The girl that welcomed Alejandro behind the counter was now beside him, asking again if she could be of any assistance. She was still looking at him awkwardly, but it had been a while since he entered the store and Alejandro was a little more relaxed now.
"Hi. I'm looking for a different take on extraordinary abilities. All this superhero stuff seems pretty generic. Perhaps you could recommend me something that deals with this topic in another way. Like, how would normal people react if they suddenly found themselves with supernatural powers"
"S... Supernatural?" the girl said, nervously. Perhaps she still thought he was some kind of pervert because of their earlier interaction. "We have an occultism section over the Religion and Spiritual aisle"
"No, that's not what I'm looking for. I mean, no one's talking about raising up the dead or anything..."
"What did you say?" Sonia looked at him with piercing eyes, gripping tightly a book she was holding against her chest. "The Necronomicon? wow, not exactly light reading" a moment of awkward silence followed. Alejandro hated awkward silences, especially now that he was welcomed by them every time he walked into the station. He tried to lighten up the mood "wait, I was just trying to make a stupid joke, I didn't realize you were into that sort of thing... which is totally cool... I mean, wiccans are in again and ...", but he was interrupted when the girl pushed him against one of the shelves, holding a letter opener against his throat.
"Shut up and listen! I don't know who you people are, or why you have been watching us, but if you know anything at all about my powers, then let me tell you I'm not afraid, and I won't hesitate to use them to defend myself."
Alejandro was intrigued by this sudden turn of events.
"What kind of powers?"
"As if you didn't know already!, you probably followed me to the hospital earlier"
Alejandro was puzzled, but he wanted to know more, so he dared to talk again.
"They've been following me too, you know?"
Sonia pushed the sharp edge of the letter opener closer to Alejandro's skin, but he could tell from all his years of training that she was way more scared than he was.
"I told you to shut up, unless you want to lose the ability to speak... and to breathe... because this will kill you, you know?" After a brief pause, she asked. "What kind of powers do you have?"
"It's easier if I demonstrate" he said, while touching a nerve in Sonia's arm that made her loose the grip on the letter opener, then grabbing her other arm he turned Sonia against the shelf, all in less than a second.
"Here, these things are dangerous" he said, letting loose and handing back the letter opener.
"Show off" Sonia said, still trying to keep her cool. "So, you could've done that from the beginning? why didn't you?"
"I don't know. Well, that stuff about superpowers caught my attention. I thought I was the only one, or that I was going crazy. Also, I wanted to make sure no one else was watching... what happened to the other girl?", "Cigarette break, probably", "but if instead of my super heightened whatever I was a spoon bender or something, you could've killed me, you know?"
"Well, I could've brought you back too."
"You what?"
Then his coat pocket started buzzing. "Sorry, work. This might be an emergency so I gotta take it, but hang on, ok? we need to talk about this"
"Sure", Sonia said, then she got a phone call too.
"Listen, I gotta go. I need to find a body in the river"
"Near Jacobs Street? I'm coming with you"
After catching up on the way, Alejandro had a lot to think about. There were more like him out there. A technopath, a pyrokinetic, Sonia had healed a guy who died from cancer. This was a lot to digest. For now the priority was finding the body, retrieving it would be the easy part. If Sonia was telling the truth, he had found himself some powerful allies, but he knew that also meant his suspicions were true, and there were some powerful enemies out there as well.
52xMax rolled 1d6:
6
"There, do you see him?" Sonia yelled, but Alejandro was already in the water, and in a few strokes he had reached the body. It took some work to drag him to the shore, especially since this was the first time that he swam in his life, but after he got used to the movements, it was piece of cake.
He pulled him up and said "Hey, I know this guy! we've done a few birthday parties... I mean, we've worked together in the past. I'll explain later."
"Can you really bring him back?"