After

They walked back to Felix's shed because nobody had a better suggestion and it had begun to rain, a steady grey drizzle that made the streets smell of wet pavement.

Adaeze held out her hand and watched the rain hit it and run off in the same way it ran off Ren. She looked at Ren. He shrugged slightly.

"Is that new?" Felix asked, watching her.

"Started just now," she said.

"The powers might be growing," Felix said. He was writing in his notebook again, walking and writing at the same time, which should have resulted in him walking into things but he sidestepped a lamppost without looking up. "Or changing. We should track it."

"We," Priya said.

"I am assuming we are continuing," Felix said, not looking up from the notebook. "Given that we are clearly more useful together than apart. Adaeze cannot be everywhere. Priya cannot hear through walls. Ren cannot." He paused. "Actually what else can you do?"

"I do not know yet," Ren said.

"Right. We should find out. I will make a list of tests."

"He is going to make a lot of lists," Adaeze said to Priya.

"I noticed," Priya said.

"Lists are useful," Felix said, still writing.

They reached the shed and filed in out of the rain. Felix produced a biscuit tin from behind one of the old bicycles and opened it. Inside were biscuits, a small torch, a spare notebook, and a folded piece of paper that turned out to be a hand-drawn map of the local area with various locations marked on it.

"You made a map," Ren said.

"I make maps," Felix said. "Of places that might need attention. Before today I had no idea why I was making it. Now I think I understand."

He spread the map on a crate. They all leaned in.

The map had seventeen locations marked on it. A railway bridge. Two old buildings. The canal. Several road junctions with notes in tiny handwriting. A park on the edge of town.

"You have been doing this for how long?" Priya asked.

"Eight months," Felix said. "I kept feeling like certain places needed watching. I could not explain why. Now I think it might be related to." He gestured at all of them. "Whatever this is."

"Whatever this is," Adaeze repeated. She looked at the map. Then she looked at the three of them, these strangers she had met two hours ago on a bridge that was now at the bottom of a river. "We need names," she said.

"We have names," Ren said.

"Not those names," she said. "The other kind."

Priya looked at her. Then she looked at the map, the seventeen marked locations, the canal and the bridges and the parts of the town that apparently needed watching.

"One thing at a time," she said. "First we figure out what we can do. Then we figure out how to do it without destroying any more sheds."

"My shed is fine," Felix said.

Adaeze looked at the four small dents in the wall behind her.

"Mostly fine," Felix amended.

Outside the rain came down steadily on the town and the river ran high with the broken bridge in it and somewhere in the shopping centre a small girl with a tear-streaked face was being carried to a car by her mother, wondering how the lift had fixed itself.

In the shed, Priya reached forward and took a biscuit from the tin.

"Alright," she said. "Show me the map."

Ren picked up the map and traced the railway bridge marking with one finger. He did not say anything for a moment.

Felix closed his notebook with a quiet snap. For once he did not reach for his pencil. He just looked at the three of them, and something in his expression shifted, like a door opening.

Adaeze leaned forward and planted both elbows on the map. "Where do we start," she said. It was not really a question.

Ren tapped the railway bridge. Priya nodded. Felix opened his notebook again.

Outside the rain kept coming down and the river ran high through the town. Somewhere a fire engine was still at the collapsed bridge. Somewhere a small girl was being carried to a warm car.

In the shed, four strangers who were already something more than strangers bent over a hand-drawn map and began to plan.

***The End***