In my experience, foster parents fell into one of two categories when it came to dinner. On the one hand were the lazier ones who, after a long day, would toss a bag of Chinese or Thai food onto the table and let the kids go whole hog on it. The latter were foster parents who actually knew how to cook and decided to use those powers for good.

  Gail, I didn’t like to admit, was damn good at the latter.

  I couldn’t even bring myself to be annoyed as I spooned another mouthful of beef bourguignon into my mouth, the heat filling me with every bite, the juice leaving a spicy tang on every chew. I at least had the decency to eat slow, Todd was like an animal who feared he would never eat again. It was only by pure fortune he didn’t make a damn mess.

  Gail, a slim black woman with a fastidiously tended afro, smiled across the table at us. “Good huh?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “Saw the recipe on my TikTok feed and I just HAD to try it.” She hadn’t changed from her work attire, still dressed in a white blouse and dark slacks. Even so she carried herself with a casual grace.

  She was... ‘cool’ I suppose would be the right word. An accomplished, high-earning woman with a lot of talents.

  “It’s good,” I admitted, and I genuinely meant it. But my mind was a million miles away, still focused on the image of Sidewinder and what it meant. There were a lot of implications to that image, and I didn’t like any of them.

  “Yeah, amazing! Can I have more?” Todd asked eagerly.

  “Ha. Maybe finish your first serving, huh? But... thanks. Guess I know to make more in the future. What do you think, Brian honey?”

  Her husband, Brian, was a burly white guy with a thinning black hairline. “Great as ever Gail.” He smiled, but it quickly faded as he set his emerald eyes on me. “Say, Jess, I happened to get an interesting call at work today.”

  “Oh?” I asked absently, my fork pushing a piece of cubed meat along the abundance of juice in my bowl.

  “Yeah. Your school called, said you just... vanished toward the end of the day. Funny, huh?” There was no humour in his voice.

  “Oh?” I glanced up at him, my face a blank mask. I made no move to deny that I was skipping school. Why bother lying?

  Brian sighed, his free hand pressing to his forehead “For Christ’s sake, Jess,” he muttered. “This is the third time in as many months I’ve heard of you skipping school. Are you seriously trying to throw your future away?”

  I gave him a flat look. I made eight grand today, Brian, with some junk I refurbished from a dumpster. How much did you make today? I said nothing on the matter, well aware that there would be... questions from my case worker if I got outed as a budding supervillain.

  “Brian,” Gail said, simultaneously firm and gentle.

  “Gail, she’s-”

  He stopped when he saw her motioning to Todd with a glance. The boy was wide eyed and fearful, looking all around the table. Todd was a sensitive little crybaby, I knew, easily upset by anything that looked like it would spoil his ‘happy family.’

  Brian sighed. “It’s... it’s fine kiddo, we’re not fighting,” he said, raising one hand, offering the scaly boy a smile.

  And so dinner concluded with a bit of an awkward silence hanging over it. Once we had finished, Gail invited me to help clean up. Much as I wanted to rush upstairs and see if CH3SH had messaged me back, I knew it was not an offer I could actually refuse.

  Parents, biological and adopted, had a way of ‘offering’ chores for their kids, which were in reality ‘demands.’ And woe betide anyone dumb enough to turn down requests like that.

  She said nothing, initially, as we loaded things into the dishwasher. Then, without looking at me, she said, “He’s just worried, you know.”

  “It’s not his job to worry about me.”

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  “Kind of is. I know there are crappy foster parents in the world, Jess, but ideally they are supposed to worry about the kids they take in. And, to be honest, I do worry a little about you too. You’re a smart kid, your grades are consistently solid. Personally I don’t see why you’d give school the cold shoulder.” She paused, a large dish in her hands. “You’re not being bullied, are you?”

  “Not really,” I admitted, shrugging. I didn’t exactly have many friends, I didn’t see the point when I had so little interest in the institution to start with and could be moved to another foster home before I knew it. “I mean, there are some girls who are bitchy but there are weirder kids for them to be assholes to.”

  “Language,” Gail said. But she smiled a bit, despite her mild disdain. “Still... why all the hooky?”

  “I’m just not interested,” I said. And that was mostly true. A supervillain didn’t need to know about Wounded Knee, or names for different rock formations, or how to ask for the bathroom in Spanish.

  Gail sighed and gave a small shake of her head. “I won’t try and twist your arm on the matter, Jess, just know that you’re wasting your potential more and more whenever you skip school like that. And... it really sucks to see you waste that potential.”

  I winced a bit. Why the hell did that make me feel... bad? I didn’t dislike Gail or Brian, they were solid gold as far as foster parents went, at least compared to some of the dregs I’d had. I shouldn’t have cared about disappointing her, regardless. Yet I did.

  More than that, however, I couldn’t afford to rock the boat now. If someone in Argent had worthwhile information, I couldn’t risk being sent to a foster home outside the city. “Okay,” I said, loading the last dish into the machine. “No more skipping.” Unless something important came up, I mentally added.

  Gail chuckled. “Dunno how much I believe that, but I guess it’d nice if you made the attempt.”

  “I do care about my future, after all.” Just not in the way those two envisioned. I quickly left the kitchen once the dishes were dealt with and passed the living room. Todd and Brian were intently watching the widescreen TV, where the news was showing Dauntless carrying a sinking passenger cruiser from the ocean on his back.

  Watching the heroes in action usually kept Todd quiet.

  I left, just as the news switched to an ad for Titanium’s new range of public security drones, the man himself flying alongside a fleet of them in his sleek chrome-plated armour.

  When I got back to my laptop and did my usual security routine, I felt my pulse leap in excitement at the sight of a new PM. From CH3SH, thank god.

  I crept to the door and quietly pushed it closed, the hinges creaking. Just for extra security I made sure to send an army man outside to stand guard, watching the door from the shadowy hallway.

  Taking a deep breath, I clicked on the message.

  Footage hunters. I was familiar with the term, it cropped up on Masquerade and other superhero forums. They tended to be hackers who scoured the world for footage of superhero and supervillain activity on CCTV networks.

  Still, only getting one frame from that? It sounded fishy.

  I frowned to myself. Whoever CH3SH was, I had to wonder what their relation to Bonfire Night was. Most likely they lost a loved one of their own, and weren’t happy with the official narrative.

  Another PM popped up in my inbox, promptly rousing me back to attention.

  I hadn’t said specifically what I made on the forum, not wanting to incriminate myself with a public post. But anyone on Masquerade who offered ‘equipment’ for sale was near-always an Artisan selling weapons.

  I stared at that message for several long moments, my eyes narrowed.

  There were a million and one things that could have gone wrong with taking someone up on an offer like that. But I needed answers, and this was the only path forward.

  I sighed, quickly typing a response.