.

  “Can’t believe I’m gettin’ sent out to do errands. This is bullshit D.” A familiar voice complains.

  Tim sighs and shakes his head at Deke’s, his sister’s on again off again boyfriend, whining. He has no idea what she sees in the moron, if she even sees anything. Well, maybe it's as simple as him being a good errand boy.

  “Shut up Deke.” Delilah sighs, “I have more important people to meet tonight than some kids that are too scared to walk up to the doorstep.”

  Tim’s hand balls into a fist as he shudders from a spike of rage.

  “Maybe if your brother wasn’t such a-” Deke stops in time with Delilah's heart beat increasing.

  “You have twenty minutes, get the shit from Mom then get going.”

  Twenty minutes? Perfect, that gives Tim plenty of time to get ready what he really should’ve started with. He opens up a drawer in his dresser and rummages through it, pulling out a Spider-Man Halloween costume he had worn last year and tosses it on his bed.

  “Hmm…” He scoops up the costume and slinks out of his room, heading out of the hallway, through the kitchen, and into the garage without anyone paying him much mind.

  He flicks the light on and walks around the hoarder-like mess. It’s filled from floor to ceiling with boxes and crates of all the additional occupants of the house, or those who had lived here and are now just using it as a storage space.

  He sniffs the air, picking up mildew, rats, rusting metals and all...

  “Bingo.” He says to himself as he picks up the smell of dried paint somewhere in the middle of the mess.

  Getting to it would’ve taken an entire day before, but now with Tim’s enhanced strength and agility, its a piece of cake moving stacks of the boxes and crates all at once. He could even hold things at all odd angles, letting them dig into his shoulder or arm without feeling even a little discomfort or pain. After all, irritation and pain, more or less, is just your nerves sending a signal to your brain to tell you to quit doing something that’s harming you, and now nothing seems to harm him.

  Another odd aspect about his powers that he notices is all of his senses are enhanced, including touch. It's nowhere near to the level of the rest of them, but all the same, he could feel things across surfaces he couldn’t pick up before, individual grooves, subtle imperfections.

  He ponders another thought as he collects buckets of paint and spray cans into a large crate, throwing his costume in. Putting all these new, odd sensations into words will be pretty difficult. How is he supposed to explain it to Jane or anyone else he tells his secret to? How things moved to him now for example. It's not like they’re moving in slow motion, not really, but that’s the best way he can describe it. He figures he just processes information faster now, and can move faster in response to it.

  Making his way to the back of the garage with his crate, he exits a door and steps into the backyard. Setting the crate down and laying the costume across the dirt ground, he pulls out cans of green and black spray paint. Once he pushes the buttons down, the smell brings tears to his eyes, hitting him like a baseball bat to the head. He stops and coughs, taking a deep breath, and doing everything in his power to focus on the smell of the dirt instead of the fumes.

  “I swear if I have to fight Seymour or someone in the sewers I’m going to actually die.” He coughs as he finishes putting a coat on, tossing the spray cans to the side and then ripping off the lid of a full can of regular paint. Plopping a brush into the black glop and stirring it around, he waited as the spray paint dried, then splashed the brush onto its chest, making a messy circle, then painting a T.rex foot in its middle.

  It’s definitely sloppy work, Tim is in no way an artist, but he nods in satisfaction anyways. It’ll do until he figures out something better, the only pressing issue is that it still reeks of spray paint. He needs to air it out, so he crouches, and leaps into the air, the wind blowing through the fabric.

  He aims to land on the roof, but shoots past it by several stories. He reaches the peak of the leap, and the primal fear of falling knots in his chest as he drops. It's only for a moment though, as he quickly processes the fear, his surroundings, and his situation, and is able to adjust and land on the roof, though with a stumble.

  “I guess it's not a bad time to practice.” He shrugs as he begins jumping up and down, aiming for different heights. He figures precision jumping will be a huge advantage in super hero-ing, being crucial for things like rescuing people from a burning building or something similar.

  Up and down, up and down, all the while holding onto the suit, the worst of the thick scent dissipating. It's more difficult than he expects it to be, adjusting how much strength he uses he gets in no time at all, but adjusting for the distance properly is another story. Past the two minute mark of aiming for sweet spots and not quite making it, the backdoor opens, causing Tim to slip and nearly fall off.

  The scent of his sister, mother and the sound of a gun cocking comes before Delilah and Beth step into view, eyes scanning the backyard as Beth points the gun forward. He narrows his eyes at the gun, anger building in his chest. He opens his mouth to say something, but stops, glancing at the costume in his hand.

  “Who’s fucking around out here huh?” Beth yells, finger gripping the trigger as she step into the yard, Delilah following her.

  Tim watches as his sister scans the yard and starts to turn, eyes going to look up at the roof, and his mind races to think of a way to hide. He tosses the costume towards the middle of the roof, then goes through his mental catalog of dinosaurs. Compsognathus is the first that comes to mind, it's almost the quintessential small dinosaur, only the size of a big chicken. Even with his enhanced processing he doesn’t see or feel the process of shrinking, he’s just suddenly small, and doesn’t waste any time scampering off as his sister’s eyes hit where he was standing a moment ago.

  “It was just some animal mom.” Tim hears Delilah let out a sigh of relief. “We’re being paranoid.”

  “Can you blame me?” Beth huffs, lowering the pistol. “Things are going to get crazy.”

  “You asked for it.” Delilah says,

  “You did too.” Beth says accusingly. “Don’t pull that shit, don’t blame everything—”

  “I'm not doing this right now.” Delilah scoffs and heads inside. “Did you give Deke the shit so he can head to the 66?”

  “Yes, but don’t think you can—”

  Tim tunes out the same, tired argument that begins to break out, trying to roll his eyes out of habit, only to find himself physically incapable of the motion. That aside though, what were they talking about?

  Tim shrugs it off as he hops over the roof until he’s perched on the front edge, with his super hearing he’ll figure out the details later, for now though? Shit is slang for heroin, and the 66 for a large, outdoor storage unit that’s frequented by drug dealers not too far away. He’s, probably, fast enough to keep up with a car, so he’ll just follow Deke over when he leaves.

  He hops over to the middle of the roof and goes human, picking up his costume and quickly slipping it on. He stands up, looking at his badly painted green hand, and despite how bad he must look, he basks in everything about it. An impossible dream, the impossible dream, come true, and he’s going to use it to do everything he’s always wanted.

  Deke exits the house, slamming the door in some kind of baby rage, and plods and pouts his way over to his old, beat up car. Tim zooms his vision on the man as he turns his key over and over again, cursing, until the engine finally stutters to life. Tim snorts as Deke does his best to peel out, and then he leaps into the air. As he rises up, he uses his strength to flip, for the style points, and thinks about the ancient flying reptile, the Pteranodon. Eighteen feet of black and white wings stretch out and give a heavy flap towards the car, another flap speeds him up, then another veers him away to the right. Tim flaps wildly, trying to recover but it sends him spinning and crashing into a tree. His body smashes through the branches, tuning them to splinters that ran down onto the yard below. Still stuck in the tree he shifts human and grabs onto a branch to lower himself down, before it snaps and he falls. Landing on his back.

  “Maaaan.” He dramatically sighs as he lays in a neighbors backyard, a brown and white pit bull running up and beginning to wildly lick at his mask.

  “Mimz, Mimz stop.” He pushes the dog away and brushes the leaves off of him, and takes in a deep breath to take the edge of his frustration.

  “Ok, jumping it is.” He pinches the ridge of his nose then hops to his feet.

  “I can hold a glass without breaking it and land like a cat but I can’t fuckin know how to make my arms do a flap flap in the right fuckin way.” Tim complains to himself the whole way there, lowering his voice to a grumble as he finally approaches the yard, landing on the roof of one of the units.

  “Can turn into a dinosaur with a totally different body plan than me and adjust in like a minute but can’t fuckin wave my arms in the right rhythm.” He hops to another building, scanning the poorly lit place for Deke and his customer.

  He was worried his multiple blunders and efforts to stay out of sight caused him to miss the sale, but he still smells Deke here, along with at least 3 other people. It only takes another hop until he finally spots them.

  Deke and three kids talk in front of a unit, Deke not looking especially pleased. Tim’s pretty sure he recognizes the kids from school, but only knows the nervous one who stands in the front, Jerry.

  “Look Deke I...” Jerry fumbles over his words. “I didn’t think it’d be a problem, they were going to have some anyways and...”

  “Ain't no ‘anyways’ Jerry.” Deke saunters over to the boy and looms over him. “You don’t bring your boys to something like this, especially no big ones.” He gestures to the most nervous of the boys, a football player who looks like a super senior. “Thought I was going to have to show you wassup.” He says as he flashes a pistol under his baggy jacket, grinning wide as he goes on his power trip.

  “N-no, no way man, just be cool, be cool…” Jerry tries, putting his hands up.

  “Tell you what Jerry… I’ll forgive you.” He pats the boy's shoulder, “if you do a couple things for me.”

  Tim paces back and forth on the rooftop overlooking the deal, tapping his chin. How does he approach this? Do a classic and introduce himself first? What should he introduce himself as? Dinoman? No, people already call him that at school so it’d just compromise his secret identity. Besides, he wants to move away from using “dino” in the first place. As evidenced by his turning into a Pteranodon, a pterosaur, he doesn’t just turn into dinosaurs.

  “Agent Ancient? Cretaceous Lad? Jurassic Kid?” He nods, liking the flow of the K sounds into each other.

  “D-did you guys hear something?” The third, emo looking boy asks.

  “That would be me!” Tim calls out, deciding just to wing it. He sits with a thud and throws his legs over the side of the roof. “Hey can you guys help me out?” He asks.

  “What the fuck?” Deke looks up, reaching for his gun.

  “I need a name right?” Tim continues to riff. “See I was thinking Jurassic Kid, I like the way it sounds, good mouth feel.”

  “You tell your friend to hop up on that roof huh?” Deke raises his voice in paranoid anger.

  “No! No! Why would I? Especially dressed like that?” Jerry waves his hands.

  “Look, I worked with what I had.” Tim shrugs. “Anyways, stay on topic everyone.” He claps. “Well, I guess you should probably have some context, I...”

  “Get the fuck down here.” Deke pulls his gun and waves it at Tim, Jerry and friends flinching and shrinking away.

  Tim puts his hands up casually, mostly confident he is bullet proof.

  “Can I finish?” Tim waves both hands at him.

  “Fuck off, this some sort of prank video? Get the fuck down here!” Deke repeats.

  “Anyways,” He slinks off the building keeping his legs perfectly straight as he lands. “It just so happens that I have a grab bag of dinosaur themed powers, and I need a name.” He continues as he approaches Deke.

  “You looking to get shot? Stay the fuck there.” Deke gestures with his gun.

  “Like I said before, Jurassic Kid, like the way the kuh sounds sort of flow, you know?”

  “Deke, really, I have no idea who this guy...”

  “Shut the fuck up Jerry.” Deke points the gun at him, and Tim follows along with it, positioning himself in between them.

  This throws Deke off, narrowing his eyes at Tim now.

  “You a cop?”

  “But I got more than Jurassic, you know?” Tim’s eyes settle on Deke’s car behind him, a baggie of heroin sitting on the dashboard, red hot pressure bubbling up in his gut.

  “Take your fucking mask off.”

  “So what’s another word that can flow into Kid that makes more sense?”

  “Take. Your fucking. Mask. Off.”

  “What we really need is a Thesaurus.” He jokes without laughing.

  Deke lowers the gun at Tim’s chest, his finger beginning to pull the trigger. Tim rockets towards him, grabbing hold of the barrel, his fingers slipping through the metal like its putty. He rips the chunk off and throws it to the side, embedding the warped metal into a wall. Tim watches the three boys scream, surprised they have the sense to start running.

  “Shit!” Deke yells as he falls backwards in shock, stumbling into the hood of his car as Tim stalks forward, lowering himself down, tilting his head back and forth as he transforms. The tapping of sickle claws now join the thud of his footsteps, his Utahraptor form rises over Deke, who presses himself into the hood, like a deer in headlights, unable to move.

  Tim raises his foot and sets it on Deke’s chest, slowly bringing down his sickle claw so that it barely touches his skin, and runs it down his torso, cutting through his shirt and leaving a thin papercut that runs to his belly button.

  The smell of urine fills Tim’s nostrils and he huffs in disgust. He pivots and smashes his tail though the car's windshield, then pokes his head in and snatches the heroin baggy. He sniffs the air, pinpointing his schoolmates, then leaps away, leaving Deke crumpling to the ground in fear.

  Jerry and friends haven’t even made it to the fence surrounding the lot by the time Tim lands on it, the metal bending under the thousand plus pounds of the raptors weight.

  The baggie drops from the toothy mouth and into Tim’s human hand, before he takes a step off the fence and drops down in front of Jerry.

  “You know, drugs are bad for you.” He jokes, though his tone is anything but humorous.

  “Oh fuck, oh shit.” Jerry steps back and bumps into the super senior.

  “Is this real? This is a nightmare right?” The big one asks, kneeling down and holding his head.

  Tim rolls his eyes and steps forward, “Listen up my name is… Prehistoric Kid, and from this day on,” he holds the baggie out in his fingers. “Drugs are extinct, got it?”

  The emo kid is the only one lucid enough to respond, slowly nodding.

  “Good.” Tim nods back, and leaps into the air.