Sub-Officer Maris Kane slouched at her desk, the flickering fluorescents struggling overhead, buzzing like dying insects and casting jagged shadows against the walls as she read through the Wall Observer.

  She hated it here this close to the wall. She’d been a detective once, Inner City precinct, working her way all the way up from a start in the C zone and chasing leads with a sharp mind and sharper instincts.

  That was before she’d tangled with Councilor Keel — a politician with a sharp smile and a web of connections that could cut you right out of the inner city. Three years back, she’d caught his campaign staff skimming relief funds earmarked for Zone D orphans—credits meant for food and shelter siphoned into other accounts tied to his own companies. She’d filed a report, naive enough to think the truth mattered. Within a week, she was given thanks for her diligent service and then suddenly “reassigned” to this shithole, the land of dial-up speeds and persistent static on the radio. The bitterness from that still simmered.

  The PRU powers testing office in Zone P was an accumulation of innumerable neglects — peeling beige paint hung in curling strips from the concrete walls, broken chunks of concrete from disorderly supers back when this was an intake processing center exposed rust-streaked rebar beneath. The coffee machine in the corner gurgled out a brew that tasted like regret that had been burnt down to ash and then steeped in water. A faded out of date PRU emblem—a silver eagle clutching a lightning bolt—was stenciled above the door, its edges chipped away like the morale of everyone that ended up stuck here.

  Lean and wiry from years of restless energy, Kane’s frame was now honed by pacing the cramped halls. Her face might’ve been pretty—high cheekbones, a sharp jaw—but it was too often locked in a scowl, creasing her brow and tightening her lips. Dark blonde hair was scraped back into a tight bun, a few rebellious strands escaping to frame green eyes that darted like a hawk’s, always scanning, always suspicious.

  Maris was thinking about her upcoming birthday. Three days shy of twenty-six. Her last relationship hadn’t survived her exile to the sticks - he wasn’t moving to the outer zone and she wasn’t quitting the force to be a housewife - she’d been convinced at the time she’d work her way back up the ranks - that the truth would win out. As for the men she’d met since… she was not impressed. This left her to fill her time with work, video-dramas, the local paper, and trashy romance novels. She wished she could get out on the streets - then at least she would be contributing to the city, but instead she was a glorified babysitter for ‘restricted technology’ - as if someone would steal an out of date machine that weighed twenty tons.

  She was relegated to processing new outer zone triggers and babysitting the power scanner four out of five working days. A hulking antique that had been moved out here when it was replaced with fancy newer models. It had made it’s way out all the way from zone A, being pushed out one zone at a time and now it dominated the testing room - the end of the line for it’s long journey.

  The job wasn’t a busy one - most outer zoners didn’t get super powers, mostly out here it was just mutants. She knew people didn’t like to talk about how mysteriously - the inner zones seemed to have the most beneficial triggers - photogenic supers that flew through the skies with smiles on their faces - while outer zoners seemed to just get mutations by and large… fewer fancy powers - more debilitating transformations. There were whispers that the heavy shielding of the inner city did something - that pushing the aetheric away caused something wrong to build up nearer to the wall - but the respected scientists - paid for by the inner corps - assured everyone that was just nonsense and anyone that hinted it might not be nonsense found it suddenly difficult to stay employed. That wasn’t her fight though… against criminals she had a chance, against corporations, not so much.

  The scanner itself was a beast—a seven-foot cylinder of dented steel and flickering circuits, its origins tied to the First Wave of supers. Built by a trio of super-intellects—Dr. Veyra Solt, Magnus Korr, and Lena Tark—the “Omni-Spectral Power Resonator” was one of the first tools designed to classify triggers, mapping their Z-Factor outputs against known baselines. Its tech was a marvel then, fusing pre-apocalypse artifacts with newly discovered super-tech, but then was a long time ago. Now, it was a patched-up fossil, fading from overuse. Its processors laboring under layers of jury-rigged upgrades.

  Out here, near the Wall, the aetheric shielding they built into it was its only saving grace, a bubble of stability that kept it humming when most high tier tech fritzed out. Maris liked sitting near it. The shield’s faint hum let her data-tablet work - and she could watch her downloaded crime dramas. She knew it was pathetic—watching fake cops chase cartoonish killers while she rotted in this outpost—but it was addictively entertaining.

  The door creaked open, hinges groaning, she made a mental note to order more WD and glanced up, irritation flaring before she even saw who it was. A guy shuffled in—scruffy, maybe early twenties, wearing a decent leather coat that looked out of place on his otherwise unremarkable frame. Average height, dark hair mussed like he’d just rolled out of bed.

  He just looked … normal. She paused at that though, there was a saying that an inner zone 5 was an outer zone 10 - when most of the population sported some minor level of visible mutation - normal wasn’t quite normal anymore.

  She flicked her eyes to the appointment log on her tablet: Alexander Foster, 13:00, Trigger Assessment. She snapped the holo tablet off hiding the evidence of having watched another episode of Blue Sirens Black Spandex and pulling up his file on the ancient workstation instead. Her jaw tightened as red flags blazed across the screen: HANDLE WITH CARE – SENSITIVE/CONNECTED. Her lip curled into a sneer. Another Inner City brat, probably some politician’s nephew slumming it out here for a thrill, flagged to keep him from tattling to daddy if he ran afoul of the cops and things got a little too real. She loathed his kind—entitled pricks who thought a connected name was a free pass to rule the world.

  “Name?” she snapped, not bothering to look up, her fingers drumming the desk’s chipped edge. Of course she already knew, but with the PRU - you must follow the process.

  “Alexander Foster,” he said, voice low and steady, no trace of the nervous stammer most new triggers brought in. He stood there, hands in his pockets, casual as if he were ordering take out instead of facing a power eval. That nonchalance grated on her—only someone cushioned by immense privilege could be this unbothered when they were registering they’d gained actual powers.

  She punched his name into the system, eyes narrowing as the desk scanner’s preliminary response flashed on her screen. Elevated Z-Factor, nothing wild—fresh trigger, probably still settling. “Triggered, huh? Before we run you through the big scanner, let’s hear it—what’s your power?” She leaned back, arms crossed tight, bracing for the usual inflated nonsense. Most people had a vague intuitive sense of what they could do, and most fresh triggers strutted in, hyping themselves to try and snag a bigger stipend. The system was a joke; the more power you had, the less you even needed the cash the government gave out, but everyone still tried to scam the system.

  He scratched his neck, looking almost sheepish—a performance, she figured. “I can… observe things. Learn stuff about them—what they’re made of, maybe where they’ve been. Only works a couple times a day, though. Probably an F-class power, if I had to guess.”

  Maris blinked, caught off guard. F-class? That was gutter-tier—party trick garbage, barely worth the ink to log it. No real stipend, just a shrug from the government with maybe a pat on the back “thanks for trying!”

  Most triggers puffed up their powers—this guy was downplaying it? Either he was an idiot, or he didn’t need the money. That CONNECTED flag glared at her, whispering he had a safety net she’d never see. She didn’t buy the humility act.

  “F-class,” she echoed, voice flat. “You sure about that?”

  He shrugged, a lazy roll of his shoulders. “Seems about right to me.”

  She snorted, shoving her chair back with a screech. “Alright, hotshot. Big scanner first, then we test it. Move.” She jerked her head toward the machine — the scanner looming in the corner like a sullen guard dog. Its dented panels gleamed dully under the parts that always faintly glowed, a patchwork of repairs from decades of use. Foster followed, quiet, and she hated how he didn’t even flinch at the machine’s ominous hum. Most newbies gawked or twitched; he just stepped in like it was nothing.

  The scanner whirred to life as he entered its ring, red lights pulsing along its frame before settling into a steady green. Data scrolled across her workstation:

  null-kinetic, null-amplification,null-manipulation, null-biogenic, null-thermodynamic, null, null, null… and on and on.

  The machine finally flared briefly, screen spitting out a cryptic tagline: Perceptive Psychometric Cognition-Dimensional Quantum Derivation. Maris scowled at the jargon—typical power scanner nonsense. It’d been cutting-edge when the First Wave built it. Now, it was a cranky old beast, prone to spitting out word salad when it couldn’t pin something down.

  “Hm,” she grunted, waving him out. “So… you said you can get a reading on things?”

  “Well… I think so… I haven’t really tried much, I’ve mostly just been analyzing make and material so far..”

  Maris had a terrible thought. The kind of thought that could get her in a lot of trouble if things went wrong. The Inner CIty PRU, the Spires, the mega-corps, they had people with powers that made solving crimes easy - but they all got snatched up quick. Maybe she should roll the dice.

  “Wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She stalked past with a determined look on her face.

  Protocol called for using the Standard Calibration Artifacts — alloy cubes, fabric swatches, and a bunch of other inert junk to get a baseline a new trigger’s power. Those test objects were safe, controlled, by-the-book, with recorded histories that could be compared to assess and evaluate the triggers effectiveness.. What she intended to do was throw that book right out the window, and possibly the rest of her career with it.

  The testing office was in the back of the PRU main office,which was itself a giant concrete complex referred to as the fortress, at the other end a fleet of squad cars, tactical teams, even powered armor and swat teams that knew how to use it, but she was still inside that same building and her office connect to evidence lockup - if you knew the way and had the clearances.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Maris Kane stalked down the narrow corridors of the PRU outpost, her boots thudding against the cracked linoleum, each step a deliberate echo in the stale air as she navigated through.

  The evidence room was a veritable warehouse, shelves sagging under sealed bags and rusted file boxes many of them laden with dust. At the counter sat Officer Jaren Holt, the inventory grunt in charge of this mausoleum of lost causes. He looked up from his own battered copy of the Wall Observer that looked to be a couple of days out of date, and his posture stiffened the second he saw her.

  Jaren was a lanky 27-year-old, all elbows and nerves, with a mop of sandy hair perpetually falling into his hazel eyes. His PRU uniform hung loose on his frame, the gray fabric patched at the knees from too many hours kneeling to catalog junk no one else wanted to touch. He’d been stuck in Zone P for five years, ever since a botched smuggling sting in D-zone got him demoted from field work— there were rumors he was caught taking a bribe but nobody that knew him believed it. Cops that take bribes didn’t get put in charge of evidence rooms filled with drugs, not even near the wall. Now he guarded the lockup, a quiet guy with a quieter life, unmarried, no kids, and a painfully obvious crush on Maris that half the force snickered about behind his back. She’d thought about it once or twice, but hypocritical as it was - she just didn’t want to date someone else that worked the forces. She wanted the person she came home to every night to be safe, though a guilty part of her mused that there truthfully weren’t many places safer than PRU evidence lockup.

  “Maris,” he said, voice cracking slightly as he scrambled to straighten his posture, the paper tossed forgotten to his desk. “Didn’t expect you this shift. Uh, what’s up?”

  She leaned against the counter, one elbow propped casually, letting her sharp green eyes lock onto his for just a beat too long. “Hey, Jaren,” she said, softening her usual bark into something smoother, almost warm. “I want the Ghost Blade. I think I might be able to make a break in the case.”

  “I want to help but that case is dead….” He shifted, his fingers drumming the counter, eyes darting to the logbook beside him—a chipped tablet that hadn’t synced with the main system in months. “… and if it goes missing, or gets compromised, it’s my ass, not yours. Last time I bent a rule, I ended up here.” His voice dropped, a flicker of old shame crossing his face.

  Maris straightened, stepping closer, her tone dipping into something conspiratorial, almost intimate. “Jaren, listen. You’re the only one in this dump I can count on to not screw me over with red tape. I’m not looking to burn you—I just need it for an hour. You’d be doing me a solid. And…” She paused, letting her smirk soften into a rare half-smile. “I’ll owe you one. Coffee, next shift? Not that sludge from the machine—real stuff, imported C-zone blend.”

  His ears went pink, and he ducked his head, muttering, “You don’t have to—I mean, uh, coffee’s fine, but…” He trailed off, caught in her gaze like a moth in a web. She wasn’t the only woman at the outpost—there was grizzled Sergeant Vella, 50 and chain-smoking Vannessa, and Officer Tyn, married with three kids—but Maris was his age, single, and carried herself well shen she wanted to. Jaren had been nursing this crush since she’d first snapped at him to hurry up filing evidence two years ago, and he knew she knew it. She’d caught him staring more than once during late-night shifts. He sighed, “Alright,” he said finally, exhaling like he’d lost a fight with himself. “But bring it back quick.”

  He handed her a sealed bag marked LW-VICT-KNIFE-8-INCH-SERRATED CRIME-SCENE-13 from the unofficial dead case shelf: a knife, eight inches of polished steel, its blade gleaming like it’d just been forged.

  It’d been dropped at a murder scene two weeks ago—Lara Webber, a mutie streetwalker from the Outer Edge, gutted in an alley off 19th Street. Four stab wounds, precise and vicious, based on the lack of blood they knew her body had been moved from the true crime scene and the killer had wiped the blade clean, sterilized it to a mirror finish, and left it on the body — a taunt to the PRU, who’d found no prints, no DNA, nothing. Maris had been on the scene, her one day a week of field work, staring at that knife while the cold rain poured down on Lara’s corpse, and it still pissed her off. If Foster’s trick was able to shed even one single clue, well protocol be damned—she wasn’t letting a possible lead slip when the Inner City didn’t care enough to send help.

  Back in the room, she unbagged the knife and set it on the table with a metallic clank. “O.k. Do your power.”

  He frowned, hesitating, raising an eyebrow skeptically, then picked it up, turning it in his hands like it was a curiosity. His eyes unfocused for a beat, and she caught a flicker—something in his gaze, there and gone. “It’s a High-carbon steel alloy, 0.8% carbon content, a trace of vanadium for durability.

  Maris felt disappointment flow through her. This was a bust. “That’s it? Composition’s now what I hoped for … Could you try harder?”

  He shot her a look—definite annoyance this time—then looked again. His jaw clenched, and his eyes went distant again, like he was peering into something beyond the room.

  ***

  Foster gripped the knife again, tighter this time, knuckles whitening as he willed the power back. His chest tightened, a faint ache blooming behind his eyes. One more time — Observe. The world tilted, and suddenly he wasn’t in the testing room anymore.

  He was there.

  A rain-slick alley somewhere in the Outer Edge. The blade gleamed in a gloved hand—black leather, cracked at the knuckles—held by a short, stocky figure, bald head shining under a flickering street lamp. A scar sliced over his left eye, puckered and white, twisting his sneer into something feral. A young girl stumbled back, her thin frame shivering in a torn jacket, pupils blown wide from one too many chem-hits, blonde hair matted with sweat and grime. She raised a hand, voice slurring, “Please—”

  The knife flashed. Four stabs, quick and brutal—two to the chest, piercing her lung and heart, two to the gut, tearing through soft tissue. Blood sprayed, hot and coppery, spattering the glove, the blade, the cracked pavement. Lara crumpled, a wet gasp fading into silence, rain washing the red into the gutter. The man wiped the blade down, slow - methodical, then began to wrap her up in a tarp and hefted her body like it weighed nothing.

  The scene shifted—lurching, disorienting—a little shack… with a red door chipped and peeling. Inside was a workbench littered with chem vials. The air reeked of acid, sharp and acrid, from a dented vat in the corner—hydrochloric, simmering low. The man finished cleaning the knife - still grinning, then walked out, carrying it and the body - smiling.

  He knew that shack… he used to walk past it to get to work. The thought of what might have been happening behind that door sickened him.

  Foster’s eyes snapped open, breath hitching, the knife clattering from his hand. His stomach churned, sweat beading on his forehead. He glared at Maris, voice low and raw. “It was used to kill someone. A woman—a drug addict, she worked the Outer Edge and she was stabbed four times, chest and gut. The guy who did it… was a short, stocky, bald bastard, with a scar over his left eye. He cleaned it afterwards and left it - probably to mess with you. He’s got a place right off off of 17th if you’re heading to the College from here, a little shack that has a red door, and from the outside it smells like burnt chemicals - he keeps acid there, not sure what for. He’s also definitely not just human strong… he can carry a corpse like I’d heft a bag of potatoes.”

  Maris froze, her breath catching, but Foster wasn’t done. He shoved the knife across the table away from him, disgust twisting his face. “That wasn’t a PRU test!”

  She didn’t flinch, just snatched it slid it into the bag and hit her comms, already barking orders. Foster leaned back, arms crossed, the ache behind his eyes throbbing now— The first Observe had been clean, mechanical - standard little text boxes of details; the second was a damned nightmare, raw and real, like he’d lived through it. He’d seen enough to know he didn’t want to do that again—not without a damn good reason.

  Maris was on her comms, heart pounding as she barked into the line, “Sarge I am calling in all my favors. I need full powered response tactical units to roll to 17th Street—there’s a shack with a red door and a chem smell. We’re looking for a bald suspect with a scar on the left eye. Move in only with overwhelming force, consider suspect armed - super powered strength type - and an active danger.” She cut the connection, meeting his glare with a flicker of unease. “Stay put.”

  He didn’t argue, just leaned back against the wall, simmering. She didn’t give a damn—her mind was racing. What she was doing now would never fly back in the inner zones, they would need warrants and authorizations, but nearer to the wall the rules were more like suggestions. If he was playing her she was about to get reamed for wasting resources… but if he wasn’t lying, they might really catch the bastard. She paced outside the room, boots scuffing the tiles. The comms crackled after Eight agonizing minutes: “Suspect in custody. Caught him with another girl—she’s alive, barely. Sick bastard was cutting her and melting her hand in acid. He didn’t go down easy. Good call Kane! How the hell did you crack this case?”

  Maris exhaled, tension bleeding out as relief washed in, sharp and cold. She went back to the exam room and saw Foster, still glowering and she almost felt a pang of guilt. Almost. “You just saved a life,” she said, leaning on the table, voice softer than she meant it to be. “A girl would’ve been dead if you hadn’t given us that information. Sometimes it's the quiet powers—not the ones that toss cars— that can really make a difference in the world. I hope you’ll be willing to help us again.”

  “Great,” he snapped, voice edged with anger - she could almost see the war inside his head playing out on his face. “I’m glad someone was saved, but I’m not a tool.” He exhaled - slowly, obviously trying to calm down. “Don’t call me again for something like this unless you’re paying. And I’m not playing petty detective for every lost wallet or missing cat. Major cases like this only. I can’t use my power enough times to be wasting it on nonsense.”

  She raised an eyebrow, a grudging smirk tugging at her lips. Fair enough— “Noted,” she said, tapping at her workstation. She logged his power as psychometry— as it seemed when he held objects he could pull their histories —and rated it C+ for the pinpoint detail he’d pulled. Higher than his F-class guess, but she wasn’t here to stroke his ego. She flagged it HIDDEN - PRU CLASSIFIED and pushed the hidden level as high as her own rating would clear her for, then logged in with her bosses password - which he still hadn’t changed in four months and pushed it up as high as his rating would allow —if word leaked, every thug and murderer in the city would want him dead or hired. Then she punched in POLICE CONSULTANT – C-TIER POWER / B-TIER COST It'd keep the PRU from bugging him unless the case was truly worth the budget… but there would be definitely be some where they’d be willing to pay.

  “Congratulations, you’re our newest consultant,” she said, sliding the pad aside. “C-tier classification, B-tier pay. The C tier power stipend might cover moving to another zone by itself, if you’re sick of Wall rot. That’s your call but I hope you’ll be here for at least a while. The PRU truly needs the help of someone with a power like yours.”

  He nodded, tight-lipped, eyes still smoldering. “Thanks for the info. That’s acceptable for now.”

  She shrugged, waving him off. “We’re done for today. The PRU thanks you for your service!” She froze for a moment remembering her own boss saying that line to her three years ago. Damn. Since this one was off the books she’d figure out a bullshit excuse for the case crack later—probably pin it on an anonymous tip.

  Maris watched him stalk out, boots echoing down the hall, a grudging respect flickering beneath her ingrained disdain. Connected or not, he wasn’t the whining Inner City brat she’d pegged him for—no flexing and no groveling. Just a guy who’d lucked into a somewhat useful power and still had the spine to set boundaries. She turned back to her desk, the knife’s bag still sitting there. Maybe … if she could leverage him for a few more wins, just maybe she’d claw her way back to the Inner City.

  ***

  Foster climbed into his van, the engine coughing to life with a reluctant sputter as he pulled away from the PRU outpost. The day’s weight pressed on him—anger at being played, a quiet satisfaction that he’d saved a life, if indirectly, and a thought of yet more possibilities... Steady credits meant more options. A PRU updated gene-id meant no more stress on his cross border library trips. For now, though, he just wanted to go home—those library books he’d left at the apartment were waiting - filled with secrets, as were more dates with Sofia. He let himself have a small smile at that thought and tried to purge the visions of phantom blood from his thoughts.