The days returned to their usual rhythm of lessons and experints.
By now, Thea had entered the fourth and final stage of her perception training—what Lady Shiva called “Earth Listening.”
The concept was… vague, to say the least. Thea was supposed to “feel the movent of insects underground.”
Insects! Tiny ones, smaller than sesa seeds. How was she supposed to feel that?
Even Lady Shiva admitted it wasn’t easy. “I can barely do it myself,” she said, “and teaching it is even harder.”
Her own thod was… extre: she’d once hung herself off a cliff by one hand, body dangling in midair, stripping her mind of all distractions while flirting with death.
According to her, that was how true focus was born.
Thea decided that, as much as she respected her teacher, she had no plans to risk her life for enlightennt. She still intended to live a long, comfortable life—preferably with all her limbs attached.
She’d seen enough social dia clips of thrill-seekers hanging off skyscrapers and mountain ledges just for a few likes. You people probably got the idea from Lady Shiva, she thought. Congratulations—you’ve made “foreign cliff yoga” a global trend.
So instead of practicing “death ditation,” she simply sat on the ground every day and tried to sense whatever she could.
If it didn’t work today, she’d try again tomorrow. She was young—she could afford patience.
anwhile, Moira wasted no ti acting on Thea’s idea.
Just one day after their discussion, a brand-new public announcent hit every major dia outlet and radio station.
Moira Queen had formally proposed a new high-speed rail project connecting Central City and Midway City, publicly declaring that several “philanthropic business partners” had already pledged financial support.
The local governnts of both cities, delighted at the prospect of new infrastructure without major expenses, imdiately expressed approval.
Their underlying ssage was clear: If you can bring in the money, we’ll back your campaign.
Whether it was Moira’s own plan or the work of her strategists, the move was pure political genius.
She was essentially telling the public: Elect , and you’ll have jobs. Don’t elect —well, good luck finding work elsewhere.
Linking employnt with her campaign wasn’t a new trick, but only the wealthy could pull it off successfully—and the Queen family, for now, still had wealth.
Even Malcolm rlyn, between training sessions with Tommy, had taken notice.
He hadn’t expected his old fla to suddenly burst with such political fervor.
Though he didn’t like the idea of “uplifting the poor,” he appreciated the opportunity—it gave him a convenient excuse to extend his underground network’s influence into both cities.
For now, his massive secret organization had grown restless.
It was an absurdly large and utterly useless enterprise: mbers ranged from business moguls and police captains to street peddlers and small-ti gun dealers. The notebook of nas was full, probably several hundred strong.
Yet, for five years, they’d done nothing.
Malcolm’s excuse was always, “We’ll act once the Earthquake Machine is ready.”
He was either the most patient man alive or the biggest procrastinator in the multiverse.
So when he heard about Moira’s project, he imdiately sent so of his more troubleso subordinates to “scout the field.”
If things went well, they’d secure influence in two major cities.
If not—well, at least he’d get rid of a few troublemakers.
Within four hours of Moira’s announcent, one of her rival candidates officially dropped out and publicly endorsed her campaign.
Support for the “Queen Plan” was snowballing.
At that mont, Thea was sitting in Felicity’s apartnt, watching the televised speech with a mixture of amusent and disbelief.
On-screen, Moira stood tall at the podium, passionately condemning the dangers of every existing mode of transportation except rail.
“Air travel?” she declared. “Hijackings, mid-air collisions, superheroes crashing through flight paths—it’s chaos! Would you really trust your life to that?”
Then she switched targets.
“Ships? Don’t even get started! As soone who’s experienced tragedy at sea firsthand…”
Her voice trembled dramatically as she listed one hundred and eight mariti safety hazards, painting a picture so bleak it sounded like Robert and Oliver had sailed off on a wooden raft instead of a luxury yacht.
“If you want safety, if you want stability, if you want work—vote for !”
When she finished, a few “spontaneous” audience mbers broke into thunderous applause, clapping like they’d just witnessed divine revelation.
The cara zood in on several burly, tattooed n, their thick necks gleaming with sweat, tears welling up in their eyes.
Thea squinted. Wait… isn’t that the bouncer from my favorite bar?
She sighed. So Mom’s “supporters” are probably half hired muscle, half actual fans. Figures.
Felicity, ever skeptical, rolled her eyes.
She’d never liked Moira—though Thea couldn’t quite figure out why.
In the original tiline, Felicity had even made snarky remarks at Moira’s funeral. Maybe they were just incompatible by nature.
Then Felicity’s phone rang. She hung up and said lazily,
“Your G-suit’s finally here.”
Thea’s eyes lit up. Finally!
But her excitent quickly turned to irritation.
The R&D team had promised it in three days. It took ten.
She ntally added their nas to her little black list. One day, she’d send them to Siberia for “team-building.”
Still, she had to admit—the workmanship was good.
To improve breathability, they’d redesigned the suit with a dual-layer structure:
an inner segnted lining connected at key points, and a looser outer shell that no longer squeezed her body like shrink-wrap.
Now her chest and hips didn’t stand out quite as dramatically—good for mobility and anonymity.
The neural-interface helt, however, had been completely redesigned.
The original bulky, bubble-headed thing was gone.
In its place was sothing sleek and elegant—a headband resembling Galadriel’s crown from The Lord of the Rings.
Only, instead of mithril and gemstones, it used a polyr fra laced with micro neural modules.
It glead with a similar golden shimr, halfway between fantasy and sci-fi chic.
These modules were Felicity’s masterpiece.
She’d coded nonstop for days—destroying two keyboards in the process—and proudly claid she’d “lost three pounds just from typing.”
The modules captured Thea’s brainwave patterns and converted them into command signals for the hoverboard.
But there was a catch: human neurons transmitted information slower than the machine could process it.
That mismatch had caused Thea to suffer blinding headaches for two days straight, as if soone had jamd a wooden stake into her skull.
Eventually, they found a compromise—throttling the system’s processing speed to match her brain’s rhythm.
That fixed the pain, but also made the controls noticeably slower.
Maneuvers that were supposed to trigger with a re thought now required conscious micro-adjustnts.
Even with Felicity’s added fuzzy-logic filter, overall responsiveness had dropped by 30%.
If the Green Goblin’s glider from Marvel counted as version 1.0, then Thea’s creation was barely version 0.7—a test prototype held together by optimism and caffeine.
Still, for her current goals—scouting, chasing criminals, maybe robbing a few gangs “for justice”—it was perfectly adequate.
The Red Arrow Hoverboard v0.7 was ready for takeoff.
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