Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The old windup alarm clock was sounding off in neat, monotonous intervals. It was safe. Something normal. Sweat was pouring off my face as I stared at the ceiling. "Today's the day. I'm going to actually do it. I'm ready. To take the fight to them."
This wouldn't be your typical hero story though, what they don't tell you is that there's even more parahumans in Brockton Bay than even the admittedly higher than national average statistics tell you. There's dozens, maybe even hundreds more but unfortunately most of us aren't much to sneeze at. Most of us were small-timers, barely making the grade for an 1 or 2 and hiding out in little safe houses scattered across the city hoping that they wouldn't get conscripted into one of the gangs, the occasional 3 popping up before they decided to become a cape or villain and end up getting killed. It's a hard knock life when you have the likes of Bitch, Uber and Leet, and Skidmark running around. Most of us just simply weren't good enough. Good enough to skate by life with a few perks? Certainly. Good enough to make it up against the big dogs? I would say don't make me laugh but I had too many friends die out there.
But who am I to judge when I'm going to make the same kind of idiotic death wish. I wasn't anything spectacular.
A Master 0 or Breaker 1 or maybe even both depending on how you cut it. I could control my body, utterly and absolutely. Peak human abilities came at the drop of a hat for me.
You know the stories of moms lifting cars to save their children or Olympic high jumpers leaping meters into the air? I could do all of that, lift half a ton over my head and leap a dozen feet into the air. But here's the kicker. The human body was never meant to do all of that, at least on a day-to-day basis-more of a once-in-lifetime sort of thing, so if I wanted to be a Brute 1 I could but I would barely be able to walked afterwards. Leap tall buildings in a single bound? Sure, if I wanted extreme muscle damage. Perfect awareness and eidetic memory? Why not, if I wanted the world's worst hangover the next morning.
I'm too concerned with not having the body of a career NFL player, NASCAR driver, and MMA fighter all wrapped into one at the age of 40. All fractures and crippling disabilities.
I mean, if not for my Master rating. Nothing much to look at, couldn't even control anything as weak as an insect even. Except for the fact that I could dominate everything in my mind and body. Too scared of getting shot? Well too bad Calamus Rut, you're going to confront that gangbanger and not break a sweat while doing it. My bones broke from the absurd amounts of muscle tension? I could set them back in a painful, slow, but near perfect process. I was more or less a lesser immortal with a lifespan in the centuries. No cancers or mutations for me, no siree.
But enough talk.
I rolled off my stained twin bed that I found on the side of the street and went to the wall behind my bed. I didn't have a big room, or even a big apartment-the bedroom was only six feet across and I didn't even have a kitchen, only takeout for me. But it was enough, a place to start.
I felt around the edges of some sort of invisible square, cursing all the while about shoddy craftsmanship.
Grunting in approval, I finally got the latch and opened up the safe.
It was a strongbox that I managed to get off of a a Buschleague tinker whose speciality was just locks and safes, not bad considering how many villains and capes alike have secrets they want to keep secret but his work was sadly mundane. It was hard to get excited about difficult-to-pick locks and invisible safes when other tinkers could do the same with better results and poisonous gas if the wrong person decided to mess around with them.
