Toby sat alone in the dark on the observation deck of the Merchants Union Tower, the tallest building in Epic City. Above and behind him were the blinking lights of the airship dock, Peregrine of course, and below him stretched out the big bright city and the dead black lake. It was the most impressive structure downtown, sheathed in black marble, 122 stories tall, with eight flying buttresses that descended gracefully from two-thirds of the building’s height to sink themselves in the ground outside the circular drive around the main structure. It was well after hours, and Toby wasn’t supposed to be up here, alone in the darkness, but he didn’t much care. He ran his scarred hands over the smooth-worn rock of the railing. Carved granite sheeting covering pre-stressed concrete and structural steel. One thing on the outside, something else on the inside. Toby snorted. Just like everyone and everything else. Himself included. He sure as hell never asked to be what he was. Never asked to have done to him what was done to him. He breathed in the cold wind that always blew in this high place, calming himself. That was the main reason he liked it up here, the chill touch of the wind made it easier to keep it from happening. The McKormic docs said there was no scientific reason for that but there it was. Geeky white boys were guessing most of the time anyway.

Toby sucked the Hawk wind deep inside him, reveling in the cold mass of air in his lungs and its caress on his skin, ridged and webbed as it was with the scar tissue of countless immolations. His eyes were half-shut, watering in the wind, and he gazed over Epic City through a blurred prism. In the distance the spotlights illuminating the still fitfully smoking Gordon building sparkled like warped diamonds. Toby’s heart rate picked up and he felt the familiar hot, slick feeling on his skin. He closed his eyes, finding his center quickly, and breathed slowly, deeply. The feeling diminished and his heart slowed. Damn good thing, too. A midnight torch on Merchies’ Tower would be a bit whack for the cops.
 He was calm enough now, he guessed. He let the face of the dead terrorist swim into his mind’s eye. Piece of shit cowardly bitch. Hurting people, kids, just to make a point. Piece of shit cowardly DEAD bitch. Wouldn’t be playin anybody else that way, no how. Part of him was disgusted at what he had done to the killer. Part of him nearly screamed at what his power had nearly done to a roomful of innocents in the hotel. Part of him regretted that it wasn’t his own act of will that had carried out the man’s sentence, that his power had usurped his volition. The rest of him felt that crazy honky just plain deserved it. Rubber Boy didn’t understand. None of them did, and that confused him. Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t they feel? That child-hurting pig needed to get capped. It wasn’t fun but then neither was turning into a damn zippo.

He cursed. Nobody got that every time he saw somebody hurting a kid, they wore Knedster’s face. Nobody got that he had to stop them, no piece of shit was going to get away with doing to another kid what had been done to him. They just listened to the white boys in charge, the ones saying ‘wait, play by the rules, trust the system…’ Bullshit. Those cracker bastards were like all the others with power; they just waited for a chance to use it to hurt people…

PHOOOM!!! An exquisite quicksilver agony tore through Toby’s body as his skin ignited. Caught by surprise, he screamed and collapsed to the well-worn stone floor, unable at first to do anything but wallow in the consuming pain. Each second an eternity, he was slowly able to regain control, using his mental exercises to shut the door to the pain, putting it in its own room where he still felt it but he could think and move and make decisions. He lurched to his feet, looking quickly around for cop-zeps, then reeled to the door of the service stairwell and started down the stairs. Ten floors later he was calm and centered enough to self-extinguish. He focused on the rhythm of his footsteps and the counterpoint of his breathing the rest of the way down. It took a half-hour. There were no police in sight so his flare-up must have been missed. He looked up and down Lake Street. He hadn’t been back to McKormic since the night it happened. He didn’t know if he could go back. They just didn’t understand. Shaking his head he moved off into the shadows, towards his crib where he had a bed and another set of cheap sweats.