I found that I was watching Alexis with a predatory gaze. She had gone back to wearing baggy and shapeless clothing. But I now knew what was concealed...beneath them. As she hurried away from me, I found myself running my eyes over her body, picturing her in various states of undress.Strangely, all this focus on Alexis and my fantasising was not triggering my ability at all. If nothing else, this fact kept me from acting. My entire life had been spent in fear of losing control. Actively lusting. Father often loudly complained about how he missed having a woman around to sleep with while he was eating, and I felt that Matti should stay out of his sight as much as possible.School for the next few weeks turned into a near warzone. The teachers tried to maintain discipline, but the high CAP boys, led by Walter ignored the male teachers while sexually harassing the female teachers pretty much constantly. Principal Mathews tried to calm the situation down, but the news of pickups and the. " But why all the secrecy?"She turned around. "If our enemies knew our heroes were justcomputers, they would find a way to hack them and turn them againstus. We have to protect that. But most importantly, we don't want thecredit; we don't need the credit. That's not our goal. Our goal is touse our skills to serve humanity. We can't all be police,firefighters, or superheroes, but we can use technology to becomeheroes. You can be a hero."Dominic looked down, thinking of what Susan told him. It. The wretched state of national affairs made it obvious who was wrong, but who was paying attention to the obvious. More people were passive and oblivious like his brother Eddie. Few were agitators like himself. Most people did their best to duck and cover.The sidewalk was cracked and uneven.If Brendan were to blame anyone for the sorry state of affairs, it was the Eddies of the world. They were everywhere, cowering on their couches. Their modus operandi was pretending that things weren't so bad.