When Abigail returned to her house, her mother was about to finish making dinner, and Abby's sister Maeve had already set the table.
"I'm back" Abby said and put her keys in the bowl next to the front door.
"Surprised to see you not materialise in a bright flash of light before our eyes," her sister quipped. She was a few years older than Abby, and she had the slight feeling that she was jealous of Abby because of her powers.
"Ha ha." Abby replied sarcastically.
"I thought your friend would stay for dinner" her mom said matter-of-factly, but the implication hung in the air. "Did she teleport home?"
"No, took the trolley. Doesn't want to be seen."
"Your friend?" Maeve asked and looked up from her seat at the table, where she was idly reading the back of one of the CDs in the dining room rack. "You mean Emma?"
"Riley. We're in the same class."
"And she can teleport," her mother added. Abby gave her a glare.
"Mom! She wants to keep it a secret!"
"Maeve can know. She won't tell."
Abby sighed. "Nobody should know! That's the whole point." She rubbed her eyes under her glasses. "From now on, don't tell anyone, please."
Her mom nodded and smiled. "Mother daughter confidentiality."
"But that's crazy, right?" Maeve asked without looking up. "I mean, what are the odds? Two teleports in the same city?"
Abby shrugged, choosing not to tell her sister about the kid from Berkeley Riley found. "Pretty slim, I guess."
That night, Abby couldn't sleep at all. Her mind was racing with thoughts, most of them about Riley and her plans. Was she maybe out there right now, finding other empowered teens? Probably not, considering she was trying her hardest not to get noticed. Maybe she was asleep already, but probably she was frantically scribbling in her notebook.
Abby got out the box of comics again, put the costume to the side and rifled through. There had to be one she hadn't already memorised cover to cover - and there was. Green Arrow Volume 5, where they introduced Emiko Queen as the frankly much cooler half-sister of Oliver Queen. It always annoyed her that she was simply the sidekick of Green Arrow, even though she was the much more fun hero to read about.
By the half-light of her reading lamp, she read the comic wrapped in soft blankets. She had a tendency to read the panels out loud, whispering in slightly darker superhero voices. Man, she thought to herself. Maybe one day they'll make comics about me. She pictured the cover - The amazing Blink, saving poor citizens from burning buildings and teleporting around the battlefield with ease, fighting the most twisted supervillains. Soon, the sleepiness overcame her, and let her drift right into a superhero dream.
The streets of San Fran were cold, rainy, uninviting. The few passersby that were around at this hour were holding black umbrellas, and from where Blink was standing, above the buildings, they looked like moving black circles.
Blink could feel she was not alone. Someone, somewhere, ready to make their mark on the city. She could picture it. Buildings crumbling, the Golden Gate Bridge collapsing into the bay. A villain, a fiend, superpowered like her. Control over gravity.
Sooner than she would have liked, it started. Blink watched as cars began to float upward from Lombard Street, their headlights cutting through the rain like searchlights. Screams echoed from below as pedestrians found themselves losing their footing, their umbrellas torn away by invisible forces.
In a black suit and cape, he stood on one of the other buildings. The Fall, a scientist gone mad with power, with the ability to twist and bend gravity to his will. She'd been hunting him, tracking him down, and he hadn't noticed her yet. Blink ran, jumped, and focused on the space behind him.
The world compressed, stretched, then snapped back into focus. She was behind him now, and without hesitation, she hit him, trying to throw him off balance - But The Fall was ready. The gravity shifted suddenly, and Blink felt herself being thrown upward, towards the cloudy night sky.
Panic flashed through Blink's mind as she hurtled upward, the rain now falling up around her. The Fall's laughter echoed across the rooftops, distorted by the wind and the strange physics warping around them. She had seconds to act before she'd be too high to survive the inevitable crash back down.
Focus, she told herself. Like mom always says - breathe through the panic. The lights of the city were becoming distant points below her, but she forced herself to concentrate on a specific spot - the ledge of the Transamerica Pyramid, its distinctive shape still visible through the rain.
Vertigo hit hard as gravity suddenly normalised, her feet touching solid ground. She steadied herself against the building's sloped surface, grateful for the brief reprieve. Below, The Fall was still distorting gravity in expanding waves, cars and debris spinning in concentric circles around him like a twisted tornado of metal and rebar.
"You can't run forever!" his voice carried up to her position. "Gravity always wins in the end!"
"Good thing I don't need to run," Blink muttered to herself, mapping out her next moves. The villain's power seemed to work in waves, expanding outward from wherever he focused-
A bright flash of light ripped Abby from her dreams. Blinded, she rubbed her eyes, reached for her glasses. When she could finally see again, she turned on her reading light. Riley was standing in the middle of her room, wearing her street clothes, and a USGS hoodie that was much too wide for her. In her hands she was holding a duffel bag. The hood was pulled up, and she was wearing a baseball cap to boot. Still, Abby could look her in the eyes. She was crying.
"Riley? What are you doing here?"
"I... messed up" she sniffled. Abby sat up, the comic book falling onto the rug. "He saw me."
"Your dad saw you teleport?"
A sob shook Riley, and Abby took that as a yes. She pat the space on the bed next to her, motioning Riley to sit down. "I... I got to the BART station, and I didn't wanna wait for the train, so I... teleported behind the house. Outside the view of the cameras, and he saw me. Turned around, saw me standing where I didn't before. Only one explanation for that."
"So what... what did he say? How'd he react?"
"Not at all at first. But later he went into the garage, checked the instruments there. I... locked myself in my room, ignored him, but then later I heard him call the office."
"Did he arrange for-" Abby didn't want to say it out loud. "...you to be... y'know? Taken?"
"I don't know. I don't know!" Riley cried. "He just called someone. From work." She pulled her iPod out of her pocket and opened a file. "I recorded it."
The recording was low quality, but intelligible for the most part. "I thought I'd finally be done. After the god damn presidents, I thought I'd finally seen the end of this. Mapped the hot spots. Contained and debriefed everyone."
"Presidents?" Abby muttered. Riley just shrugged. Allen Truman kept talking on the tape.
"I know, I know. I just... thought all of that would be over now. I mean, fifteen years, Dave. You'd think we could leave that behind us."
Another pause.
"Utah's off the table. You gotta come down to MP. Speak to her yourself, but I doubt she's gonna be cooperative. Locked herself in her room, and on top of that who knows what she's capable of."
Even if she wasn't as predisposed to paranoia as Riley, Abby found it hard to argue that that wasn’t indeed about her. "MP's Menlo Park. Where he works." Abby nodded.
"We'll figure it out. I'll bring her in tomorrow, we'll take it from there. Set up the gear first thing, all right?"
The recording was interrupted by a sniffling - Riley, realising what her father meant.
"I'll try. But this is... the last thing we needed right now. At least it'll be easier than the others."
Her iPod clicked, the recording was over. Riley was crying into her sleeve, barely being able to string a sentence together. "He went to bed, and I got into his study, just... took the first files I could find and ran."
"And the bag?"
"Clothes. Toothbrush. Everything I need to lay low for a couple of weeks. Or forever."
"Riley, you're not thinking of-"
"I have to!" she called, a bit too loud. "It's not safe for me. And it's not safe for you. If he finds out you're like me, you'll be the one being dissected in a lab in San Mateo."
"Riley, please, stay. You don't even know where you're going. We'll figure it out, you can sleep here, and my mom will understand-"
"Your mom is a doctor! She has to tell the cops if she knows!" A sob shook her. "No. I'm here because I want to thank you, and because I want you to know I'm going to miss you."
That hurt. Tears started to form in Abby's eyes too. "You can't just leave" she whispered, her voice cracking. "We just found each other. Do you know how long I've been waiting to find someone like me?" Abby felt one of the tears creep over her cheek. "At least tell me your plan. Please. I can't just let you disappear into the night."
Riley wiped her face with her other hand. "I've been to New York. That's the furthest I can go. It's a big city, I have some money saved up, and I can lay low-" She trailed off, clearly not having thought beyond the immediate escape.
"That's not a plan. That's just... running away. I'm not letting you do that. I'm not abandoning you."
"You got a better idea?" Riley sniffled.
"You can stay here. I'll-"
"I can't. He's monitoring the entire Bay Area. I can't risk it, and what if your parents-"
In a cold panic, Abigail blurted out the stupidest idea she could think of. For the moment, it had to do. "We can stay at the cabin."
"At Tahoe?"
"It's remote, half an hour to the nearest town, nobody's gonna check. We're gonna be safe there. At least until we figure this out. Okay?"
"You sure?"
"Nobody's gonna know. How would they know? Your dad doesn't even know my name." She grabbed hold of her friend's arm. "I promise it's going to be all right. Give me five minutes to pack and we'll go. Tonight."
Riley wiped her eyes again, considering Abby's proposal. The fear was still evident on her face, but there was also a glimmer of hope. "You'd... you'd really do that for me?"
"Of course I would." Abby was already pulling her backpack from under her bed, dumping out her school books onto the carpet. "We're in this together now." She moved quickly but quietly around her room, grabbing essentials - warm clothes, her phone charger, the emergency cash she kept in her desk drawer.
"But your family-"
"I'll leave them a note." Abby paused her packing to look Riley in the eyes. "They'll be worried sick, but it's better than them getting caught up in... whatever this is." She gestured vaguely at the duffel bag containing Riley's stolen files. She grabbed her school notepad, scribbled on the back.
Mom, Dad, Mae, I'm safe. Had to help a friend. Will call when I can. Love you. A
"Do you think you can get us both there?"
Abby nodded. "I think so. Not that we have much of a choice." The floorboards outside Abby's room creaked. The girls froze, held their breath, then heard Maeve's door close and footsteps heading to the bathroom.
"We gotta go. Now." Riley whispered. Abby quickly zipped up her backpack, grabbed the case for her glasses and stuffed it in her backpack. Then, she took Riley's hands in hers.
"Ready?"
"Just do it."
Abby closed her eyes, visualising the spot on the deck. Trees all around, the little cobble path leading up to the porch, the little wind chimes dangling from the top of the doorframe. There was the familiar glow, the sensation of the world stretching and compressing at the same time around her - but this time, the tug felt heavier. More resistance.
When reality snapped back into place, they were standing on the porch of the cabin, like Abby had intended. The night air was crisp, cold, and it was quiet. Much quieter than in San Francisco. The moon cast long eerie shadows through the pine trees, bathing the approach to the cabin in an eerie glow.
"We made it." Abby breathed, still holding Riley's hands. "Are you okay?"
Riley nodded, but she was shivering. "That was... intense. Way different than going alone."
"Yeah." Abby moved the plant pot next to the door, and took the spare key. "Listen, whatever's gonna happen, we're in this together. Partners, right?"
With a creak, the door opened. It was just as cold on the inside than it was on the outside, and Abby quickly went to the basement to flip the main breaker - but when she did, nothing happened. "Power's out."
"It's fine" Riley said, closing the door behind her. "We have blankets, right?" Abby climbed back up the stairs and put her backpack on the sofa in front of the fireplace.
"Yeah. Got a flashlight?" Riley nodded and got it out of her bag, turned it on and pointed it at the fireplace. "I'll make us a little fire."
"You know how to do that?"
"My... dad taught me" she explained as she piled a few of the small pieces over a few large logs before lighting it on fire with a few matches. The fire embered, and soon filled the living room with a pleasant warmth. "Here, lay down." She brought Riley over to the couch, got her a blanket.
Riley curled up on the couch, wrapping herself tightly in the blanket while Abby tended to the fire. The flames cast dancing shadows across the cabin's wooden walls, making the unfamiliar space feel simultaneously cosy and slightly unsettling. Neither girl had fully processed the weight of what they'd just done.
"I can't believe we actually did this," Riley whispered, her voice still shaky. She pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself smaller. "I've never... I mean, I've thought about running away before, but..."
"We didn't run away, okay? We bought us some time. That's all that matters right now" Abby answered, but wasn't sure if she was convincing Riley or herself. "Get some sleep, all right?"
"No chance of that" Riley said, but was already yawning. Abby settled down next to her friend, scooting closer to her on the couch. It was easily wide enough to sleep them both.
"You interrupted such a cool dream I was having, too."
"Oh?" Riley said, noticeably sleepier.
"I was Blink. Fighting this supervillain that could control gravity. He was making cars float and everything."
"Did you beat him?"
"I was up on the Transamerica, trying to figure that out, but he-" Riley was shivering again. "You're freezing." She adjusted the blanket to over them both a little better, then put an arm around her.
"I'm fine." Riley insisted, but didn't protest. "So did you beat him?"
"Didn't get that far. The darnedest thing, someone teleported into my bedroom, believe it or not." Riley let out a short but tired giggle.
"Maybe you'll beat him now." She yawned. "Good night, Blink."
"Good night, Riley."