Effy knocked on the helmet on her head, It clanged as she knocked it all over, making sure it was snug and stable. Juniper leaned over like a looming security camera, she checked the padding of the body strap. Over and over again, obsessively.

  “Are we good?” Effy asked, jittery.

  “Debatable,” Juniper hung her head over Effy. “Remember to hold on tightly.”

  “Yup.”

  She turned the keys, and the engine ignited. It made a small whirring noise as they left the complex. Its internal electric motor had sped up. Vibrating as the gyroscopic stabilizers, overworked itself, to keep the weight of the vehicle on its balance.

  Bright Neon lights flared under and above the chassis of the scooter, momentarily blinding Juniper. She held her hands in front of her eyes. Making it harder to steer with focus, and keep Effy’s head in front of her chest.

  “Effy, can you hit the red button with the flashlight on it?” Juniper requested.

  “This one?” she pointed. Juniper glinted at the corner of her eye, squinting.

  “Yeah!”

  The lights shut off as Effy flicked the button.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah.”

  The faint smell of gasoline mingled with the air–it came from her vehicle, it was supposedly designed for reliability and efficiency, a hybrid fuel system. However, she had her doubts on the validity of such claims.

  Juniper, couldn’t be a chooser, not that she could do much begging here. She’d much rather prefer a normal motorbike.

  Effy latched one arm to Juniper, she gawked as the wind tickled them along the road, like a little mischievous faerie. One of her hands clung to the emergency handle, at the very least, she was listening to Juniper for once. Juniper could feel her sister’s excitement. It was a contagious joy, a rare one for her.

  “You ever crash this thing?” Effy had asked.

  Juniper raised a brow, adjusting her stance. “Do you want me to?”

  Effy hesitated for a fraction of a second. She grinned. “Kinda, yeah. That way, I’ll end up on the news.”

  Juniper gave her a slow side-eye.

  “That wasn’t sarcasm, was it?”

  “I can say no more.”

  “You’ve been on the internet too much lately. I guess”

  “What? No, don’t blame the internet, I was—”

  “If you’re going to be saying and doing weird things,” Juniper threatened. “I might just have to detox you then, a one-week phone ban should do you good. Right?”

  Effy let out an immediate, high-pitched “EEP!” and clutched tightly against Juniper’s arm… “I’m just joking, dude!”

  “Sure, you are.”

  It wasn’t above Effy to do strange things, like climbing a roof without supervision, patrolling the grounds of the apartment complex, while they were fast asleep. Do a little hack she saw on the internet, that often causes disasters.

  A tighter eye on her, would do them both good.

  The scooter slipped into the morning traffic, joining the unbearable commute. Cars stretched to the edge of the horizon.

  Unmoving.

  The roads hummed with chaotic forces–Gas-powered trucks rumbled and dominated the streets next to fan-quiet SUVs, Two different eras forced to share a world and a road.

  Above them, hundreds of drones were hovering from place to place, some carried packages, their lights flickering as they were rerouted thoroughly, millions of possible efficient routes, billions of little calculations. She was always tense near them. Any could malfunction. They could glitch. Keep a surprise bomb.

  She turned her attention to a passing billboard, unable to look away, it drew her in. Ads changed in a blink of an eye. Commercials all over it, the latest mass-produced takeout slop ready to feed the masses, The latest state-of-the-art VR game promising and probably lying about full dive immersive functionality. A new phone you couldn’t live without, with the processing power of a 2000s spaceship.

  Then came live streamers.

  Loud, obnoxious, toxic influencers. Acting like zoo animals, one trick clowns, all while referring to their parasocial audience. “Chat, Chat, Chat.”

  She couldn’t help herself, she rolled her eyes. It didn’t feel futuristic. Just plain noisy. Total consumer dystopia.

  Out of the corner of her eye. Death came to her, speeding on two lanes.

  A commuter car swerved aggressively into the lane, nearly pinning them against the wall.

  Too fast. Too sharp. Unexpected. It threw Juniper off her focus.

  She nearly instinctively kicked into her powers, the urge to blast the aggressor into kingdom come. She withheld herself, rationalizing.

  [May I suggest Immediate Evasive Maneuvers.]

  For a split second, time-stretched backward…

  Her grip tightened. Eyes low, She shifted her weight. Making an evasive turn as the perpetrator slipstreamed past her.

  She barely prevented its bumper from hitting her. A near miss.

  Her scooter’s stabilizers kicked in, reacting to her body’s slight micro-adjustments before she could react to the danger. Her bike's rudimentary AI, hardly it was great for reacting on the road. It had veered and shifted her direction slightly.

  Before she could react emotionally, another car zipped past her in response, completely unfazed and uncaring, that they had nearly been in a disaster. Ready, to cause another tragedy.

  She supposed Effy would have been safe if she reacted with the intent to use her powers. It would probably earn her a civil suit and a leaked identity, but Effy was safe, no need dwell on wayward possibilities.

  Just a speeding moron, the dashcam should’ve captured his plate, she’ll forward it to the proper authorities. Report them. Hopefully. Someone would do something.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Her pulse skyrocketed and her heart sank. Her limbs numbed down as the exhilarating rush of adrenalin settled.

  Effy bounced against her. “Holy crap, Juni, that was cool!”

  Juniper let out a dry laugh—no humor in it.

  Effy giggled.

  “What can I say, I have the superpower of selective luck.”

  “Careful, I might hand you over to the SCRA for testing.”

  [Reflex Check: Success] —

  Pulling into a vacant parking lot, she killed the motor for a second. Using the air to breathe, in and out. The traffic roared around them, like a living, chaotic thing.

  Effy leaned backward, her voice softer. “Hey… are you okay, Juniper?”\

  Juniper stared at her for a moment, letting the oxygen come through her nose. Carbon dioxide, out through her mouth.

  “I’m fine. You’re fine kiddo. I just need to get some air in.”

  A moment passed by.

  Then she restarted the scooter. “Alright, Let’s get you to school.”

  And with that, they slipped back into the metal river of the city.

  They moved from district to district, passing messed up roads and potholes. Juniper regretted taking this route. Her fingers drummed against the handlebar, scanning for any way forward. No luck. The gridlock stretched quite far, unmoving, some kind of hold up. She swore she saw a horizontally parked truck stuck on the road from an afar, angling at a snail's pace…

  Effy leaned against her stomach. “Boy, I sure do love traffic.”

  Juniper glanced back at her. “No, you don’t.”

  “It lets me embrace my inner zen.”

  “Like you understand what that means.” Juniper narrowed her eyes. “That’s just your brain shutting off.”

  “Same thing.” Effy stuck out her tongue. “You need to learn some phillllo–philsofy?”

  “Philosophy,” she corrected her mini-me.

  Traffic roared in her ear. She sighed, tuning the noise out completely. It was simply overwhelming with her [Enhanced hearing]

  If there was a way to get rid of this passive ppower,she’d take it immediately.

  Something in the corner of her sclera had caught her eyes. A crowd had formed near a sight in an unfished industrial center. They stood around like fools, filming and murmuring–yet no one was helping with whatever.

  She followed their cams, it was faint from here, but she saw it.

  A minuscule kitten.

  It was struggling to stay perched on a flat, slick metal pipe, tiny claws barely grasping for a grip. Its tail flapping wickedly, the height was quite the far distance. Below it, ooze and sludge dripped out of the pipe, forming an unholy chemical puddle on the ground.

  A few bystanders were stacking up crates, even going as far as trying to make a makeshift ladder, that looked one wrong foot away from spiraling into the ground.

  Her moped Ai started beeping, annoyingly.

  “Traffic resuming. Caution: Obstacle detected ahead. Obstacle detected ahead. Obstacle detected ahead.”

  She ignored it.

  She turned the direction of the moped slightly, weaving between the stacks of frozen traffic, narrowing and squeezing between the cars.

  Effy clutched at her waist. “What are you—hey! Where are you going!?”

  “Saving that cat.”

  “What cat—Wait, Juniper!”

  Juniper ignored the honks from impatient drivers, as it weaved between them and parked beside the road.

  She loosened Effy’s strap, tapping her lightly on the shoulder. “Stay put. I’ll be back in a second.”

  “Wait, Junip—”

  Too late. She moved.

  Her brain knew this was reckless. She could expose herself at any moment

  But her body…spoke a different language.

  She bypassed the crowd, slipping through then, helm still on her head, and a face mask concealing her lower face.

  She headed straight towards the unfinished scaffolding. Metal beams were hitting outwards like thin pillars. She hopped onto one beam, and then another, and then onto a ledge that was creaking concerningly.

  The crowd shifted her attention to her, and she did her best not to pay attention in reverse. She couldn’t let societal shyness impact her performance. The helmet and the mask were her only barriers of protection here.

  One last push upwards, as she swung up a pipe. The time she spent with Annemarie benefitted her here. Perhaps her contradictory behavior wasn’t such a bad thing.

  The pipe felt damp and sticky. Industrial grime clung to her biker gloves, peeling in strands of weak paint. The kitten let out a nasty hiss as she approached it.

  She grabbed it, taking the little critter into her hands. And its tiny claws found a way into her sleeves.

  Pain flared up.

  “I’m helping you, you ungrateful little imp.” she told the kitten, speaking in a squeaky voice.

  [Dexterity +1.]

  She gritted her teeth and scooped the kit up. It wriggled in her arms but didn’t scratch her any further.

  Effy waved from her below, her eyes shining with excitement.

  The crowd had gone silent.

  She gritted her teeth and scooped the kitten up. It wriggled in her arms but didn’t scratch her further. Below, Effy waved wildly from the sidewalk, eyes shining with excitement. Returning to the solid ground, was easier than finding her way up. She hopped down from ledge to ledge, moving smoothly and in controlled bursts.

  Her shoes hit the pavement. Hard, staggering her legs. The moment she stood upright, she tensed. A slow wave of claps erupted and settled on a crescendo.

  Juniper grimaced. Shy.

  Not knowing what to do. A toddler with chubby hands approached her, eyes open, big and wide, locked onto her face.

  She hesitated, then–just handed the whole kitten over, without thinking.

  The kid cradled it carefully, like she’d been gifted the rarest jewel in the world.

  For a split second, she felt warmth bloom in her chest.

  She buried the feeling. Dusting herself off, running back to the scooter before the crowd made a bigger deal out of it. Effy crossed her arms, her head nodding slowly. “Wow. Juniper. I used to think you were lame, but you got some spunk.”

  Juniper stretched lazily, cracking her neck. “I contain multitudes of things hidden away. “

  Effy squinted. “You know, You’ve been acting weird lately. Are you sure you’re my sister, not some out-of-space doppelg?nger?”

  Juniper smirked at her. “I wonder that myself.”

  For a brief moment, she almost believed it. That she, Juniper, could be gone.

  As they rode off, Juniper’s eyes briefly turned to the crowd.

  A figure caught her eye, a young boy. White haired. Wearing what looked like a little telnyashka, and a little navy cap. Standing among the fawning crowd. A small sense of nostalgia crept into and under her skin. Her mind flashed back to the burning building. To what could only be him. Inquiring her insensitively.

  She blinked, was she hallucinating?

  Then he was gone again.

  Replaced by another child. Looking in another direction. The polar opposite.

  No white hair. Not even remotely similar.

  A hallucination, it had to be? Was she going nuts?

  [Might just be sleep debt, don’t overthink it.][Eyes on the road, sister.]

  She snapped back, hyper-focusing, on the upcoming lanes, she drove onwards to their destination.

  Maple Elementary looked like a headache.

  Or rather she should say, waiting for traffic to pass was a headache–it wasn’t a normal morning rush either.

  Hundreds of kids were pulling in at once–some clung to their parents, others ran freely into sprints, and backpacks flopped wildly. Teachers and staff stood at the entrance, guarding the grounds from children playing with the morning chaos. They directed the traffic.

  Juniper sat on her scooter, watching it wall in mild disappointment.

  An agitated group of guardians and parents were locked into a 1-50 scuffle with a school teacher. They looked like they woke up on the wrong side of the bed, like Juniper did.

  It took Juniper a few seconds to realize why. It was definitely about the school buses, it explained much of the on-foot traffic. Who knew when the school would get replacements?

  She caught snippets of conversation as she scanned the crowd. Eavesdropping with curiosity.

  “No, they still haven't found them—”

  “Who the hell steals a whole damn bus fleet?”

  “This city's a joke—”

  A whole fleet. Gone. Not broken down. Not out of commission. Hijacked and vanished.

  That was bad. And If they targeted the school’s property, what was going to stop them from targeting the students?

  It was logistically unsound and far away from the apartments, perhaps she should scout for rental properties near safer schools. Start applying right away, but–there were problems in the execution of such a plan.

  Effy hopped off the bike, stretching her arms dramatically.

  “Remember to pick me up! The buses will still be gone, probably!”

  Juniper’s mouth twitched. “2:30 PM?”

  Effy nodded enthusiastically, then bolted toward the school doors, weaving through the crowd like an elusive little raccoon. Her brain was caught up in one thought. Stolen?

  She shouldn’t be thinking about it, but it was nagging her. Who the fuck would do that, who would be so remorseless. She shouldn’t even think of getting involved. This wasn’t just some random crime she should ignore. Kids were going to be stranded at home–this included Effy.

  A familiar ping echoed in her head.

  [You what? Do you want to start looking for these school buses? Would be best to leave it to the authorities. You should focus on your own priorities.]

  Sys-chan’s words rang with pointed logic.

  And yet.

  Her phone buzzed. A replacement, she got from her employer.

  She checked the screen.

  It was her boss, indeed.

  Juniper stared for a second. Evelyn never called for no reason.

  She picked up, knowing she’d be dragged away half the day…

  Evelyn’s voice came through, steady but urgent.

  “I know it’s like an hour or two early. But you need to report to the base right now. We’re having a minor meeting. And you have a long week ahead of you, So lets' get some stuff over…”

  Juniper exhaled, her gaze settling on Effy, grouping up with three other students. At least she wasn’t the loner girl she was. Hurtling near other weirdos, and being kicked out for being miserable.

  Looks like her day, became a lot more troublesome than she hoped it would…

  minor break—just five days. I appreciate your patience, and I apologize for the delay.