Concealed no More

“What do to now? How do I act around those two? What do I tell my dad?” Silva contemplated, letting her legs carry wherever they wished.

It was a bit too early for her to go home, and she needed time to think. Aimlessly wandering around the neighbourhood was better than staring at her room wall.

So much had happened in these two days. Practically, all of Silva’s world had changed. And it made her mind overheat. “What if there are more people like us… That would be good... Right?”

Truth be told, Silva had not given much thought to how her life would change after introducing herself to Mika and Steven. Nor had she considered her future beyond the year.

Silva had been too busy with her countless plans on how to introduce herself to her targets. It had consumed her thoughts for the last couple of months.

If not that, Silva had fantasised about them spending time together and the various activities they could partake in. 

But before that?

If Silva had to say what she had done before finding Steven and Mika, then it was ‘going through the motions’.

It was honestly a little sad. Silva knew it was, and while remembering her aimless state, she found herself in an almost empty playground. 

By now, the sun had started to set. Only a few of the kids were still out and playing. She watched their antics, wondering if she had been like this when she was their age. 

It wasn’t that long ago, all things considered - just around ten years. Yet, it felt like an ancient history.

Silva shook her head. Her Mom leaving had soured many of her memories. She didn’t like to think about that time. 

Instead, she found an empty bench in a corner and sat down, steering her thoughts back to the future.

Truth be told, it would not be hard for her to live just by relying on her ability. There were plenty of options, even if she did not go the easiest route, which was stealing.

Granted, most of those options were still illegal, but she could always try to be a journalist or a detective.

The only thing Silva could not imagine was her future without relying on her ability. It was the single thing she had confidence in. Most of her time had been spent trying to improve and hone it. Experimenting with it and trying new things. It had become an inseparable part of her.

Without moving, Silva sat on the bench for a long time. She watched the children slowly leave the playground and vanish towards their homes and families. Only a couple still played around, not caring for the lengthening shadows.

By then, Silva had come to just one conclusion. She had promised her newfound comrades to be careful and not follow them around. She felt quite sure it included other illegal activities as well. 

It was a promise Silva was determined to keep.

But questions remained. There were times, like yesterday, when Silva had to act. She could do so much by being in the right place without others knowing. And if Mika’s suspicions were right - if there were others…

"People like us… There is no guarantee that they would be friendly. I could always run away. What about Steven? What about Mika?" The chilling thoughts wormed themselves into her head, making her shudder.

These thoughts were frustrating. The chilling evening air was not helping either. 

The now-empty playground had lost all of its appeal. Silva knew it was time to move. She could warm herself up while walking.

Again wandering around aimlessly, Silva found herself returning to the alley where yesterday she had hammered a pipe against a man’s head. She studied the empty place, then walked back into the street, resuming her meander.

It wasn’t that Silva had any goal in coming here. Only vague thoughts that she should do something. To prepare somehow. But the enemy was only a hazy idea and the threat - only an imagination.

“But that is not true, is it?” Silva’s gaze sharpened as she noticed a very real threat. It was not that she had explicitly looked for the thugs. She just suspected that they would be somewhere around the area.

Silva had spotted the very man she had downed yesterday. He now had a nasty bruise on his forehead where she had hit him, and he was talking to a sturdy-looking man with an irritated expression and a beanie.

Ugly and Beanie were arguing. They were walking in a brisk step, clearly with a goal in mind. After a short contemplation and a check of the clock, Silva decided to follow them. Her father had a night shift. He would be back only early in the morning.

Silva did not know why they were looking for Steven. Or what their deal with his father was. But maybe there was a chance for her to help out. If she saw them doing something illegal, a quick call to the police could save them a lot of trouble in the future.

Following them was easy, and soon Silva was trying to listen in on their conversation. They seemed to be heading to the fringes of the city. Silva had hoped to hear them talking about something illegal, but that wasn’t the case. All of the twenty minutes she had trailed after them, ‘Ugly’ had complained about his girlfriend.

Silva was getting fed up by the torrent of bitching and could only admire the Beanie for his patience. There was also the thought swirling in her head that the Ugly had to be lying, as she was hard-pressed to imagine anyone dating the man for any reason.

The misguided mocking thoughts aside, Silva was starting to worry about the distance they had walked. The cold was getting to her, but luckily, they seemed to have reached the destination before she had to turn back.

They had come all the way out to the fringes of the Oldsteel. Silva watched the duo enter what seemed to be a rundown warehouse. A few cars in the parking lot and several thugs dawdling about the place confirmed this place to be their base of sorts in Silva’s mind. She memorised the place and rushed back.

Silva decided she would come back tomorrow after school to see what was inside the warehouse. But for now, a warm and entirely normal peppermint tea was what she needed.

–

Despite her plans, it took more than a month for Silva to finally return to the apparent base of the thugs. She had learned from Steven that they were calling it the Refuge and that they had plenty of people as members of their gang. They also had no real name, and in general, they simply called themselves refugees.

When Silva had asked how did he know so much about them, Steven had only laughed, forcing her to drop the question. Steven also refused to tell her why they were after him in the first place.

Mika did reveal that it was personal, and even she knew very little about it. Her advice was to wait for Steven to talk about it himself. Both had also warned her not to get caught up in the mess. A piece of advice she was going to disregard.

The reason for the belated return was simple. Before Silva could realise her plans, Steven and Mika had dragged her to a storage unit that Mika’s father had rented some time ago. 

The place had been half-full of boxes and old furniture and smelled of mould. There had been barely enough place for all three of them, and the only positive thing Silva could say about it was that it was truly safe for any experiments they wanted to do.

They had the place for themselves only for a week before Mika’s father had asked for the keys, but that had been enough to experiment with their powers for a bit. However, they mostly had just talked and played around with Silva’s ability as there was not much they could do with Steven’s or Mika’s due to their nature.

With just an hour at a time, it took time before they got anywhere. Steven turned out to be quite busy after school. 

While Mika had invited Silva to hang out a few times, she declined after the first time as it was too awkward for her. Besides that, they had also done quite a bit of studying, much to Steven’s chagrin.

All in all, Silva could say that they had grown closer. But she still could not quite get used to her newfound friends as she still had trouble speaking and giving her opinion. She was too naive, making her easy picking for Steven’s mischief. He didn’t stop, even knowing Mika would scold him right after.

The world, despite her worries, had not collapsed. The days went by peacefully, almost scarily so. Silva didn’t like it. There had to be something she could do since Steven still was facing harassment by the thugs.

Silva always had the thought about sneaking into the Refuge at the back of her mind. She wanted to know what they were up to.

There was not much Silva could do for her friends otherwise. The more she got to know the two, the more she wanted to do something for them. She felt like a dead weight otherwise.

Silva had learned so much about her ability. This was the first time she could get someone else's input. It had helped her tremendously.

They had made sure Silva didn’t become invisible. At least not physically. It also did not happen instantaneously. From Mika's description, it seemed that she started to get blurry and uninteresting, hard to focus on and after another moment, she was gone.

Thinking about it again, it was quite obvious. Silva could not hide from the cameras, after all. She knew that she hadn’t become invisible and just had not been sure of the details of how it appeared.

It just had not dawned on Silva that she influenced other minds somehow. There was also a distance where her ability became nearly useless.

More than ten metres and Silva could be found again. It was not easy and could take a while, but it was possible. It seemed that her power had something to do with misdirection and concealment.

Silva had decided to try to increase the distance from which she could be noticed. She didn’t know if that was possible, but it was worth a try.

They had also tried her ability and cats and dogs to see if Silva’s power worked on them. After some looking around the city, Silva had learned that it did. She had known about it before, but her friends had insisted on checking again.

Silva could conceal everything that she was wearing. Even if her phone called, it was undetectable. Any odours, too, were hidden from everyone around her. 

There were limits, of course. For example, when Silva tried to move something too big or was too loud, her concealment became flimsy.

 

All of this satisfied the curiosity of her friends. Silva, on the other hand, learned little of how her friend's abilities worked.

There were still a few things. For one, to Silva’s surprise, Steven and Mika had more trouble accessing their abilities. They had to focus on it, and it took a few seconds before it happened.

For Silva, that seemed strange. She had no trouble at all to slip out of everyone’s attention. It also could be used almost indefinitely.

Silva simply didn’t understand Steven’s complaint that his ability was too demanding, and he got tired after ten minutes of using his. Mika did not really know for how long she could keep up her healing, and there was no way to check as none of them was keen on getting hurt repeatedly just to experiment.

Mika had also scoured the internet for any additional information she could find about superpowers, urban legends, myths and hearsays that could help. But nothing really fit their circumstances or had any legitimacy.

It was a little frustrating how Steven didn’t seem to care much about what they did. Silva found it hard to tell how serious he was about their situation.

Mika had reassured Steven was earnest, in his own way. She claimed he would have made himself scarce already otherwise. Instead, he was jokingly proposing stupid procedures for testing, like trying to get her to strip and check if nervousness impacted her invisibility. He had earned a punch for that one from Mika.

The last month had been fulfilling. It had been the best time of Silva’s life. And it had reinforced her wish to investigate. Her drive to help however she could.

Now, Silva felt ready for the trip. Or as much as she could be. She was dressed in dark, bulky clothes, even covering her face. It was in case there were cameras. She doubted there were any - the place was too run down.

Silva would still check for them, but if not for the constant men lingering around the entrance, she would consider the building abandoned.

Now, standing before the Refuge, Silva felt small and weak. Frankly, she was having second thoughts. Only after a lengthy struggle did she make a decision. “I'll go and take a look. There must be something that can help my friends. I'll know when I see it. There is always the police I can call, I just need something...”

Silva had been standing for almost fifteen minutes, but there was no rush. Her father had a night shift again. He would not be home until morning. But just in case, she had said that she would be staying at a friend's house for the night. Tomorrow being a weekend, he had reluctantly agreed.

 

It was already a little bit past midnight. The surroundings were unusually dark for a city. The moonlight illuminated the rundown parking lot and building. The building itself was dark as well.

A couple of thugs standing near the entrance were smoking and talking. A raucous laugh resounded through the air from time to time, rousing Silva out of her thoughts.

It was time. Silva moved closer to the door, carefully checking for anything that could be a problem. There were still no signs of cameras or any electronics, for that matter. The thugs were talking about nothing of importance. Silva settled near them and waited.

Luck was on her side as soon one of the thugs excused himself and headed back into the building, with Silva following right behind him. She slipped inside just before the doors could fall shut.

Silva found herself in a long, dimly lit hallway with several doors and the man heading for one of them. Simple, unadorned, two-meter-high walls ended with no ceiling, just the roof.

It looked like the gang was trying to renovate the place by themselves without the help of a craftsman. Many of the door arks were out of level, the walls were skewed a bit, and the lamps were crooked. Everything seemed to be half-done.

The many doors had no signs on them. It was impossible to tell what was hidden behind them without opening them.

Silva patiently waited for the man to finish his business and go back outside. Only then did she start carefully checking the doors. She was sure there would be something illegal here.

But no. What she discovered in the rooms were several beds with people sleeping in them. At that moment, Silva held her breath - forgetting her ability was active. 

Silva idly pondered the fact that these men were asleep so early while she was skulking around. “Stereotypes are not always correct, huh?” Slowly, she closed the door and headed deeper into the building.

The following findings included a couple more rooms of men sleeping, ensuring Silva became even more careful. At least no guards were wandering around, nor any other security measures.

The end of the hallway did a 90-degree turn to the left, with even more doors for her to check. Silva sighed but continued to dutifully search. 

There still was nothing incriminating. Silva found a room dedicated to games, a workout room, a living room, a kitchen, toilets, a bathroom and any rooms in between. She did check for any documents, weapons, or drugs, but there was nothing. Not even a smidgen of proof that this place was run by a group of criminals.

 

Upon reaching the end of the hallway and opening the last door, Silva found a room entirely different from the others. Even with the dim light coming in from the hallway, Silva could tell that this room was made with the utmost care, unlike the rest.

Wooden panels, carpet, chandelier, huge writing table in the middle, several cosy chairs and cabinet at the right wall. There even was a painting of the Oldsteel on the wall. The only thing that was out of place was the computer on the table, reminding her of the current century.

Silva entered the room, and after carefully closing the door, she found herself in darkness. She fished out her phone and used the flashlight to illuminate the place. Silva began searching. But there was nothing, and the computer was password-protected.

But this was not the end. At the back of the room, there were two more doors. One of them even looked sturdier, as if proclaiming its importance.

Silva first headed for the well-built doors, but they turned out to be locked. That left the other doors.

Luckily, they were unlocked. They lead to a lavishly decorated bedroom with the only light coming from an electronic clock on a night table next to the bed. She entered the room, clearly owned by someone important and started to check for anything interesting.

Silva did her best to ignore that ‘someone important’, sleeping soundly in the bed.

After checking the room, she gave up on the hope of finding something illegal. But Silva wasn’t done. There were other doors, and there had to be a key somewhere.

Slowly, Silva checked everywhere she could think of but still found no keys. She scrutinised the room once again, and then she noticed that the man sleeping in the bed had a chain around his neck and on this chain, there was a key peeking out from beneath the blanket.

For the next ten minutes, Silva tried to pray the key out of the man's possession without waking him up. She anxiously, and with trembling fingers, finally hooked out the key from the chain. The man snorted and turned to the other side, leaving her frozen. The key was in her hand, and after giving a sigh of relief, she swiftly left the room.

Silva hurried to the closed door, and with a pounding heart, she tried the key, hoping it would work. 

The loud clicking sound reverberated in the room, almost stopping her heart. She opened the doors, revealing stairs heading downwards and leading to the basement. She could see another door at the bottom. She headed down after closing the doors behind her to see what was hidden behind the only locked doors in the building.

Slowly, Silva inched down, fearing the stairs would creak. Her phone gave her the light she needed to not trip up. Soon, she was standing before the last doors.

There had to be something important there. Better yet, important and illegal. 

What Silva found after opening the door met her expectations. No. That something exceeded them.

“What the hell…” Silva let out her voice as the brilliant blue light illuminated her.