“Everyone on the fuckin’ ground!”

  Screams fill the jewellery store in response to Jason’s shout. Most of the two dozen or so shoppers choosing to rush for the exit instead of paying any attention to the masked man who’s just jumped up onto the stores counter. Jason ignores them in turn as he stabs a metal baseball bat into the face of the wide-eyed old man raising his hands behind the till. Clerk frozen, he sweeps his eyes over the crowd of people rushing for the exit instead of listening to him. His gaze coming to a stop when he finds me standing just inside the doors with a crowd of panicking shoppers all rushing towards me. All of them now desperate to escape past me and get out into the wider mall. The plan had been to announce ourselves after I’d secured the exit but, from the little smirk under his glasses, I can tell this wasn’t an accident.

  ‘Asshole.’

  Resolving that I’ll be the one doing the announcing next time, I lean down to slide my hand under the massive welcome mat that covers the step. Mind focusing instead on the object I’m looking for as, with a feeling like dunking my arm into an ice-cold bath, I reach into my Pocket and find it. With a mental tug on the weight that I could never normally shift, even with Meta enhanced strength, I feel it tip past that intangible point of no return that means it’s about to re-enter the world.

  I jump from my crouch to land on top of the alley dumpster, minus wheels, that rises into place underneath the mat. The double glass doors now blocked; the crowd of Saturday shoppers comes to a sudden stop. A few more screams rising from the more hysterical of them as they look at my costumed self with wide eyes and trembling legs. I catch a distorted glimpse of myself off of the mirrors set up beside the jewellery cases around us. Red cargo jacket hiding my top but only partially covering the pants I’d decided to go with after spending far too long agonising over the right clothes to make a debut in.

  These are comfortable and that had been enough reason to choose them along with my second favourite pair of running shoes. I feel a flash of irritation as I get another good look at my ‘mask’. I’d almost managed to forget I was wearing the damn thing. I can forgive that it’s just a half-ski mask and visor combo that Jason had picked out for me while getting his own sports and surplus based costume. But the colour? I don’t have anything against the bright, bubble-gum pink of the matching pair but it really isn’t helping me maintain the aura of a stoic professional that I’m going for.

  I pull my eyes away from the many mirrors to focus back on the crowd of still flinching civilians. A few more lowering themselves to the floor, or being pulled down by their friends, while the last holdouts back away and look for another way to escape. My eyes are drawn to the pearl studded shoulders and neck of one woman as she does her best to cover them with her tiny purse. Her vanity-ware catching the light of the store’s lamps beautifully as something inside each of the synthetic pearl’s glints and glimmers with an ever-shifting spark. She stops backing up as she realises that I’m staring at her, mouth moving soundlessly and eyes rolling like a cornered doe.

  The handful of others still standing around her are similarly frozen as I lean forward in imitation of a move that I saw Face-Off pull in a bank heist last year. Stuffing my hands into my cargo jacket so as not to fidget while catching each of their eyes in turn before jerking my chin sharply towards the ground. All of them but the pearl lady dropping to the floor like puppets with severed strings. It’s a true struggle to hold back the smile their reactions try to paint across my face but, somehow, I do. Determined to stay stoic and professional, just like all the most successful, and coolest, of villains.

  “Yeah, that’s fucking right! We’re the r-”

  The ping of metal-on-metal cuts Jason off as the echoing retort of a gun fills the store. My eyes snapping away from the mostly cowed crowd to where his stance has shifted to a tottering crouch. Hands braced on either side of the bat as he holds it in a perfect bunt for the bullet that should have just ventilated his skull. The sound of cracking glass breaks me from the shock, jumping down from my dumpster to take cover behind a high cabinet while the bullet ricochets into one of the other cases of security glass all around us.

  The sudden gunfire has more screams rising from the crowd who duck lower and cover their heads. A few braver souls looking around for somewhere safe to flee or already crawling towards the wall furthest from us. I’m halfway to joining them as I pull a homemade smoke grenade from my Pocket and peer through the glass case for the shooter. Anger rising as I immediately spot the pair of guards Jason was supposed to have disabled before trying to get control of the store. We’d spent days getting him the right mix of equipment and skills to pull this off just right only for him to now decide not to use any of them.

  The younger guard, clean shaven and slightly fat faced, lifts his revolver with a click of the tongue as the pearl woman rushes towards him. Her babbling sobs rising over the sounds of the others shopper’s cries while the waving of her sparkly arms gets in the way of his shot. The man ignores her entirely, fixing me with a sneer while stepping back behind a gaudy marble pillar and out of sight. His older partner does the opposite, standing up from behind his own cabinet cover on the stores far side with arms raised.

  “Confirmed Meta’s! Everyone, stay calm and do not resist. The camera’s will have seen that and the MEA will be here soon.” The words of the older, impressively bearded guard silences the shoppers at once and has everyone breathing a little easier. Me included. His tone level and authoritative as he holsters his revolver and indicates to the younger guard to do the same.

  I go right back to panicked when the younger man stands up from behind a different counter than the one I thought he’d been behind. His position almost far enough to my left to be flanking me. I keep my eyes fixed on the grimacing guard until he steps away from the cabinet and I can see his holstered revolver and raised hands. My heart pounding like an Olympic runner the entire time and my hands gripping the untested grenade tight enough to start worrying that I might burst the flimsy metal of the spray can I made it from. Jason might be able to deflect a bullet but I sure can’t.

  Beard guard keeps his hands high and steps measured as he moves closer to Jason. His eyes never leaving my partner in crimes face as he pauses only to shoot an expectant look towards his younger colleague. Jason himself doesn’t seem to notice the guard’s approach. Just blinking incredulously at his hands and the now dented bat he’s still holding. His look of surprise doesn’t last, quickly giving way to a massive grin that splits his face. Showing off the chipped tooth I’d told him to cover while his eyes snap down to the approaching guard and the clerk who’s been trying to edge around the counter to get away from him. The force of the shot had almost made him lose his balance on the marble countertop though his feet have already shifted back to a perfectly steady stance.

  ‘Did that idiot not know if he could deflect bullets?’

  My own attention flicks back to the guard walking towards where I’m still half hiding behind a cabinet. The young man pointedly not looking at me as he does his best to calm down the group of only marginally calmer civilians as well as the still quite hysteric pearl woman again rushing towards him.

  “It’s okay. This is just a smash and grab. No, miss I- Yes- Look, just follow me, okay?” he struggles for a moment to grip pearl lady’s wrists while she’s babbling about someone cutting off her arms. The guard speaking with such calm authority as he addresses the two dozen or so people spread across the floor that I have to stop my instinctive reaction of listening to him. Catching the young guard’s eye as I take a step towards him and almost flinching from the look of bottled anger and disgust that I see there.

  ‘What the fuck right do you have to judge me?’

  He turns away quickly from whatever he reads on my masked face, backing away from me while all but carrying the pearl-studded women and not stopping until he’s able to kneel by the far wall with the civilians behind him. I watch him the whole way with a complicated feeling in my chest. The sight of a crying boy clinging to his mother and a small group of teens around my age all looking one step from hyper ventilating doesn’t help. At least it gets my panic from almost being shot under control.

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  “Fuck yeah! I am Legit!” Jason’s shout snaps me back to the task at hand and I look around to realise that he’s now leering down at the bearded guard and the store clerk who he has forced together in front of him. One of the guard’s arms, the one he used to hold the revolver, looks to be broken though the man doesn’t make a sound as Jason forces him to hold it higher with another poke of his bat.

  “Yeah, you’re gonna remember who did this heist aren’t ya?” I can just about hear the older guard talking quietly to Jason while he subtly gets the clerk behind him. My gaze drawn to the artificial glow of the clerk’s aug’d eyes and the gold filigreed chrome of his hands as they are raised above him. Few people have any cyberware back in the fourth ring and when they do its usually just basic prosthetics or vanity plates.

  ‘That guy’s hands are likely worth more than everything I own.’

  Jason shoots me a look over their heads, his eyes glancing from mine down to the cases of jewellery all around us before he refocuses on the two men in front of him. Thoughts of whether the clerk has made enough to actually purchase his ‘ware or if, more likely, the upgrade was a requirement to work here and something he’s expected to pay back, are pushed away as I feel my face heating at the hint. Quickly stuffing the smoke grenade back into my Pocket, I pull out an ice-axe to start smashing holes into the security glass still keeping us from our goal. Forty years ago, before the Alignment and the tech boom that followed, we might’ve been able to just take the keys off the store clerk. Nowadays though, it's be rare to find a lock that isn’t digital and the ones on these cases will have gone into lockdown the moment the camera’s saw us. The medium sized Corp that owns this place wouldn’t want its workers giving up the codes to the merchandise in return for their easily replaceable lives after all.

  The glass of the first case cracks into little hexagonal pieces when I drive the axe’s sharp pick down into it. Thankful for the slight enhancement provided by my meta-strength when I feel the security glass resisting even under the full force of the blow. I strike a few more times before breaking through and then working the thing back and forth a little to make the hole bigger. Stuffing my hand through once its wide enough so I can drop my too-long sleeve over the first of the watches inside. The same ice bucket sensation crawls up my fingers as I cover each piece, dropping it into my Pocket with a touch.

  From there, I go quickly. Falling into a steady rhythm that I try to push ever quicker as my heart rises back up to a sprinters pace. Seconds rushing by painfully fast while I silently curse myself for wasting the first minute or so with my panicking. In between one cabinet to the next, I try to calculate how much time has passed since the alarm would have been set off. Then comparing it to the MEA’s response time for this area and feeling only slightly better for the result. After that, I just keep my head down and focus on smashing cases while trusting Jason Legit to have my back. Moving as fast as I can to Pocket the jewellery stores contents while he showboats to the crowd.

  “You know those Meta’s, those Supes, ya hear about on the news? The ones the MEA tells you to stay away from? Yeah, I am that Supe! Today y’all are gonna learn what it like to be on the other side of gettin’ fucked!” He’s gotten the clerk and the now broken armed guard over to the rest of our hopefully unneeded hostages. The older guard grimacing slightly and finally showing an expression besides calm control as he’s forced onto his knees with Ja-, Legit’s bat tapping lightly on his head. I catch sight of the terrified people as they try to push themselves further away from him and up against the wall. Stifling a snort at the pearl lady who’s still clinging to the back of the younger guard doing his best to calm her.

  “Legit! MEA’s going to be here soon! Start smashing cases already!”

  He ignores me a moment longer before stepping back with a click of his tongue and a flourish of the bat. The action sending a wave of relief through the huddled crowd, tension bleeding from them just in time for Legit to crack the bat across the older guard’s head. Screams and shouts follow as the man goes limp and slumps to the floor. A splatter of blood staining those closest to him and a small puddle immediately starting to drench his cap. Legit laughs.

  “Legit! What the hell?”

  “Oh, chill out Pocket. I just gave him a little tap. God-like skill, remember? He’ll wake up, and maybe then he’ll have a little less lip.” Legit punctuates the final word with a kick into the collapsed man’s side. His Meta enhanced strength sending the now unresponsive guard skating across the tiled floor and into the side of his partner. The furious looking man almost knocked to the ground as he tries to catch the dead weight. He trembles with rage as he shoves away the again hysteric woman tugging on his uniform. The action causing her to break down entirely and turn away to try and crawl over some of the other shoppers and get to the wall. More than a few of them look at her with annoyance, whisper-shouting for her to shut up or even kicking at her hands.

  The guard ignores the woman as she collapses on her face and curls into a still sobbing ball. Movements sharp and rigid as he rights himself before reaching down to check the limp man’s breathing and then moving him into the recovery position. Legit just licks his lips as he looks down at the lot of them with a grin. Silencing the crowd, and regaining their attention, by tapping his now blood-stained bat on the nearest case. The strained tension of his stance all but daring someone to speak up and challenge him.

  Three times he taps while dragging his eyes across the cowering crowd. Their faces reflected off the patina of his aviators as their cyber eyes stream his expression directly to their socials. On the third tap, a flash of a camera lights up his face. Harsh light bouncing off his glasses to send more screams into the crowd as they mistake it for an attack. The light cuts off immediately but not before Legit’s attention, as well as that of everyone else in the store, is suddenly drawn to one of the teens. A girl perhaps a year or two younger than me who is pointing a smartphone towards the masked villain in front of her. The girl stares wide eyed up into Legit’s face as the phone trembles in her hands. The clothes of her and her friends no different to the other shoppers but the largely unaltered flesh of their bodies making clear they’re not from this circle. Just like us.

  “I, I didn’t-”

  Legit leers at the girl as he swings down with more force on the next tap, the case shattering into a spiderweb under his strength and sending shards flying off to cause another wave of screams as people try to move even further away from him. Legit ignores them all as he turns away, frowning at the damaged but still intact case while holding up the now thoroughly dented bat in front of him. I pause my own distracted hole-cracking at the noise, eyes flicking towards him at the sound of shattering glass. Freezing as the breath is sucked out of me as I catch sight of the younger guard. Where the rest of the hostages are pressing in against each other or sending death glares at the teen with a phone, he is taut and focused. Body not frozen but coiling like a snake while his eyes have settled on the stained bat.

  Legit doesn’t notice his new admirer, annoyed as he is by not shattering the case with a single blow. I do my best not to notice him either as I stomp in Legit’s direction with all the annoyance I can fake. Walking quickly at first to try and hide how I’m taking a longer route than needed all so that I can pass close to the guard. I don’t dare take the route I want to, one that will let me get right next to him, instead placing a single low counter between us at the spot where I plan to act. I resist the urge to stuff my fidgeting hands into my Pocket as I get closer. Freezing again at the sudden sound of glass crunching under my foot, the guard’s head whipping around to spot me just a few steps from the spot where I need to be. My breath hitches as I see, in the widening of his eyes, that he’s realised exactly what I’d been scared of.

  Legit isn’t holding the bat right.

  I throw myself over the counter, feet leaving the floor as I slam one hand against the glass top for just a little more reach with the straining fingers of my other. We both freeze as I just barely manage to put one finger on the clammy skin of the guard’s forehead before he can pull out of my reach. His face, once red with pounding rage, paling into a bloodless mask as he goes cross-eyed trying to look at the single digit pinning him to the spot. The revolver creaks in his grip, barrel raised but not quite high enough to reach me if he were to pull the trigger. I barely notice it, his fear putting a smirk on my face and a smile in my voice as I meet his eyes with a tilt of the head.

  “Give me the gun, your partners too, or go in the hole.”

  Some steel comes back into his face as he stares into the reflective plate of my snow goggles. The sight of his own trembling reflection, and the reflected expressions of the civilians behind him, enough to make him actually consider it. I make myself smile wider as he hesitates, teeth flashing and heart pounding as I fight the urge to lick my dry lips. Channelling the unbothered composure of all my favourite villains while watching the guard weigh the speed of his hand against that of my Power. Or, what he imagines my Power can do anyway.

  Finally, after what feels like minutes but can’t have been more than a few seconds, he lowers his eyes along with the gun. Hands trembling as he turns the weapon over to grab it by the barrel before retrieving his partners from its own holster and holding both up towards where I’m leaning over him. I take them without moving the finger I’m pressing against his forehead. Thanking my younger self for her obsession with gymnastics as I lock my core to stop myself from tipping over the counter.

  The guard keeps his eyes down until I draw away. A cold sweat breaking out across his skin the moment he hands over the weapons and a visible wave of relief going through him when I break the skin-to-skin contact. I snort at the release of tension from his shoulders, grinning openly when his eyes shoot up to glare at me while his face reddens with a heady mix of rage and shame. The pudgy man looking all but ready to leap at me until another wave of my hand has him flinching back to the floor. His face once again pale and skin turning clammy as he backs away, dragging his partner’s limp body behind him as struggles to suck down air.

  I laugh. Hysteria fighting adrenaline as I pick up the ice-axe I’d dropped and lean back over the counter to drag its edge over the glass. Unlike the hostages, the guards had only ever been wary of Legit, not scared. Wary of his strength, wary of his unpredictability and wary of his violence but never really scared. Now though, the young man in the uniform of Saikin Securities flinches away from the sound of scratched glass. His eyes staying stuck to the floor as his wildly trembling arms struggle to place his partner behind him.

  My laugh hitches as I look up from the guard’s cap to meet the eyes of the still cowering civilians behind him. Gaze sweeping across their huddled forms. From the wealthy few trying to hide their chromed body parts for fear we’ll cut them off to the group of teens who look like they could go to the same school as me. The laugh stutters out completely as I stare into the lens of a phone camera not so different to mine. Both models far out of date compared to even the most basic of eye ‘ware.

  ‘A month ago, that could’ve been me...’