Unwanted Power

Robbery

Heather mentally reviewed the way she handled the flat tire as she flew into the sky. How could she have done that differently? Wasn't the point of her being a 'him'? Him-like? So that she could help people and not have it traced back to her.

She recalled the stunned young man's face and the absolute uproar at the tire repair shop. She had ignored all of it to focus on the problem, but now she played it back. Excited people. People telling other people to come quick.

Heather is a flying white caped tall bearded man. That is going to cause a sensation.

In San Francisco, her appearance as a ball of light was quickly dismissed. Classified as a UFO type of thing. Theories had run to how icebergs got that far north and why seismometers all broke at the same time.

That had been different. People saw 'her'. As a 'him'. A flying one at that. An aspect of being a flying man bothered her. She changed gender to move people away from her, but now she was reinforcing the patriarchy?

Maybe she needed to rethink that. Maybe it is OK to be a woman who flies, only have that woman be so completely different from herself that it would not come back to her. She'd been young Dolly. Maybe that was the path? Take her Jesus-looking self and make it more Dolly? A flying blonde mane? If she did a female version of this body, she made a note to give it broader hips than her own. Heather did not think of herself as a physical actor and did not want to have to remember to walk differently. Make the body do that for her.

For that matter, once she had the patterns designed, did she have to stay one person? She could be a flying family of people. Today would just have been Dad, on patrol. Maybe supermom could be a lovely black woman? Long braids of hair acting as a second cape? Weave in some decorations for fun. Beads at the ends. That could be really fun to design!

Maybe she could do a flying teenager? No: Two of them. Boy and a girl. Have to keep the data pointing away from her family of two adults and a teenager. Not to mention whoever she is that day not walking up to people and exposing themselves like she just did. Rookie mistake. Too many comic books.

That was going to take a lot of work, perfecting a cast of characters before they could come out here and fly Patrol.

That is what this is. Patrol. Heather is out here looking to do good. To help people. To use this 'gift' for something other than making piles of money. Heather needed a purpose. She was not going to sit at home and watch "Jeopardy!" or soap operas all day long.

With this much power, she had to use it to mean something.

She reviewed the tire incident again. Probably would have been better to land farther away, walk up as a guy in clothes, use his phone to call for help. She could have boosted the signal to reach a tower.

Of course, that meant she would have needed to have clothes built into the pattern. Her Young Dolly was not suitably attired. She was not going to appear as herself. Even if she had been ready with a civilian ID, it would have meant another painful transition and having to hear the stars again.

Live and learn. The point of the body is as a disguise, but that did not mean parading it. She could have just been the big guy that dressed weirdly.

Heather next stopped a convenience store robbery. This incident was a more deliberate effort than her roadside repair. That was happenstance: Flying over, seeing a problem, rendering aid.

Heather was out here in the sky for a reason. A trial run before she attempted to find the elusive rapist. Learning how to be this other person, but also learning how to help and not make mistakes. She already made one. Trail and error. Being smart does not mean you do not make mistakes. It is about learning how to get better at this.