The afternoon sun beats down on the streets of Tacony, casting long shadows across the pavement. I’m perched on a rooftop, my eyes trained on the figures moving below. Sam and Jordan, out on another one of their patrols. They move with a purpose, a kind of coiled energy that I can feel even from this distance. Professionals. Unlike me and my ilk.
I try not to stare too much at Jordan. They bother me. I take a deep breath and let it pass through me, like the school counselor said. I’m not envious. I just don’t trust them.
I tug my hoodie tighter around my face, the fabric rough against my skin. I hate hoodies. They itch, and they feel very bad in comparison to, like, sports clothes. If I had my way I’d just wear gym shorts and gym tees all year round, but, unfortunately, that’s a little conspicuous. It’s not much of a disguise, but it’s the best I can do on short notice. Beside me, Wasp fidgets with her sunglasses, her lips pursed in concentration. She’s also in a hoodie. We are all going hoodie form right now.
“Anything?” I ask, my voice low and tight.
She shakes her head, her gaze never leaving the street below. “Nada. They’re just… patrolling. Like always.”
I nod, a flicker of frustration sparking in my gut. We’ve been tailing Sam and her crew for days now, watching their every move. But so far, all we’ve seen is the same old routine. Patrols, meetings, the occasional bust. Nothing that tells us what they’re really up to.
“This is a waste of time,” Wasp mutters, her voice thick with impatience. “We should be out there, hitting the streets, making a real difference. Not playing stalker with a bunch of—”
“Hey,” I cut her off, my tone sharp. “This is important. Sam’s onto something big, I can feel it. We need to know what she knows. And we need to be ready to back her up when the time comes. It’s for her own good.”
Wasp falls silent, but I can feel the tension radiating off her in waves. I get it, I really do. We’re not used to this – the waiting, the watching. We’re people of action, all of us. But if we’re going to prove ourselves, if we’re going to show the world that we’re more than just a bunch of kids playing dress-up… we need to be smart about this. Sure, I’ve beaten up a total of fifteen grown adults now, left them for the police, and even double checked to make sure they got what was coming to them, but when it comes to something like this, we’re in the big leagues.
“Fly, come in.” The voice crackles through my earpiece, tinny and distant. Ant, checking in from HQ.
I press a finger to my ear, activating the mic. “I’m here. What’s the word?”
“Mite and I have been monitoring the police scanners. There’s been a lot of chatter about the northwest lately – East Falls, Manayunk, Germantown. Sounds like it might be a hotspot for Jump activity.”
I feel a thrill of excitement zip through me, electric and alive. “Sounds exciting. Let’s get moving.”
“Be careful,” Ant warns, her voice heavy with concern. “If Sam’s crew is involved, things could get hairy fast. It means this is real superhero stuff. No hospital visits.”
“Hey, careful is my middle name,” I quip, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Well, maybe not my real middle name, but like… one of my many superhero middle names.”
I ignore the aching sensation in my chest from when it was bruised. And the other aching sensation from when it got broken. I had to just tell my Dad that one was me tripping and falling down some stairs. I think he bought it.
Ant’s exasperated sigh is lost in a burst of static as I cut the connection. I turn to Wasp, my eyes bright behind my mask. “And what do you mean, ‘real superhero stuff’. We are real superheroes.”
“You know what I mean, Fly. Mayfly. Not Fly, the drug.”
I watch intently as Sam and Jordan start moving, and I cross-reference the map on my phone with the direction they’re heading.
“Change of plans,” I tell her, my voice thrumming with anticipation, my head dizzy with ideas and thoughts and feelings and emotions. I hate those. Would rather not have them.. “We’re following them.”
The next few days are a blur of activity, a dizzying whirl of surveillance and preparation. We take turns following Sam and her team, each of us donning a different disguise to avoid detection. Hoodies, ball caps, sunglasses, fake mustaches – anything to blend in with the crowd.
It’s not easy, trailing a bunch of superheroes. They’re always on the move, always on the lookout for trouble. More than once, I’m sure we’ve been spotted, our clumsy attempts at stealth no match for their heightened senses. But if they know we’re there, they never let on. We manage to narrow down wherever they’re investigating to a warehouse in East Falls – the abandoned Dobson Mills place. I have a vague recollection of Sam mentioning it, one of those days in the past, before the hospital, but the past couple of months have been a blur, a mash, like smeared potatoes.
It’s Moth who finally hits the jackpot. She’s on watch duty, her eyes glued to a pair of binoculars, when she spots Sam and Jordan slipping into the Dobson Mills warehouse.
“They’re inside,” she reports, her voice tight with excitement. “I can’t see what they’re doing that clearly from here. But I think they’re setting up equipment?”
I feel a surge of adrenaline, my heart pounding against my ribs. This is it. The break we’ve been waiting for. Whatever ambush they’re setting up, we’ll help with, from the shadows.
“Can you get closer?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “We need to hear what they’re saying.”
Moth nods, a look of determination etched across her face. She’s always been the daring one, the one who’s not afraid to take risks. Not the same kind of risks as me, at least. I watch as she slips from her perch, her movements fluid and graceful as she closes the distance to the warehouse.
The minutes tick by, each one an eternity. I can feel the tension mounting, the air thick with anticipation. And then, finally, Moth’s voice crackles through the comms.
“I got it,” she says, her words coming in short, excited bursts. “They’re planning an ambush. Two drug dealers. They already have names, it’s just a matter of waiting for them to show up. They know that the deal will happen here.”
A thrill of excitement shoots through me, electric and alive. My ribs ache with the fresh blood pumping through them. It feels great. I understand now some of the things that Sam said in her hospitalized delirium, the sentences that scared me the most. But I get it now.
“Did they see you?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
“Negative,” Moth replies, and I can hear the grin in her voice. “I’m like a ninja, remember? Silent but deadly.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Like a fart.”
“Like a fart,” Moth affirms.
“Alright, team,” I say, my voice ringing with determination. “Let’s regroup at HQ. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Headquarters is a cramped workshop with all hands on deck. The Swarm’s been being upgraded anyway… been being upgraded, is that correct? Whatever. It sounds right in my head. Anyway, it’s been being upgraded, so all we have to do is rush what we’ve already been doing. I don’t know how Mite does it, but each drone has ‘children’ now, as he calls them. Ant insisted the correct term was a ‘master-slave protocol’. We went with children.
And I spent some of our prize winnings on those LIDAR sensors. I don’t even know what LIDAR is, but they cost an arm and a leg and Mite told me they’d be useful, and now the Swarm can avoid walls. I don’t know how any of this works, but watching all sixteen of them gently dancing around the room, threatening to chop our ears off, bouncing around and spinning to a halt whenever they get close to a wall or a piece of furniture or my face… it’s beautiful, in a weird way.
“We need eyes in every corner of that warehouse,” Mite mutters, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Sam’s crew might be good, but they can’t be everywhere at once.”
Ant nods, her fingers flying over a keyboard. “I’m programming the drones to work in formation. If we can coordinate their movements, we can cover twice as much ground.” As Ant explained it to me earlier, as the drones fly, they carry some sort of signal that tells the other drones where to be in relation, and then you can control how close or how far you want them to be. At least, I assume that’s the thing she’s working on. A big textbook on C++ sits on my bed. I looked at it and I couldn’t even pretend to understand it.
Across the room, Wasp and Moth are deep in discussion, poring over maps and schematics of the Dobson Mills warehouse.
“There’s a skylight on the north side,” Wasp says, tracing a finger over the blueprints. “If we can get a drone in through there, we’ll have a bird’s-eye view of the whole operation.”
Moth nods, her eyes glinting with mischief. “And if things go south, we can always drop a few stink bombs through the opening. You know, for tactical reasons.”
I can’t help but chuckle at that. “Please, nobody on the roof. I’ve appreciated your help with surveillance but this one’s all me and the babies, alright?”
The laughter and good cheer fades as we all consider the seriousness of the situation. I heh-hem. I make sure all my gear is alright, just sort of out of compulsion.
“What are you cooking up over there, Moth?” I ask, wandering over to her station.
She looks up, a grin spreading across her face. In her hands, she’s holding what looks like a plastic bag filled with paint, as well as another plastic bag. “I’ve been paying attention in chemistry class. If you shake this up and then expose it to air it will probably explode and spray paint everywhere. Paint bombs, basically,” she says, a note of pride in her voice. “I’m thinking we can use them as a distraction, give Sam and her crew a little extra cover if things get hairy. Thankfully, my parents are taking my newfound interest in chemistry as a sign that I care about school.”
“Yeah, right,” Wasp teases, sticking her tongue out.
I nod, impressed in spite of myself. Moth’s always had a knack for coming up with unconventional solutions to unconventional problems. It’s what makes her such a valuable member of the team.
“Looks like we’re just about ready,” I say, turning to face the others. “Mite, Ant, how are we looking on the drone front?”
Mite looks up from his workbench, a grin splitting his face. “Ready and raring to go, boss. Four parents, each with three children, for a total of sixteen. Just tell us how to fly and we’ll operate them from here.”
I feel a swell of pride in my chest, a warmth that has nothing to do with the stuffy air of my bedr – headquarters. This is my team, my friends, my family. And together, we’re going to show this city what we’re made of.
“Alright, team,” I say, my voice ringing with determination. “Let’s go crash a party.”
The sun is setting by the time we arrive at the Dobson Mills warehouse, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. It would be beautiful, if not for the tension humming inside my ears, my jaws clenched, my skin raw underneath layers of clothes and armor padding designed for sports, not for combat. The knowledge of what’s about to go down.
We take up our positions, each of us finding a vantage point from which to observe the action. Wasp and Moth are on the roof, their drones at the ready. Mite and Ant are in our Mobile Control Unit, which is not attached to a bike nearby, their eyes glued to the monitors. And me? I’m on the ground, hidden in the shadows, my heart pounding in my chest.
We don’t have to wait long. The meeting goes down just like Moth overheard, Squeal and Sparkplug arriving in a screech of tires and a crackle of electricity. I can see Sam and her crew moving in, their forms blurred by the distance and the gathering darkness, at angles that would only be visible if you knew where to look. But to these low-lives, they’re just as invisible as we are.
And then, I hear Mite’s voice in my ear, calm and steady despite the chaos.
“Drones are in position,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his voice. “Time to show these punks what happens when you mess with the Mayfly crew.”
And then, all hell breaks loose.
There’s a flash of light, a burst of sound, and suddenly the air is thick with smoke and the stench of a thousand turds all at once. I’m sure that I’d be retching alongside the rest of these low-lives if I weren’t wearing a gas mask, and even with it, it’s hard to see through all the smoke bombs we set-up beforehand, going off with each remote detonation from Mite.
And in that moment, I feel a surge of hope, a flicker of something that might just be fate. Because this, right here, is what we were meant to do. This is why I put on the mask, why I risk my life out there on the street, fighting crime.
To make a difference. To be heroes. To protect Sam.
To do the right thing.
I take a deep breath, my fingers tightening around the grips of my weapons. I adjust my glove, making sure the taser is fit into its socket. I adjust my other glove, making sure the pepper spray is aimed correctly and won’t just spray into my palm.
I start running. I flick out my baton and swing.
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2 responses to “MM.2”
so worried somebody’s gonna die. Fly high girlie
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i love how you put a literal Sam Small protection squad in text
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