Chương 5: No Capes, Just Rules

Danny kept lounging in my chair, but he no longer touched the pizza, apparently he had hit his limit. Meanwhile, driven by some kind of primal hunger, I had already finished my tenth slice. The stretchy cheese, the spicy chicken, and the pineapple juice tasted like food of the gods right now. I washed it all down with a second glass of milk, feeling a pleasant heaviness settle in my stomach and calm the tremor in my overworked muscles.

A couple of minutes ago I had been mentally grumbling at the curator for showing up with a box of food instead of a folder of documents. Now I was ready to write him a personal thank you note. After a workout that used every cell in my body, my appetite had turned downright monstrous.

"Tom, you're the king of gluttony!" Danny let out a short chuckle, and there was no mockery in it, only genuine masculine respect.

"Come on, admit it, you've got a gold medal for speed eating hot dogs hidden somewhere at home?"

"So what?" I grabbed the next triangle of pizza, feeling my mother's puzzled gaze on me.

"You think that line on my resume's gonna help me at the military office?"

"Oh absolutely! They'll make you a general!" He threw his head back and laughed so contagiously that even the tension in the room eased a little.

"Honestly, man, every general I've met weighed close to a quarter ton." Mom was looking at me with clear concern. She knew perfectly well that my usual limit was much more modest. But Danny seemed to have completely relaxed. He felt the ice had broken and decided we were practically best friends already. I was not in a hurry to disappoint him, let him think that if it made it easier for him to talk.

For me, he was still first and foremost a source of information, a curator who was supposed to clarify the foggy future.

"I've still got plenty of questions for you, Danny," I said, wiping my fingers with a napkin and turning serious.

"Go ahead, Tom." He instantly straightened up. The amusement did not disappear, but a professional readiness flashed in his eyes.

"That's exactly why I'm here."

"In the notice they sent me, the rules for using superpowers are written in a way that makes no sense. Can you explain it in plain human language, what I'm allowed to do and what'll get me fined?"

"Oh, a classic." Danny smirked and scratched the back of his head like a kid, shifting his cap.

"You're not the first trainee of mine to stumble here. Bureaucrats love convoluted wording, they're covering themselves for every possible situation. When I first awakened, I read that code three times and still felt like an idiot. But if you strip away the fluff, there's only one rule: you can use your powers as much as you want, as long as it doesn't harm others."

"Meaning?"

"No bank robberies, no damage to public property, no violence. As long as you're not violating criminal or administrative law, you're clean. Use your power to learn faster, hammer nails, or do cross stitch, the state doesn't care."

"And if it comes down to self defense?" I narrowed my eyes.

"If someone attacks me in an alley?"

"Defending your life is your legal right, and nobody's taken that away. But my advice, try to avoid street fights. You see, public demonstration of abilities isn't forbidden, but it's, let's say, strongly discouraged."

"And why's that?"

"Mass psychology." Danny suddenly grew serious and leaned back in the chair.

"Government specialists ran a ton of tests and found out that when an ordinary civilian sees a superpower in action, a red alarm light switches on in their subconscious. It's like running into a soldier in full combat gear with a loaded rifle in the middle of a peaceful city. A person immediately starts expecting trouble. They think about war, about portals, about the familiar world hanging by a thread. The media tries not to stir up the topic of spatial ruptures too much, so as not to create panic.

You get the idea?"

"More than enough." I exhaled slowly.

"I had no idea the system worked that subtly. Thought through, I'd say."

"What'd you expect?" Danny relaxed.

"Portals have been opening for forty years. In that time, scientists, sociologists, and military command have managed to analyze every nuance." Strangely enough, it was after those words that I felt something like patriotism for the first time. Not the pompous kind from movies, but a calm sense of belonging to something truly large scale and logical. It felt good to realize that you are part of a country that does not just give orders, but actually calculates the consequences.

"Alright, what about your superhero work?" I nodded at him.

"Saving forests... that's part of the job too, not just a burst of goodwill?"

"Remember one important thing, Tom." He raised a sauce stained index finger in a lecturing gesture.

"If you see an awakened showing off their talents in front of a crowd of journalists, then it's either a complete idiot, or every single one of their moves was approved in the Pentagon a week before the event."

"Judging by your rank, you're not in the first category?"

"Hey, that's actually offensive!" He pouted theatrically and turned away, then shot me a sly look.

"Of course. Every heroic rescue of a forest from a fire I do is a planned operation. The generals give the green light, the press gets their picture, everyone's happy."

"But doesn't that violate the very rule about undesirable public display?"

"On the contrary. It's the exception that proves the rule. I save nature, I save the state millions of dollars by dealing with fires faster than a dozen firefighting helicopters. People like knowing that one person can solve a global problem. It gives them a sense of safety."

"And what if that same person solves a local problem? I don't know, fixes a road or clears a sewer in five minutes?"

"That's where people start to get nervous. Psychologists studied that too. If we start doing regular jobs, ordinary workers'll fear for their employment. Nobody wants to be replaced by a Superman providing free labor. So, Tom," he looked me straight in the eyes, and there was not a trace of childishness left in that gaze, "you're a grown man and you seem quite reasonable, but I'm required to give you an official warning. Please, don't play Batman."

"What does that even mean?" Mom cut in, clearly alarmed by the comparison.

"Mrs. Ross, I'm simply asking your son not to jump across rooftops in a skin tight suit, not to track pickpockets, and not to try to return every stolen purse to each grandmother. In short, no amateur crime fighting. The police are very protective of their badges and salaries. They don't like competition from someone who can twist their patrol car like soft metal." Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"I promise I won't engage in that kind of nonsense," I replied as honestly as possible, even raising my hand as a sign of oath. Once, long ago, in early childhood, I really did dream about a cool costume, patrolling the night streets, and flashy fights with bad guys. But with age comes understanding: the whole superhero concept is complete nonsense, invented to sell comics.

Any hero with huge money or a brilliant mind would do a thousand times more good for the world if they took off the mask, threw away the cape, and directed their resources into politics or fundamental science. Throwing punches is the most primitive and inefficient way to change the world. I had other plans. And those plans involved not rescuing cats from trees, but achieving the fastest possible career growth.

"I knew we'd find common ground quickly," Danny exhaled with obvious relief, as if a weight had fallen off his shoulders.

"By the way, the fact that you brought your mom up to speed right away was the right move. Seriously. Half of my trainees play spies until the very end, hide their awakening from their parents, and try to play superheroes. It usually ends in a huge scandal and a pile of problems with the police." I listened to him while methodically destroying my thirteenth slice of pizza. By that point, I felt like a python that had swallowed a rabbit.

My stomach was warm and heavy, and three glasses of milk had settled perfectly on top of the carbohydrate protein base. If earlier I had been mentally grumbling about Danny's manners, now, fully fed, I was ready to admit that he had shown up with that food at exactly the right time.

"You've mentioned more than once that I'm not your only one," I noted, wiping my lips with a napkin.

"How many trainees have you had before me?"

"Enough for me to tell how much I annoy teenagers just by how long they roll their eyes," Danny smirked and nodded at the empty box and the can of cola.

"Most of the time I get kids around fourteen to sixteen. With them, this set works flawlessly. But now I'll know, if I get someone your age again, instead of cola I should bring a gallon of milk."

"Or a whole pack of beer," I allowed myself a faint, barely noticeable smile.

"So you're a jack of all trades. A professional soldier, a promoted superhero, and a curator on the side. How don't you mix up the roles?"

"In reality, it's much simpler than it looks from the outside," Danny leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"All these roles are branches of the same tree, and it has one root: the army. Working as a curator and occasional outings as a forest protector are great side income. For each of those activities I get an extra twenty thousand added to my base salary. Plus, it gives huge reputation bonuses in the eyes of command when it's time to assign ranks."

"Now that, I want more detail," I leaned forward involuntarily, intrigued by the financial side of the matter.

"How do you get onto those elite lists?" Danny went silent for a moment, studying me, then sighed.

"Listen, Tom, I'll be honest. To become a superhero in the eyes of the media, your power has to beat natural disasters. You need to be able to stop forest fires, freeze tsunamis, disperse hurricanes, or at least hold up collapsing skyscrapers. No offense, man, but your extreme concentration is great for personal development or special operations, but it isn't suited for stopping an earthquake."

"I understand," I replied, trying to keep my voice neutral, even though somewhere deep inside there was still a sting of a missed opportunity.

"Believe me, a superhero career has more downsides than upsides," Danny hurried to add when he noticed my reaction.

"They can drag you out of bed at three in the morning and send you to the other end of the country because a dam burst somewhere. And the worst part: you say goodbye to your personal life forever. Show your face to the cameras once, and you'll never be able to walk into a store in peace again. Fans, haters, and all kinds of lunatics will be waiting for you." I nodded silently. The prospect of becoming a living target for paparazzi had never appealed to me. Privacy and peace were worth more than any twenty thousand.

"Curating is much more mundane," Danny continued.

"You need to be over twenty and complete specialized psychology courses for working with youth."

"Why does the state even need awakened people as curators?" Mom asked, seeming to calm down a little now that the conversation had settled into a peaceful tone.

"Why not send a regular social services psychologist?"

"The people at the top think that their own kind understand each other faster," Danny shrugged.

"That two people with superpowers will form some kind of mystical connection, a sense of shared identity, you know." I nodded again, though inwardly I scoffed. I did not feel any special connection. We were not a gang or some secret society of chosen ones. Still, credit where it was due, talking to Danny really was far easier than dealing with any official I had met before.

"Alright," Mom adjusted her glasses and looked straight at Danny.

"Since you brought up money... when will my son start getting paid?"

"What do you mean?" Danny looked genuinely surprised.

"Has nothing come through yet? The first payment should've hit your account as soon as the system confirmed your status and assigned me to you." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened the banking app. I had disabled paid SMS notifications, two dollars a month had seemed like an unaffordable luxury during a period of strict budgeting for the mortgage. The screen lit up. I opened the transaction history and felt my heart skip a beat for a moment. There it was, in the Incoming line, an amount with four zeros.

Twenty thousand dollars. It had arrived yesterday evening, while I was still trying to process that my life had been turned upside down.

"Wow..." slipped out of me.

"What is it, Tom? The numbers don't add up?" the curator smirked.

"No, it's just... I'm amazed. Usually in movies or comics, the government either locks you in some underground lab or pretends you don't exist, and you have to survive on scraps until you decide to become a villain. But here... such efficiency."

"I've read all those webtoons too," Danny grinned.

"Classic plot: a guy with a weak ability gets bullied and humiliated, the system crushes him, and then he suddenly finds a way to become a god and burns the whole world to the ground. But in reality, that's complete nonsense! Tom, understand this: every awakened person is basically a walking nuclear bomb. Who in their right mind would kick a bomb and wait for the safety to fail? It's much more logical and cheaper to make sure that bomb is well fed, satisfied, and genuinely loyal to their country."

At that moment, I found myself genuinely starting to like Danny. His logic was cynical, cold, but crystal clear. No sentimental talk about a grand destiny, just raw pragmatism.

"Any more questions?" Danny stood up from the chair, stretching his whole body until his spine cracked.

"At the moment..." I paused for a second, going over everything I had heard.

"At the moment, probably not. There's more than enough to think about."

"Okay, then I'm reachable. My number's on that sheet I left. Call anytime, seriously. If something urgent happens, even at night. I can drop everything and get there at any moment, that's my job."

"I read online that you're based in San Francisco," I recalled one of the articles.

"Isn't that a bit far from Los Angeles for any moment?"

"For me, it's about fifteen minutes of travel," he casually picked up his skateboard and headed for the window.

"See you, Tom. Mrs. Ross, my respects." He jumped onto the windowsill and, without looking back, leapt down from the fifth floor. Mom gasped and rushed to the window, but I already knew what I would see. In free fall, Danny skillfully kicked the skateboard under his feet. In the same instant, roaring jets of orange flame burst out from beneath the wheels. He did not fall, he literally pushed off the air, shooting upward like a launching rocket.

At first the movement was smooth, but a moment later he picked up such speed that the sound of his flight turned into a distant hum. In the night sky above the city, only a bright fiery trail remained, quickly dissolving into the darkness. I stood in the middle of the room, looking at the empty pizza box. The conversation had been far more productive than I expected. I had money, real money capable of solving my family's problems. And more importantly, I had a plan.

If the military office valued certificates and diplomas so much, then over the next three months I would become the most decorated recruit in the history of this country.