“She’s been busy with school. We still make time for each other, though. Her house was the first place I went after all the excitement yesterday so I could tell her all about it.”

Jak paused, and the shine in his eyes darkened slightly.

“What?” Aaron asked.

“I was just remembering…the whole event wasn’t quite as spectacular as I’ve made it sound. There was this one little hiccup…” Aaron held his questions, letting Jak finish his thought at his own pace. After a short moment Jak took a deep breath and continued. “So after the cop was done asking the girl questions, I tried to approach her myself, just to make sure she was alright, and when I got close she looked at me like she was, I dunno, freaked out or scared of me or something, and she just hopped back on her bike and sped off without a word.”

“She probably wasn’t scared of you, I’m sure she was just freaked about the situation. Think about it, one second she’s riding normally, the next she’s floating in the air while some big black truck comes to a stop right where she would have been. Then the guy who magically saved the day wants to chat? That’d be enough to make anyone take off.”

Jak thought about it. “’Spose that’s true. I’m sure, given different circumstances, she totally would have begged me for an autograph. Probably ask me to sign her chest, or something.”

“Well, let’s not get too fantastical about this,” they both laughed. “What happened with the driver?”

“That part was the best. Well, second best, obviously, but you know what I mean. Seeing as how the girl was about to jet the cop stopped yelling at the driver for a moment so he could talk to her, taking down what turned out to be a very short statement, not surprising I guess. Then he talked to the driver again, issued him a big ass ticket, and told him to take off. That’s when I finally normalized the gravity on the dude’s car. Except the tires were just blobs of melted rubber, so on top of the ticket the guy had to call a tow truck! Eventually the cop pulled me aside and started asking questions, asked how I did it, could I show him a demonstration, etc.”

“What’d you do for a demo?”

“Reversed both our gravities,” Jak replied with a mischievous grin. “When we got about two hundred feet up I neutralized us, and asked him a couple of questions, such as did he have any contacts with the press? He did. Got me a nice spread, too.”

“So I saw.”

“After that I took us both back to the ground. He shook my hand, thanked me for my quick actions, and that was that. In parting, I told him there were more people like me ready to help out the community and such, and that when we were ready, we’d be in touch with the police department to coordinate our team. He said he looked forward to hearing from us, despite me not giving him any of your names.”

“Working for the cops? C’mon man, how many of us do you think will be down for that?”

“I don’t know, it seemed an appropriate thing to say at the time. I mean, I’m not saying we should go around wearing badges and stuff. More like, we would collaborate, exchange information, whatever.”

“I guess,” Aaron still looked doubtful. “I just don’t see it, at least speaking for myself. I’m more the type who goes to bars to beat up frat guys.”

Jak laughed, his deep voice booming in the quiet morning. “Yeah, I can dig that. But being a superhero takes all types, you know? You can still be a great hero who does little deeds.”

“Little?!” Aaron put on a look of fake outrage. “You bastard! If you couldn’t toss me into the atmosphere, I’d pop you one!”

“Save it for the villains, Mr. Fluid. You’d just be-”

Jak was interrupted by a soft, melodic voice over his right shoulder. “Excuse me, aren’t you the hero from the paper?”