Without trying to look too much like I was looking down, I looked down. My forcefield, invisible to everyone present, was scratching at the road.

I took flight, lifting myself up enough that the arms couldn’t reach the ground. About eight feet up. From the angle, as I saw the light hit the road at a different angle, I could see the shallow gouges.

The good humor from earlier was spoiled a little at that.

“Everything okay?” Spright asked.

“Yeah, just restless, bit of power quirkery,” I said. I realized the crowd had noticed me take flight, and the conversation had quieted a bit.

It was mildly surprising that, Spright’s flirting aside, nobody in a large collection of construction employees had called out to me.

I tested my luck, and used the opportunity to call out, “You guys doing okay!?”

“Bit cool out!” someone called back.

“Yeah!” I called back. “Better than the alternative, isn’t it?”

That got me a fairly mixed response.

“Shoulder to shoulder in the heat, stinking of sweat? You don’t want that!”

“We’re used to the smell of sweat, hon!” a woman called out. There were murmurs of agreement.

“Take care of yourselves, okay?”

There were a few murmured and unintelligible responses, but a more emotional cry of, “Give us our homes and we’ll be just fucking fine!” stood out. Some heads turned in that direction.

“It’s not up to us,” I said. “Save that energy for tomorrow, alright? We’re here to keep you safe and keep them safe.”

There were a few mumbled replies.

“Doesn’t help,” Shortcut said.

“I dunno,” I said. “Letting them know we’re not against them, we care about their well being? Reaching out and talking can’t hurt, can it?”

“I guess that’s why I’m here,” Shortcut said.

I looked his way.

“Reaching out and talking,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure there’s no hard feelings.”

“About you not getting into Advance Guard.”

I’d emailed, they’d sent a reply a couple of hours later saying no.

“I didn’t devote a lot of thought to it,” I said. “Sucks, but you guys have to do what you have to do. And so does everyone else, apparently. I’ll figure something out.”

“They didn’t tell you it was me?”

“No,” I said. I frowned.

“I told them to tell you no and to tell you it was me, and why.”

“Alright,” I said. “They just told me no.”

“Well fuck that. I thought you needed to know, what you did back there, it was shitty.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I realized after your face came up on some of the events about the Norfair community center incident. You went up against Lord of Loss?”

“I don’t see what the issue is,” I said.