Chapter 2: Red Tape

  Calum had powers. Obviously.

  Not that he understood their limitations, their rules, or could explain what exactly they did. The real kicker? He’d spent years obsessing over what power he’d get, not a single brain cell spared for the “what now?” part. A classic oversight, really.

  First order of business: registration. The government demanded it, naturally. There was a grace period, sure—forgive a few accidental fires or rogue fusions—but to use his power legally long-term? He’d need paperwork thicker than a tax audit.

  The pamphlets made it sound like a DMV visit with extra existential dread. “Join the Super Registry! Protect the public! Submit to quarterly power audits!” Hard pass. Of course, there were… alternatives. He could vanish into the underworld, and become some shadowy crime lord. But let’s face it: Calum lacked the required charisma, ambition, and tolerance for spandex. Not to mention that going rogue meant dodging hero squads and that one Karen neighbour who’d narc on him for accidentally levitating her cat.

  His phone buzzed. Margo’s latest text lit up the screen:

  Margo: Saw ur face on the news again. “Genius Minor Possibly a DUD?” Want me to egg the studio?

  Calum: No. But thx.

  Margo: U sure? I’ve got a carton expiring Tuesday.

  He snorted—that Margo’s idea of moral support involved vandalism.

  Margo: Btw, Got pizza.

  Quickly trudging to the kitchen like a hungry zombie he saw the largest pizza box he had ever seen.

  The pizza box sat like a titan among men, it looked as if the table was struggling to hold it up. Margo smirked, her cigarette bobbing as she spoke. “So. Registration.”

  He froze. “How’d you—?”

  “Kid, you’ve been acting off since yesterday.” She flicked ash into Mr. Optimism’s skull bowl. “Just do it. Get a fancy license. Maybe they’ll give you a badge.”

  “Or a tracking chip.”

  “You’re twelve. They’ll give you a juice box and a participation sticker.”

  He scowled. She wasn’t wrong.

  ***

  The Super Registry Office smelled like stale coffee and shattered dreams.

  Calum slouched in a plastic chair, eyeing the security drones hovering near the ceiling. Their lenses swivelled toward him every 4.3 seconds. Probably scanning for rogues.

  “Next!” A clerk with a name tag reading Janice: Compliance Officer waved him over. She had the welcoming countenance of a kindergarten teacher who’d been in the business for decades—a smile sharp enough to slice through tantrums, eyes that said, I know you hid the glue sticks. The kind of person who’d mastered the art of talking down to children without technically talking down to children.

  Calum shuffled forward, hands jammed in his hoodie pockets. Janice glanced at her tablet, then up at him, her eyes meeting his. “Calum Vey?”

  He nodded.

  “Follow me, hon.”

  She led him to a windowless room painted the colour of expired yoghurt. A laminated poster on the wall declared, “Your Power = Your Responsibility!”.

  Janice tapped her tablet. “Let’s begin. You’re here to register your ability, correct?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what would you classify your ability as?”

  Calum paused. This world categorized powers into a couple of broad groups the three primary being: Physique—alterations to the body itself, like superhuman strength, speed or stone skin; Conjurers—those who generate creatures, items, elements or energy, from fireballs to lightning; and Modifiers—abilities that manipulated or transformed external objects, forces, or even abstract concepts. His power fell squarely into the last but explaining it without inviting invasive testing was another matter entirely.

  “Modifier,” he said finally. “I can… alter properties of objects. Temporarily.”

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  Janice’s stylus hovered over her screen. “Any subcategory? Control? Enhancement?”

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Hybridization. Combining traits between objects.”

  Her eyebrow twitched. “ How exactly does this 'hybridization' affect objects?”

  “Like… making something heavy feel light. Or altering how materials interact.” He kept his voice flat, avoiding specifics.

  “Duly noted.”

  The interrogation unfolded with bureaucratic precision. Liability waivers. A pamphlet titled So You’re a Meta! featuring a cartoon owl in a lab coat. Calum’s knee bounced under the table as Janice recited legal restrictions with the cadence of a grocery list.

  At some point near the end, she asked if he would consent to power testing and after his firm refusal, she slid over his last document. With its header reading the following.

  CLASSIFICATION: Object Manipulation (Subtype: Temporary Hybridization)

  RISK LEVEL: Suspected C (Untested)

  LEGAL RESTRICTIONS: See Appendix 12: Restricted Modifications.

  He skimmed the clauses— no human experimentation, no altering regulated substances (explosives, pharmaceuticals, dairy products?), and a strict ban on “willful distortion of public infrastructure.”

  After his brief perusal, Calum scribbled his name on the dotted line, the pen squeaking like a disgruntled mouse.

  “Congratulations,” she intoned, devoid of enthusiasm. “You’re now a registered Meta. Your ID badge will arrive in 6-8 weeks. Until then, keep this provisional certificate on your person at all times during power use.” She handed him an unlaminated card adorned with a holographic seal. It felt cheap and flimsy, like a grocery store receipt.

  ***

  The reception area's fluorescent lights buzzed like wasps as Calum stepped outside. Margo leaned against her Corolla, puffing a cigarette. “Well?”

  He flashed the certificate.

  She squinted. “Huh. Looks like a library card.”

  “Feels like one too.”

  As the Corolla rattled away from the Registry office, Margo squinted at the road, one hand tapping ashes into the cupholder. “So. What exactly can you do, kid?”

  Calum hesitated. The threads hummed around him as he flexed his fingers, the charges under his ribs buzzing like cicadas. “I… apply properties of one thing to another?”

  “Kinda like Alloy1, but on objects?”

  “Kinda but it feels more like a bizarre form of modifier with auditory-visual hallucinations.” He pulled a nickel from his pocket. It vibrated faintly, synced with an old fast food receipt on the floor of the passenger seat. “Watch.” One charge snapped free, sharp and bright. The coin’s edges blurred as it disappeared, while the receipt became hard and metallic.

  Margo whistled. “So you can turn some trash into tin foil, Bravo.”

  “For fifteen minutes, yeah.”

  “Huh...” She flicked her cigarette butt out the window. “Back in my day, they called people with powers like that transmuters. Had a buddy who could turn anything into a bird. Drove his wife nuts.”

  Calum blinked. “You knew other metas?”

  “Kid, I am one.” She grinned, mischief crinkling the corners of her smoke-lined eyes. With a snap of her fingers, a tiny flame sparked above her thumb—no bigger than a birthday candle, its tip tinged blue. “Pyrokinesis. Level… eh, call it a F+. Just enough to light cigs and scare off Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

  “You never registered?”

  “Nah. they're only after the big fish.” The fire winked out, and she shrugged. “Besides, my power’s as exciting as a wet match. Yours though… could be something” She side-eyed him. “You’re gonna need training. Real training if you want to do anything big with it.”

  “Training?” The word felt foreign to a kid who disdained any form of physical activity.

  “Metahuman gym. Off 5th and Cypress. Buncha has-beens and wannabes lifting dumbbells with their minds. You’ll fit right in.”

  She chuckled, then grew uncharacteristically quiet. “Look… the gym’s not perfect. Half the equipment’s held together with duct tape and hope. But the guy who runs it? He’s legit. Taught me how not to accidentally—” She air-quoted, “—set my bra on fire.” The car swerved around a pothole, its suspension groaning Calum gripping the overhead handle in panic.

  "Do I really have to do all this?"

  She jabbed a finger at him. "You have a gift kid, something potentially special, you should not waste it."

  ***

  The gym, when they finally went, was exactly as Margo described—a converted auto shop with graffiti-tagged walls and a flickering neon sign that read META-FIT: NO SUPERSIZING. Inside, a muscle-bound woman bench-pressed what looked like at least six minivan engine blocks skewered by what appeared to be a road roller’s axle. While a teenager in noise-cancelling headphones juggled amorphous spheres of glowing green energy like they were hacky sacks.

  And in the corner, amid a nest of sparking wires and half-dismantled treadmills, stood the owner: a grizzled man in a grease-stained tank top, his left arm a shimmering prosthetic of liquid metal.

  “Margo.” He nodded, a voice like gravel and WD-40. “Here to finally return my extinguisher?”

  “Bite me, Rusty.” She shoved Calum forward. “This’s my kid. Go easy on him.”

  Rusty’s prosthetic morphed into a wrench, then a soldering iron, before settling back into a hand. His gaze pinned Calum like a bug to corkboard. “Modifier-class? Huh. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Footnote

  1 Alloy: Once a renowned superhero from about two decades before the story takes place who possessed the extraordinary ability to transmute their body, absorbing the properties of any material they touched. By selectively incorporating traits from various damage-resistant objects Alloy could become nearly impervious to conventional weapons and physical assaults, all while retaining his superhuman strength speed and agility (his strength also became proportionately stronger depending on his density). Despite his peerless defence, he met a dramatic end when he was disintegrated on live TV.