The other employee, the woman standing by the desk, clutched her chest, eyes shut and brow creased in pain. She dropped to her knees, then fell face-first onto the floor, her skull hitting the stone tile with a sickening crack.
“Oh my God,” screamed the teller. “Wendy!”
The man in the polo shirt stepped over before stopping and turning to Jamie. “Please! Let me help her!”
What do I do what do I do what do I do...
None of the robberies had gone totally smoothly, but nothing had ever happened on this scale. Jamie froze, petrified as blood began to trickle from the woman’s head onto the floor. All that preparation, the theatrics, the ridiculous cackling, it acted as crowd control so no one played hero or got hurt. But this was something completely different. “I, um...” He wanted to say something, something to make this alright. Why didn’t he get the ability to reverse time, just a few seconds—seven seconds, precisely, to remove that stupid dramatic pause and just get out of there.
Run. He should run. Every instinct told him to get out of there—no, stun the remaining people, lift their memories, then get the hell out of there. Should he call 911 first? That woman, she was on the floor probably dying because of him, either from an apparent heart attack or the ensuing face-plant onto a solid rock floor. She deserved medical attention.
“We need a doctor!” yelled the bank teller.
Was Jamie a doctor? Maybe. At least in his previous life, the one that hid behind that moment of waking up about two years ago with no identity, no memories, no history. Did medical training linger somewhere in the void of his brain?
More importantly, could he even recall that type of information?
“Please!” the man in the polo shirt urged. “She needs help!”
“I know that!” Jamie yelled back, his English accent breaking through for a moment. Any cool resolve in his character was totally broken. “Are you a doctor?”
“No, I’m an engineer. We need to call an ambulance. Please!”
That man couldn’t help her right away. Jamie raised his hand, flicked a finger and put the man into a stunned stupor, standing but looking blankly into the distance.
“Wendy?” the teller asked. “Wendy are you—”
She stopped short, now also under the influence of a brain-stun. Jamie’s hands trembled as he tried to lift the memories of the robbery from each witness, but his own frayed nerves lacked the focus for such precision. He counted down from five again, a mental regrounding technique gleaned from self-help books for panic attacks, then he took out memory chunks from the event, enough to blur their comprehension. Good enough, he told himself. As he understood it, no memory wipe was one hundred percent anyway, some visual fragments always remained. Broad-stroke erasure would still limit their memories to snippets and flashes, nothing too damning. He took one last look at the teller’s mind, then lost his breath.
He wouldn’t need to call 911. The police would be here soon.
It wasn’t totally clear—adrenaline ruined recall and retention to begin with—but one of the woman’s most recent memories showed her clicking a button underneath her counter. Probably when Wendy fell.
Her bravery was admirable. So was her loyalty.
The injured woman remained prone. Should he sit her up? Check for a pulse? In movies, didn’t they say not to touch someone after a potential neck injury? The police would be here soon anyway. He should get to safety fast.
Yes, that was it. Run like hell. Inconspicuously. Ambulances would arrive quickly. Jamie bolted to the breezeway door and nearly smashed his nose into it when he forgot that he’d locked it per his usual precaution of preventing public entry. He typed the keypad code he’d lifted from the guard’s memory about thirty minutes prior and threw it open the instant it beeped.
The outer revolving doors of the San Delgado Bank branch seemed harder than ever to push, and midway through the turn, he remembered to remove his ridiculous eye mask and yank the hood off. As daylight hit the top of his head, he wondered if his sweaty face mask left indent lines around his eyebrows and his nose. Shaky legs brought him down the bank’s cement stairs when the audible gasps of passersby caused him to pause.
He swiveled, ready to brain-stun whoever may have noticed him.
But they weren’t looking at him. Instead, they all stared at the sky, pointing above the two-story bank.
“It’s her!” he heard. “Out here! I thought she only came out at night!”
A child ran into his legs, his excitement pushing him straight past Jamie while repeating his mantra of “Look!” to anyone who might be in earshot.
Jamie followed the pointed fingers all the way up into the sky. Above the bank building, the sun backlit the silhouette of a hovering feminine figure.
“I can’t believe it,” someone else said. “She really can fly.”
The Throwing Star.
Here.
Jamie put his hood back on and began walking as fast as possible, the heavy backpack filled with cash that bounced with each step.
Oh shit.
2
THE WAY THE BYSTANDERS pointed and stared said everything.
After all, Zoe Wong was a hero.
Not just any hero. With strength, speed, the ability to hover, even thermal vision, she was more than a person with extraordinary abilities. The local newspaper called her the Throwing Star after smartphone footage of her emerged on social media.
Zoe told herself that she was going to live up to the name. Even though her heightened sense of hearing picked up gasps and exclamations below her, only one thing sat in her mind: she was out to catch a bank robber.
The bank robber of San Delgado.
Zoe scanned the scene of the city’s Banking District, hands outstretched at waist level. Air pulsated beneath her palms, keeping her afloat, though a slight burn crept into her shoulders and worked down to her biceps, her elbows, her hands.
Zoe had seen all of the security footage online about the Mind Robber, read the endless comments about motive and identity. His first robbery started simple, barely a word out of him. But by the most recent one, he had a full persona complete with stupid catchphrases and a ridiculous eye mask and hood, his gestures becoming grander and more theatrical, seemingly posing for the security cameras.
Unlike her. Her attitude—nothing but business. Her schtick—beating the crap out of criminals fast (though she did consider adding a catchphrase since people were paying attention). Her outfit—purely functional. She couldn’t exactly sprint at extraordinary speeds in yoga pants. She’d tried, and they tore right apart. Hence, black leather, each piece held together by interconnecting zippers that unintentionally looked like a silver star.