I hate dealing with kids, they’re not good at conversation, and I have to avoid swearing around them. I mean, there are plenty of adults like that too, but I don’t actually have to care about their opinions. At least the kid I have to babysit is a teenager, so a little bit of profanity can be forgiven. All that would be bad enough if the kid weren’t the daughter of a murderous nutcase, but she is, and somehow I think I’m the only one who’s noticed. Sure Al claims he’s noticed, but I refuse to believe he’d come up with a plan this stupid if he really had. Ugh, and now that creepy girl is sitting across from me staring since Al said we should get to know each other, before immediately leaving, and taking all conversation with him. I guess I’m supposed to be the chatty one now. “So, you make stuff? Got any favorites?”

  Ugh, that was horrible, but she brightens up a little, so I guess it worked. “I don’t really pick favorites, but most of the ones I’ve made are broken, so this would be the only one left.”

  It takes all my self control not to jump back when she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pocket watch. How the hell did she get that through the metal detector? Fucking mad scientists, aggressively unpredictable is an understatement. At least it hasn’t exploded yet, so I guess I should give her the benefit of the doubt. “So … what does it do?”

  She looks confused. “He … tells time? The mainspring lasts for a long time, and it’s wound by the movements of the holder if that’s what you mean. I meant for him to be a gift for dad, but he didn’t want it.”

  She trails off and stares at the watch. Great, I probably made things awkward, and didn’t learn anything from my efforts. Still, shocker there, the guy who willingly walks around with the name Dr. Damnation is an under qualified parent. “Can I see it?” Maybe I’ll learn a bit more from that.

  She looks up startled, before holding it out. “Just let me have him back, it’s nice to have.”

  I take the watch, it’s lighter than I expected. “Yeah, I will.” I look at it, I’m no watchmaker, but it looks very well made. It’s unusual for Mad Scientists to have so much effort put into aesthetics, or to refer to their creations as ‘him’. Other than that, it doesn’t tell me much, other than that it’s still set to the right time. It doesn’t look particularly dangerous, so maybe her power just makes common household trinkets or something … and she personifies them or something? I’m not going to pretend I’m surprised she’s at least a bit unstable. I hand it back. “Thanks, you said your other things are broken, what happened?” Probably best to not let her stew on things.

  “Ah … well, you burned most of them…” Well fuck, I’m cursed. Although I probably should’ve guessed that much, I melted basically everything metal in the building. Mad Scientists get me paranoid ever since that one guy who made all his drones look like office equipment.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Well … I’m sorry about that, but at least you can make new things now. You could make drones, every inventor I know likes drones.” That’s not even an exaggeration, it’s uncanny. It doesn’t even matter if they’re a hero or a villain, it always comes down to drones, personally I don’t see the appeal.

  She looks back down at the watch, and flips it open, staring at the face. “I guess. I’ll miss the old ones though.” Yeah, that’s not a red flag or anything. Ugh, sometimes I hate Al. Usually actually, PR’s just infuriating, and he doesn’t think about anything else. I just want to beat up villains and go home, all the rest is just busywork.

  But speaking of red flags, while I was thinking Lilly started staring off into space. This is becoming a disturbing pattern. “Hey! Kid! You still there?”

  She jumps a bit before looking back at me. “Yes. Sorry Mr Pyre, I was just thinking.” Ugh, maybe it’s a side effect of smart superpowers, or something. Makes you more contemplative so that you can think up insane ideas. I’ve never seen it before, but maybe the adults just hide it better, and I don’t exactly hang around those types of supers if I can help it. Or it’s just an extension of everyone with intelligence powers being incredibly weird.

  Great, now she’s looking at me, expecting me to talk. I didn’t really think getting her attention through … shit. “Ugh, well, look, Al said to get to know each other. I know all I’m going to remember about you, so I should probably tell you about myself. I’m a Pyrokinetic, which means I control fire. Pretty simple stuff, but it goes both ways. Controlling fire means being able to remove it from things, which mostly just makes stuff colder. I don’t really bother with it much in all honesty. I can’t create water, so I can’t create ice, so burning everything’s just more efficient.” Also, while I’m not about to say it to her directly, as dangerous as fire is, frostbite is both dangerous, and can be less obvious. I do have some standards, and not killing people without trial is one of them. It doesn’t seem like she has any questions after that, by which I mean she’s gone back to staring into space. At least this time she has an excuse to be doing a lot of thinking. Ugh, this is going to be hell, it better get Al off my damn back for at least a month.

  I almost jump out of my seat when I hear a knock at the door. I’d just gotten used to the silence. Lilly somehow looks less startled even though she was staring into space again. I guess I’m just jumpy at the moment. “Ugh, son of a … come in.”

  Al slips in gracefully, one of those motions he keeps insisting I should practice in the mirror. “I’m sure you’ll be overjoyed to learn that the police were perfectly accepting of our proposal. In fact they’d love to get the process started right away so that they can turn their efforts to other things.”

  Wow, Al’s really convinced this is a good idea, at least based on how hard he’s pushing it. Lilly looks uncomfortable, but eventually nods. “Alright, I’ll join.”

  Al at least has the good grace to look surprised, I’m sure he expected this. “Well, I had no intention to pressure you into anything, but if you’re sure, we can move ahead immediately. There’ll be a bit of paperwork, but I can help you fill it out.”

  I don’t envy her, the paperwork here is horrifying. “In fact, Pyre had to fill it out before, he can help as well.” … I wonder how much trouble I’d get in if I lit Al on just a bit of fire.