5 1.5

I woke up with a broad grin on my face. A free day!

Tomorrow I'll check on my bank account, I'm stalling on that just in case Poppa Vertigo will use it to track me. I still have a bundle of cash to spend, so why not get myself a complete wardrobe change. Hmm. Knowing comic book logic, the bank I visit will be robbed/held hostage while I'm there in some fashion.

So a show, while I wait.

Breakfast at a small cafe nearby is nice as I read about my own exploits in the newspaper.

They got a great picture as I took a corner climbing beside a skyscraper. They're calling me 'Balade'. This translates to Joyride in French. Some of the article is dedicated to simple wonderment and while there is some grumbling about my intruding in restricted airspace, my aid in capturing the Ape and bringing down a drug syndicate is noted… looks like Fleur is pulling some strings to keep me portrayed in a positive light.

Gotta love DC, almost everyone in the news business loves a highly visible and colourful heroic persona. So much better than being subjected to Marvel's J. Jonah Jameson or the irrational mutant haters.

Of course that means I'm going to have to live up to some of the hype. So I suppose I'll do some patrolling for the afternoon. At least they haven't been able to move my (stolen) bike from where I parked it… magnetically attached to the peak of the Eiffel Tower. God… I just realised I'm a juvenile prankster with too much power.

The following three hours spent collecting casual and formal wear is a slightly boring affair, aside from collecting what must be one of the first Superman T-shirts ever sold.

Lunch is at a more upscale restaurant, since if you come Paris and pass up the food you are wasting a good deal of the experience. I don't expect to stay here for very long.

I manged to find a pair of solid bracelets made out of steel. Those will make my secret identity much less obvious than the set of bracers I wear under my jacket if I'm in public or go through metal detectors. I find the steel shoes are redundant, so I replace those with comfortable leather shoes. I only need the bracelets to float after all… it just tires my arms out putting all my weight on them as I levitate. When I get a proper costume I'll find appropriate shoes.

The only crime I see during this time is a pair of shoplifting kids filling their sweaters with clothes. As they attempt to leave, I move an aluminium can under the leader's foot at the exit sending the boy sprawling, with his stolen merchandise spilling all around him.

Swapping out my regular clothing for obvious costume elements such as the balaclava and bracers, a long coat and for my amusement, the Superman T-shirt proudly on display.

First stop was collecting my motorbike from the top of the Eiffel Tower, currently collecting quite a selection of visitors. Apparently someone in the government has a sense of humour also, as I found a new sign added that proclaimed the tower was a no parking zone. And my bike had a ticket.

My audience tried to get my attention, those who weren't filming me. I just waved in passing and moved over the city in an expanding spiral, keeping an eye out for anything serious. A three car pileup at an intersection was my first find. No serious damage, it was just blocking traffic as the drivers argued over blame. So I shifted their vehicles out of the way and moved on.

Next, a few minutes later, I found a construction site in disarray and ambulances arriving.

An accident, a truck rolled trapping the driver and slamming a worker into a pipe, which had impaled him, like an insect in a display. The worker was critical, with three inches of copper through the right side of his chest. They couldn't reach the base of the pipe without shifting the guy.

Well, damn. This needed my help.

I moved lower, until the workers trying to free their colleague noticed.

Some took offence, thinking I was just here to be trouble. I looked for the paramedics.

"Get back from him, I'm going to cut the pipe free." I explained.

"Don't pull it out! He'll bleed to death in seconds!" They misunderstood.

"No like this." I pulled a smaller pipe to my hands to demonstrate, tapping one end caused it to split in two, sliding in half along a mono-molecular edge fashioned by opposed magnetic fields of tremendous force inside the same pipe. The two halves of a pipe floated down.

"Okay… can you cut the pipe below the injury, by at least three inches?" The medic asked, slightly fazed.

"Done." He looked at me. "I mean, I just did it… get moving!" He jumped into movement, with the help of the workers carrying the injured man to an ambulance.

I turned my attention to the flipped truck.

"Move back, I'm going to right it!" I shouted. The workers did as I asked, and with a gentle tug pulled it onto it's wheels.

The driver shouted in pain, as his right arm came free from being pinned under the truck crushed and spraying blood I sent a length of copper wire to act as a tourniquet until the paramedic on his case asked for it to be removed as he applied his own.

I let out a sigh of relief as the second man was sent on his way by the ambulance.

To my surprise I found I was receiving applause. The entire worksite was cheering.

A trifle unnerved, I gave a mock salute and flew away… to find an older building on fire and no fire fighters yet.

Sigh.

A close assessment showed there were no people inside and only a single floor being affected.

I threw a barrier around the source and waited a few minutes for the fire to suffocate and extinguish itself.

The fire brigade had arrived by then, but stayed back at my warning to give the room time to air out the deadly pocket of carbon monoxide I had created in the fire's termination.

They found a few spot fires I missed and got to work, the source it turned out was an oven.

It was night when I finally called it a day, parking my bike on a rooftop I began the flight back to my hotel room, with a pizza for dinner. I was hopping rooftops, to keep out of sight when it happened.

I was surprised when a voice from a short few feet away spoke. I turned in surprise, since I couldn't sense nerves… just some iron rich blood. I thought it was water in the gutters.

"Well, I seem to have found a local celebrity?" The voice had remarked.

From the corner of my eye I noticed a dark form, eyes from within a hood made my mind swim. I barely noticed, as I fell toward the pavement.