Age of Power: Dawn

You continue to chatter meaninglessly with mom for a couple more minutes. All the while you can't shake the absurd thought forming in your mind. It's stupid. Idiotic. Dallas isn't some podunk town. It's almost 400 square miles of concrete and chaos. More than a million people live here. Just now, it seems dangerous! You're not likely to find dad in all of this, but you can't stay here while he's out there all alone. You're not a hero. Not some sort of altruistic do-gooder. Hell, you've never volunteered a day in your life!

Besides, if he is at City Hall, armed guards are probably swarming the place. You didn't lie to mom. There's usually no safer place. A glance at the TV tells you things are far from normal. The two monsters are still locked in a brawl. Police ring them in a wide perimeter. This is Dallas. The police are well armed. All for naught. Assault rifle bullets do nothing to either of them. They ping harmlessly off the big red bastard and just seem to burn up when they make contact with the Black Fire Thing's form. You shake your head. It's like something out of a video game. Going out into that kind of environment? Tantamount to suicide. You like living. Thank your very much.

All of that doesn't change what you're going to do. It's simple. Go find him. He's your father. When you failed to make every athletic team you ever tried out for, he was always there with a comforting smile and a game of chess. The old man always loved a good game, even though you nearly always won.

If something happened to the old man, and you didn't even try to go look for him, you'd never be able to look yourself in the mirror again! You levitate the remote effortlessly. Not like you're defenseless. Try to turn the TV off with a measure of Will. Instead, you change the channel. Needs some work, but that's for later. Now, you make some excuses to mom. You need to take a shower. You'll call her later. Of course, you won't go out into town. Lying's not hard. You've been making up excuses your entire life. Second nature.

Once you hang up and put the phone on vibrate--seen too many movies where an untimely phone call spelled doom for the protagonist!--you move to your closet. If you're going out there, you might end up using Telekinesis to defend yourself. That thought makes your stomach squelch up uneasily. You've never so much as thrown a punch in anger. The idea of using this new ability to hurt someone, even someone who's trying to hurt you? Almost enough to make you abandon the whole harebrained idea. Almost.

Instead, you quickly pull down a grey hoodie and pull it on. 'Volcom' is emblazoned on the back in teal colors. A hold over from your wannabe Skater phase. Flip up the hood. Float a ski mask out of it's hiding place in a nearby drawer. That skiing trip with the family wasn't a total waste of time after all! Going to be hot as all hell out there in all this, but if you can keep even an ounce of anonymity? Worth it. Grab your prescription sunglasses. Makes your already darkened room almost as dark as night-time when you put them on. With this new sixth sense, you don't mind in the least. Put some driving gloves on. Don't need to leave finger prints if anything crazy happens. Take a look in the bathroom's mirror. You'd draw a bunch of strange looks wearing this. It is the end of August in Texas after all. But, no one will know who the hell you are.

You take off the disguise, and throw it an old backpack. Haven't used that since university.

Well, that's your disguise. What else could you need? Follow Carl's example. You end up throwing a Yeti thermos full of water in the gym bag, a couple Slim Jim's, a couple hundred dollars in large bills, a portable first aid kit, a charger for your phone... and you throw in a couple more dangerous things. Don't want to appear too suspicious if a cop stops you or something, but you can't go out there totally unprepared. You put a roll of quarters in there. An unused pocket knife still in its original packaging. A dozen zip ties. Some pepper spray your mom bought you years back.

That's five minutes of prep. With the backpack looped over both of your shoulders, you head downstairs. Force of habit makes you step towards the elevators. Only after you're halfway down does the possibility of the elevators breaking down occur to you. Idiot! Have to be smarter. Have to adapt. Things are going to be different from now on.

The lobby is deserted when you get down there. In fact, you haven't seen anyone since you left your apartment. If not for your sixth sense, you'd think the whole place was deserted. Nope. Everyone's holed up in their rooms waiting for order to reassert itself. They might be waiting quite a while.

You reach the exit of the building. The sight of crashed cars lines the street. You're not getting anywhere driving. Several cars are on fire. You can smell the smoke through the door. Here and there you catch sight of people, but they're moving around in panic. Won't be long before the riots start. It's a nightmare.

You slip out of the relative safety of your apartment building. Suddenly, you feel exposed. Momentarily, you forget about the badass Telekinetic powers that you've somehow found at your fingertips. The smell of burning gas and upholstery and plastic makes you choke. The sound of sirens. Both the big emergency ones and those on patrol cars sound sharply through the city.

It'd be so easy to just go back up to your apartment and wait. No. You're not some dang hero, but a man has to be able to live with himself.

On foot, it will take some time to to reach City Hall. Two paths lay before you. Dallas is a product of urban sprawl. Not pedestrian friendly!
[] Take the shortest path. That will take forty-five minutes. Goes through a bad neighborhood though.
[] Take a roundabout path. Takes ninety minutes. This path will intersect with the way dad would go to City Hall.

How do you make your way?
[] Incognito. Find somewhere out of the way, somewhere that's not your apartment building, to slip into your disguise.
[] Just as you are. Don't attract attention. Keep moving. Keep your head down. Avoid trouble. You'll manage to get there!
[] Write-in.