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Chapter 10
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Judy drifted, constantly aware of the time. Forty-six minutes passed, and she could not sleep. Judy was someone who could usually fall asleep in under five minutes.

Yet, here, inside the computer that she shared with her mom, Judy had no such luck.

Lamenting silently to herself, Judy emerged into the night-filled office room, and then crept across the second floor into her own room so as to not wake her mother. Judy’s bed was a different kind of comfortable from being inside of computers. The mattress was more like a genuine welcome with its woolen embrace than a generic one of walking into a room where she was always welcome, and her body felt the comforting embrace before her body felt too heavy to move.

Her dreams remained the same as usual, rarely tying with her own memories of days gone by. She instead witnessed people she knew breaking character, or physics bending like an optical illusion gone to such extremes. Judy couldn’t remember most of it the next morning once her eyes had opened.

The big event on Sunday was that Judy’s mom took her to the theaters to see a movie about a vampire princess with amnesia that had just risen from a long slumber. It seemed like a boring trip besides the film until a villain appeared as they were leaving. The costumed villain was beating information out of someone in the parking lot, and then they left without any regard to the witnesses.

Paragon City was showing signs of a decline over the next few weeks. New villains, both costumed and otherwise, as well as old ones and burglars, were popping up across the city. One day there would be five reports, then ten the next day, and twenty a few days after that.

A handful of new heroes arose as well, but they were so far proving to be like throwing a bucket of water at a growing house fire.

The old guard as they were called—Arrow, Captain Patriot, Swan Diva, and more—were nowhere to be found. The streets were getting more dangerous, and it only drove Judy to try harder to perfect her powers so she could become a hero; the best hero.

“You want to do what?” asked Denise.

Nowadays, students were kept under a stricter watch, and more or less rounded up in a few areas during break and lunch periods. Denise and Judy did their best to sit at the same table during lunch, and keep their more intimate conversations between themselves. No one had joined them at their table yet.

“Not want, need,” said Judy. “I need to help the few heroes out there. Which means I’m going to need a moniker.”

“Ooh, ‘moniker.’ Someone’s been hitting the big girl words.”

“I’m serious, Denise.” Still, Judy smiled at her friend.

“OK then, I guess I’ll help you come up with one, Buzzkill. Or maybe Voltania? Oh, I know!”

“This is going to be a long lunch break.”

“You’re going to need a sidekick. Someone to work behind the scenes to gather information for you.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

Denise stuck up an index finger and got up to grab a drink from the serving counter. Judy only half watched her out the corner of an eye, but she was sure that was all Denise had done. However, Denise came back with both a drink and a folded sheet of paper.

Judy didn’t need to use her words; her face stretched to say everything she was thinking. Where did Denise find that paper, and how did she obtain it? Her backpack remained beneath the table by Judy’s own bag and feet.

“I’ve seen a couple of these floating around,” said Denise, “but the teachers keep taking them away from the students. I figured it was time I got a good look. How about you?”

“And what if a teacher sees you with this now?” Judy asked.

“I’m better at hiding things than the teachers and security guards combined. Here, let’s just grab your folder and slip it in here like this. There.”

“Denise.”

“Oh, this is fascinating. It’s a flyer for a new Supergroup. Someone’s putting together auditions this Wednesday.” Denise examined Judy, who was now reading the flyer. “What about The Zapster?”

“That won’t work. There was a hero with that name in the 70s. My mom even has an action figure of him.”

“The 70s? I thought your mom hasn’t even been in the country that long?”

“I don’t know how she got ahold of that thing. She even said it was discontinued a couple days after it had first appeared on the shelves.”

“Oh, fine. But there has to be some sort of electric pun that hasn’t been used yet.”

“Why does it have to be an electric pun?” Just then they were joined by a pair of classmates they barely knew because the cafeteria was so crowded. “There’s more to it than that, you know.”

“I know. I’m just trying to keep it simple is all.”

“And I appreciate that. I guess we can talk about this more in the next couple days.”

“You’re more quiet than usual, Judy. What’s up?” The question came from her mom, who was driving the both of them home before she had to go back to work in another hour.

“It’s nothing,” Judy lied. She never once thought what she would say to her mother about becoming a superhero, or how her mother would react to the decision. Not a question for permission, but an actual decision.

“Uh huh. When was the last time you were this deep in thought about something and told me it was nothing?”

“Mom, it’s nothing like that.” Judy knew that her mom was referring to the time that she had come out about being trans, a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

“Is anyone bullying you at school?”

“No.”

“OK. Well, you know I’m here for you, and I just want to be sure you’re alright.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Once they were home and inside, Judy’s mom mentioned leftovers in the fridge for dinner, but Judy stood in the entry way for a short time, barely listening. She blew past half of her homework before getting bored of it and wanting to do something. Anything.

She couldn’t stand the news right now, and she couldn’t get ahold of Denise. Instead, she studied the flyer for a time before finding herself at the computer.

“Auditions,” Judy said to herself. “I need a costume before I go.” Curious if there were any ideas on the internet, Judy zapped her way into the cybernetic world once more. Here, she felt more alive, and yet just as bored if not for having something to do.

Additionally, Judy was able to practically fly through the internet without any worries for those pesky advertisements, though she was tempted to track down some of those companies responsible for spam emails just to make things difficult for them.

She went on, browsing catalog after catalog from fabric stores and department stores, regardless of whether they catered to civilians or to people of the spandex-and-cape-wearing persuasion. It took five minutes to do here what would have taken Judy several hours or longer to do on many other sites.

It also gave her an opportunity to try the latest idea of Denise’s with her powers. Judy had once, in the last few weeks, mended a small tear in her clothes using her ability to enter and leave computers at will. What would happen if she grabbed data from these clothing and fabric sites, and emerged with it?

Doing this, however, required sites with samples or model fitting rooms, because Judy could not find the data she needed elsewhere, even at the wannabe goth store Hot Subject where there were pictures aplenty of what the front of clothes were supposed to look like.

Judy used her imagination and grabbed the patterns that interested her. Then she emerged back at her mom’s house and decided that the first attempt, though successful in execution, did not present a look that she liked. Excited that it was working, however, she dove back in, and spent time mixing and matching until she ran out of ideas.

Defeated, Judy stepped away from the computer wearing the same clothes that she did when she entered. At least now she was rested enough to tackle the rest of her homework. However, she didn’t realize that she forgot to log out of the computer this time until after her mom got home.

Her mom only called out for that one. Judy figured she must have at least closed out the browser if her mom didn’t react to the things she’d looked up.

Tuesday began as another day of school in warzone Paragon. The National Guard warned that they would be in town later that day to help reinforce the law unless the city got itself under control in that short amount of time. Somehow, this announcement did more to upset everyone Judy encountered, be they teacher or student. They spent so long wanting someone to come help them, and now they were afraid that their rights were being taken away.

Judy and Denise barely got to say hi to one another outside of P.E. Students were rushed from class to class, and there were too many people around for them to share their ideas for Judy’s prospective identity as a hero.

Finally, in the class before lunch, there was an unusual amount of noise outside of the classroom. Teachers and staff tried their best to contain the students running amuck out there, but they kept going wild until Judy’s teacher opened the door.

“You there,” the teacher called out after opening the door, “get back to your class. What do you think you’re doing?”

Another student ran up to the door and said, “It’s the news, sir. It’s the best news ever. If you turn it on, you’ll see what I mean.”

“What are you talking about? I can’t get news in here; this is a history classroom!”

“Captain Patriot’s back, sir. He’s come back to save us all.” He ran off, and Judy’s classmates showed their own excitement by whispering to one another while the teacher stood speechless.