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Nadine sighed. The part about her staying late wasn’t a lie; she really did have to cover for her coworker, Sarah. But the part about meeting her girlfriends that night was definitely bullshit.
Nadine didn’t usually have time to go out.
While her passport and birth certificate said Nadine was from Centralia, she was actually from the Eastern Province, born and raised.
And even though she considered herself a patriot—she had to in her line of work—it was much better to live in Centralia. The famed country was the richest in the world when it came to overall wealth and the social comforts provided to its citizens, very much unlike the East.
Centralia had everything. Everything Nadine ever wanted or needed, all the attractions, and if you looked deep enough into its underbelly, Centralia had the worst of everything as well.
Which kept things exciting.
And it wasn’t easy working undercover in the Centralian Immigration Office.
Class As from the Eastern Province had practically done surgery on Nadine’s brain to prevent any telepathic means of discovering her secret. It had been painful, too, something she wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
Because of the procedures, her memories were often cloudy, hard to interpret unless she really focused. Even her mother’s and father’s faces were now blurred when she thought of them, but that never stopped her from remembering.
Sometimes, she longed to visit her home again, to see her mother and father again.
But she also knew this wasn’t in her future.
Nadine had signed a contract, the contract, and she would follow that contract to its very end, which was why she reluctantly left the office two hours after she was supposed to get off only to be stopped by Coco, one of the supers that ran security.
“Ah, it’s you,” Coco said, relaxing her guard. She smiled at Nadine and stepped aside so she could pass.
“Thanks.”
Nadine made her way outside, and from there to the station on the other side of the pond that sat next to the immigration offices. She took a seat at the platform, noticing how much more relaxed the station was now that rush hour had ended.
As she waited for the trolley to arrive, Nadine pressed her thumb into the bottom of the ring on her pointer finger—the Zero Ring.
As she waited, she thought about her new asset, Lisa Painstake. The Type IV, Class C & F user of Soul Speed was a powerful asset indeed, and Nadine couldn’t wait to write a report of how she’d netted her.
It would keep her handler off her ass for at least a couple weeks.
The trolley eventually came, and Nadine was able to find a seat at the back.
She glanced around her and had a sneaking suspicion that the man sitting in front of her was an exemplar. It was hard to tell, but it was no secret this world had just as many supers as half-powereds like herself.
A smile stretched across Nadine’s face as she again thumbed her ring; supers were exemplars, half-powereds were non-exemplars. She didn’t usually think of the term “half-powered,” as it was somewhat frowned upon in the East, but there it was, at the edge of her mind as she took in the man.
No matter—her Zero Ring was her protection, even though she wasn’t superpowered.
Nadine let her dirty-blond hair fall, removing the clips she had used to hold it in a bun. It was part of her disguise, like her jewelry, which she unclipped and placed in a pocket inside her purse.
She had learned in training how easy it was to blend in, and how the smallest personal items could make you stand out.
Eliminate one item, and people didn’t recognize you the same way as before.
This was why she always wore similar clothing to work. She’d even run into some coworkers after work before, when she was wearing clothing more similar to what she would have worn back in the Eastern Province.
They hadn’t recognized her.
Some commotion at the front of the trolley pulled Nadine’s attention away from her musings.
Her thumb slipped to the bottom of her Zero Ring, but the explosion came too quickly.
The trolley tore off the track, tossing Nadine sideways into the window.
