Damien rotated the black access band around his wrist, just below where biological skin met faux skin. His pulse thrummed against the band, racing faster than it had in any of the combat classes he'd had over his course in the training program, and he couldn't slow it down. Artemis knew. She had to, didn't she?

She caught him hacking into Unity's computers, not the first time he'd tried this. But why hadn't she kicked him from the program yet? Why let him stay?

The door opened and Damien felt his heart stop for a moment.

"Come in," Artemis called, voice even and unemotional as it echoed from the depths of the room.

Damien sucked in a deep breath and stepped into the room. Her office was about what he would have expected, from the former glitter hero. Baby pink walls, a classically designed desk in a dark, almost cherry stain. Pink decorations, paintings on the walls. But in addition to the artsy, feminine style, there were newspapers covering one wall. Articles. Pictures. The evidence of Artemis's hero career.

She sat behind her desk, removing a pair of silver rimmed reading glasses as she looked up at him. "I told you to come in," she said again, firmer this time. "I don't bite. Come sit down."

"Yes, ma'am." Damien nodded and hurried into the room, grabbing the chair opposite hers and pulling it out. He lowered himself into the chair, doing his best to stay calm.

She stared at him, her gaze impassive. "You're going to tell me why you were hacking into Unity computers," she said, speaking as if she wasn't accusing him of a crime. He opened his mouth to protest, and she raised a finger. "And what you're not going to do is lie and tell me you weren't. Because I know you were, and you've been caught doing this before."

Damien shut his mouth, eyes closing for a moment. There was no red light blinking in the corner of his vision from the implant behind his eye, no signal of Vora's presence. He'd shut off everything just in case. It wouldn't do any good if they locked him up and took his arm away, but it would hopefully slow anybody down in viewing it as suspicious.

"I was trying to look into the incident that killed my parents," he said, voice low. He tensed, waiting for her response. Would she go with it, or see through the lie? He'd never looked into the incident, because he hadn't needed to. He knew exactly what had happened. Hero negligence.

The only thing he couldn't understand now was how the heroes had let it happen. There was so much focus on control, on appropriate response, that a part of him wanted to dig into the matter. To figure out what all went wrong.

Or maybe, like so many other things, the heroes said one thing and when the action started, that all went out the window.

Artemis let out a soft sigh. "I can't exactly blame you for that," she said. "Though, I doubt it will do much good. Things like this rarely do."

"Yeah," Damien said, not looking up. "I'm supposed to just let it go, right?"

Instead of responding immediately, Artemis thought about it. "Have you been told what happened?"

He shrugged. This wasn't what he'd expected, walking in, but now that they were on the path, it wasn't like he could lead away from it without being suspicious. No matter how hard it was to speak about.

"I know you were a bit older when it happened…" She drummed her fingers against the desktop before pulling open a drawer. He glanced up as she pulled out a paper file, opening it up and flipping through the pages quickly. She had a file on him? "You were fourteen. You should have been told."

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"Sure, I was told," he said, unable to keep the edge from his voice. "But I still don't understand how it happened. Heroes are supposed to prevent things like this from happening."

"You're right," Artemis said. "Why don't I look into it? It was beyond my jurisdiction at the time, but now that you're my student, I'm well within my right to look into the incident."

He opened his mouth, and found he didn't have anything ready to say. "You… You would do that?"

"Of course," Artemis said, closing the file. "If it will prevent you from continuing to try and hack into our computers."

A hot blush flashed across his cheeks. "Yes, ma'am. Was that it?"

"No," she said. "I also wanted to talk about your performance in the program."

Damien blinked slowly. Despite the fact that he never wanted to be here, he was playing his role well, or so he thought. He was participating in classes, doing his best to keep up and avoid looking suspicious.

"As it is, you're not keeping up," Artemis said. "Though I think that is partially by program design, and not your own fault. Your power is technopathy, yes?"

"Yes."

"You can control and mentally read technology."

Damien nodded his head once. "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, you're going to start training your penchant for hacking," she said. She wrote something on a sticky note before opening his file again and placing it inside. "With more information based powers, we often would direct you toward our dispatch training, but there's another option before we go that way. Spywork training."

"Spywork?"

"Heroes who work in secret," Artemis said. "Information gathering, undercover work, hostage negotiation, amongst other things."

Damien nodded. It wasn't a side of hero work he knew existed. Of course he knew there were people who did that sort of work, there had to be, but he couldn't have named a single hero who did that type of work. Maybe by design.

"How does it work?" Damien asked.

"I'll contact our spywork professor, and he'll contact you," Artemis said. "This will be in addition to your normal classes, of course."

"Of course."

"I believe it will suit you well," Artemis said. "Though, if I catch you hacking into Unity computers again, you will be out of this program. Am I clear?"

Damien froze midway to his feet and nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you," she said, putting a smile on for the first time in their meeting. "Don't be late for class."

Damien nodded and hurried out, letting out a breath of relief as soon as the door closed behind him. He was still in the clear, so long as Vora didn't ask him to hack into Unity systems again.

He slipped into the noncombat class in silence, barely able to make it to the class as it started.

Florence spied him from across the room and skirted around to him, despite the fact that they were all supposed to be training. "You okay?" he asked, one eye on the teacher. Professor Wilson eyed them as they spoke, but didn't say a word. They'd pay for it later, no doubt. Damien for being late, Florence for being distracted. Nothing like running a hundred laps around the training room to teach a lesson.

"Fine." Damien dropped his things into a pile against the wall.

"Where were you?"

"Had to talk to Professor Artemis," he said, head down. Couldn't Florence wait to talk about this?

"About what?" Florence pressed. "Is everything okay?"

Damien shrugged, agitated as he tried to get to his usual spot in the room, Florence blocking his path. "Just not performing well enough, I guess. Gonna be doing a new class."

"Not performing well enough? And a new class? Why?"

"My power isn't exactly suited for being a hero," Damien said. "That shouldn't be a surprise."

Florence scoffed. "That's silly. You're going to be a hero."

Damien shot a look Florence's way before joining the rest of the class, choosing to keep his mouth shut. Florence didn't have any context to realize just how wrong he was.

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