My palms were sweaty. My pulse was racing. If I had my suit on right now I’m sure it would be telling me that all my usual readings were off the charts.

  This was worse than the time I faced down that angry tyrannosaur I’d accidentally time shifted into the middle of my lab, and that encounter was pretty high up on my list of super science screw ups I never wanted to repeat.

  Turns out talking to a pretty girl? Way more intimidating than facing down an ancient lizard without killing it and potentially fucking up history for good.

  It didn’t help that all my usual instincts were completely off kilter because I was so distracted by how damn gorgeous she was.

  She smiled and leaned forward as though she was getting ready to pull me into some sort of confidence. I leaned forward as well without thinking. When I realized what I’d done I was shocked, but it was too late. I’d already done it.

  I was under her control and I didn’t like it one bit. I was in her thrall. She was using the oldest form of mind control in the book, and I loved it.

  “I have to admit I was a little surprised when I saw you walk into class today,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  She shrugged. “Usually professors are stuffy older types. I definitely wasn’t expecting…”

  She looked me up and down for the briefest of moments and I felt a thrill run through me. Could she possibly…

  “…You.”

  Was I imagining things? That look had to be wishful thinking on my part, because it sure as hell looked like she’d just given me an appreciative once over.

  I didn’t think I deserved an appreciative once over. I was in a tweed jacket to look the part, for chrissakes. Sure I rocked that tweed jacket, but still.

  No. That had to be my imagination. That had to be me inserting a hell of a lot of wish fulfillment into reality. I was well aware the mind could play tricks. Especially when you really wanted something.

  Best to ignore that look. Pretend it never happened.

  “I’m not your typical academic,” I said.

  “You seem very passionate about the subject,” she said.

  “I’ve been personally affected by a heroic intervention,” I said.

  That wasn’t exactly a lie. I had been affected by heroic interventions on multiple occasions.

  Of course I was usually the one who was putting down those heroic interventions. It wasn’t until Fialux came to town and started causing trouble that I started having trouble.

  She seemed to be buying my lie of omission. Or she was acting like she bought it, which wasn’t exactly the same thing. She leaned forward and then her hand was moving across the table. Touching mine.

  I’d accidentally brushed my hand against one of the isolinear chips that contained the majority of CORVAC’s memory and personality while doing a repair on one of his systems. The shock was powerful enough that it blasted me across the lab and very nearly stopped my heart.

  I guess the point I’m trying to get across here is I’ve been on the receiving end of one hell of a shock before, and that was nothing compared to the feeling of her hand brushing against mine.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Her eyes were searching mine. She smiled, but looked concerned. My breath caught. She looked beautiful no matter what, and feeling her tracing her finger lightly against my hand was causing me to think impossible thoughts.

  Of course I was also thinking this would be the perfect moment to try and catch her off guard, to test out my Anti-Newtonian stasis field, but no.

  I didn’t know for sure that this was Fialux for one thing. The resemblance was uncanny, but I’d already had CORVAC run her student ID picture and compare it to what we had on Fialux.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Apparently her glasses were enough to trip up even the most advanced facial recognition software CORVAC could throw at the problem. Who knew?

  Maybe those journalism assholes who couldn’t figure out the other guy weren’t quite as bad as I’d thought for not being able to figure that out.

  The second reason I didn’t break out the stasis field now was we were in the middle of a crowded room. There were students all over, and the last thing I wanted was to cause potential collateral damage by picking a fight with Fialux in the middle of a crowded area.

  Something told me a dining hall on the bottom floor of a university dormitory that’d been built a good fifty years ago and then rebuilt and refit to hell and back because the administration was too cheap to cough up money for a new building wouldn’t stand up to a fight between Night Terror and Fialux in quite the same way that the reinforced skyscrapers downtown did.

  Of course the third, final, and most compelling reason why I didn’t do anything had absolutely nothing to do with any of that crap.

  No, the real reason I wasn’t going to break out the Anti-Newtonian Field right now was because I was enjoying the feel of her hand on mine. I wanted this moment to last forever, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything to interrupt it.

  I wanted to close my eyes, sigh, and melt into her. Not try and capture her.

  CORVAC would be furious if he could see me right now. If he knew my reasoning for not trying to capture her. He might understand the first two, but I sure wasn’t going to tell him the third.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “Just working some things out.”

  Selena pulled her hand away. I wanted to cry out. As it was I just sighed. Her hand felt good, felt right, and I was going to miss that contact.

  I suddenly found myself wondering if maybe we were going to run into each other on campus more often. Maybe have more of these moments. That’d definitely give me a compelling reason to play the studious professor role and maybe enjoy my time on campus instead of looking at it as torture.

  Though as I looked her up and down it occurred to me that it might just be a different sort of torture.

  “Well I’m very glad you’re my teacher for this class,” she said. “I’m especially glad to have a professor who’s so…”

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t the greatest at this whole dating thing. Maybe I was clueless even when someone was throwing themselves at me because I was always the kind of girl who was more interested in the science lab than the cheerleading squad.

  But even I couldn’t miss the way she looked me up and down. That was one hell of an appreciative glance.

  That was the kind of look that made me feel like I needed to smoke a cigarette when it was done. That was the kind of look that screamed that Miss Solare was indulging in a naughty professor fantasy, which was just fine by me given the circumstances.

  It was the kind of look that said she was clearly interested in me in more than academic terms, and it was so obvious that even I, the queen of the oblivious, couldn’t miss it.

  A little voice inside my head was screaming. I needed to say something. I needed to make a move. It’s not like I gave a damn about the whole professional ethics thing regarding students considering I was a villain using a mind control device to get into a class long enough to capture the greatest hero in the world.

  Next to that the prohibition in the employee handbook about dating students was small potatoes.

  I opened my mouth.

  Her phone lit up and started buzzing on the table. Damn it. I glanced down at the screen and thought I saw a name that started with R. Roger? Ron?

  I didn’t get a long enough look to tell, and it’s not like it was any of my damn business anyway aside from being very interested in anything that had to do with her.

  “Hello?”

  Selena put a hand over the microphone and whispered an apology to me. “It’s my boyfriend.”

  Then she was back to her phone call while I sat there with a smile on my face as the food I was shoveling into my mouth turned to ash. For a moment there it had been downright tasty while we were talking.

  Her boyfriend. She had a boyfriend.

  So much for all my hopes she’d been looking at me with interest. So much for all my hopes that the way she was flirting and talking about how she was so glad I was her professor meant something more than her thinking I’d be a good teacher.

  I sat with a fake smile on my face. If I was on the verge of taking over the world and somebody caused my plan to come crashing down around me I’d be embarking on a world class villainous rant the likes of which you’d never seen before, but a romantic failure was unfamiliar territory. I didn’t know how to react.

  So I smiled the same fake smile I used for the news crews when Fialux was carting me off to the police station. It was a smile I’d had to spend a night perfecting in front of the mirror when I went from winning every time I implemented a plan to losing every time Fialux showed up.

  As the conversation wore on she eventually switched to video chat. She got a vacant look in her eyes and sat slack-jawed, her food forgotten, making the occasional grunt in response to whatever this guy was telling her. I finished my own food and she was still on the phone. I stood and she didn’t acknowledge it.

  With a shrug I took my food tray over to a conveyor belt and turned to leave. On my way out I passed by the table. She was still sitting there staring at her phone with a vacant expression, her food sitting cold in front of her.

  Something about the way she looked tickled something in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t say what it was.

  Whatever. If she wanted to forget her food, and me, because she was so busy talking to her boy toy then that was her business. I needed to get back to my office so I could start planning new tricks for getting her to reveal herself.

  I needed to remember I was here on business. Not to make eyes at the pretty college girl who might be the most stunning heroine to hit this city in years.

  Yeah, mama needed to get to work. I told myself that my sudden interest in defeating Fialux had nothing to do with the way I’d just been ignored after discovering Selena Solare had a boyfriend.

  I almost believed it. Hey. If I was lying to CORVAC then why not lie to myself while I was at it?