Agent Miller was three desks away. The blue light of her scanner cast long, predatory shadows across the floor. Kenji could feel the device's electromagnetic field—it felt like a low, irritating hum at the back of his skull. To a normal person, it was silent; to him, it was a siren.
"Focus, Kenji," he told himself, gripping the edges of his desk until his knuckles turned white. "Don't blast it. Just... overclock it."
He didn't look at the Agent. Instead, he stared at a loose screw on his desk, visualizing the flow of electrons. He tapped into his Storm Sense, feeling the circuitry inside the handheld scanner. He could "see" the delicate copper traces and the sensor array designed to pick up meta-human signatures.
He didn't release a bolt. Instead, he sent a microscopic, high-frequency vibration through the air—a Static Needle.
The Glitch
Just as Agent Miller reached for Kenji's arm, the scanner in her hand let out a pathetic, high-pitched whine. The blue light flickered, turned a sickly shade of purple, and then the screen began to scroll through gibberish code.
"What the...?" Miller muttered, shaking the device.
Pop.
A tiny puff of grey smoke drifted from the charging port. The device went cold and dead.
"Is there a problem, Agent?" the teacher asked, stepping forward.
Miller frowned, her eyes darting from the dead scanner to Kenji's face. Kenji kept his expression as blank and "lovable loser" as possible, leaning back with a confused tilt of his head.
"Equipment failure," Miller said, her voice dripping with suspicion. "Highly unusual. These devices are shielded against meta-human interference."
"Maybe it's the school's Wi-Fi?" Leo chimed in from the back, his voice cracking perfectly. "The routers here are prehistoric. I'm pretty sure they run on hopes and dreams. They probably fried your sensor with a packet overflow."
Miller didn't laugh. She tucked the dead device into her blazer. "Perhaps. Or perhaps someone in this room is more 'electrically active' than they look." She leaned down, her face inches from Kenji's. "We'll be back tomorrow with a hard-wired unit, Mr. Stormrider. Don't go far."
The Narrow Escape
As soon as the door clicked shut behind the Vanguards, the classroom erupted into chatter. Kenji slumped in his seat, his heart finally slowing down from its Mach-1 pace. His hand was trembling under the desk, a single red spark dancing between his thumb and forefinger.
"Dude," Leo whispered, leaning over as soon as the bell rang for lunch. "That was some high-level networking wizardry. How did you do that without blowing the windows out?"
"I didn't hit it," Kenji whispered back, grabbing his bag. "I just... confused it. But she knows, Leo. She's not looking for a hero; she's looking for a 'variable' to lock up."
They hurried out to the rooftop, the only place they could talk freely. But as they pushed open the heavy metal door, they weren't alone.
Hana was standing by the railing, staring at the bank in the distance. She turned around, her eyes red-rimmed but sharp. She held up her phone—the one she'd used at the bank.
"The Red Blur didn't just save people," she said, her voice trembling. "He used a move. A pulse. I've been analyzing the frame-rate of my video. The frequency of the red light... it matches the 'glitch' that just happened in our classroom."
She looked directly at Kenji. "Explain the 'static,' Kenji. Because I know you don't have bad Wi-Fi."
The Turning Point
Kenji froze. The wind whipped his hair across his face, and for a second, the Red Static hissed at his heels.