THE MOMENT
"Can you believe it?" Diana smiled as she wiped off the dry erase board. "Honest to goodness telekinesis!" She was a middle-aged woman and civilian employee of the police department. She, and other support staff openly talked about the cases they could and there'd been a decidedly strange one that happened recently. She was discussing it with her friend, Joyce, now that the culprit had been caught. They were in the break room wrapping up lunch when the news came in about the arrest.
"There have been way more Supers appearing lately...," Joyce nodded. "I think I’ll try to keep that in mind going forward," she said. Diana had cleared away most of the board, leaving only a single column, then she began redrawing another empty grid with several rows and columns. "Especially with 'unsolvable' cases like we thought this one was. Thank Chroma the boys were able to dampen his powers. After seeing what he did to the vault door, I'd hate for that to happen to any of the force."
"I know...," Diana nodded with a melancholy tone. She didn't want to think about it too much, and she was keeping busy writing the staff's names on the board down the left column. It was a heavy thought and they were the only two in the break room, so they settled into a comfortable silence for a moment, the squeaking of the black marker the only occasional sound. But, it was interrupted with hurried, heavy footsteps running down the hall.
"THEY GOT HIM!!??" One of the junior I.T. guys dashed into the room at full speed and came to a sliding stop by Joyce and Diana. "I was right! Right?"
"Yes, you little nerd...," Joyce smiled at the young man. "You were right, it was a Super. You didn't call 'telekinesis', but since it was your first time, we'll give it to you anyway," she said.
"YES!" Lucien celebrated with an enthusiastic fist pump.
"Gotta wait for Karen to fork over the winnings tomorrow morning, though.”
“Yeah, no sweat,” he nodded, then tilted his head at the board Diana was writing out.
“New mystery case already?”
“No,” Diana shook her head. “Just getting it ready, there'll be one at some point.”
“Ohhhhh… So you just always put that first option?” He noticed the second column already had an entry suggesting a possible culprit. It was there with the last round he just won, but none of the employees chose it.
“You got it,” Diana smirked. “Ever since the first Super appeared a couple of years ago, I've been using it as a benchmark of sorts.”
“What? How?”
“Well, no one has suspected a quadruple amputee being the mastermind yet, and I don't really expect anyone to. But I'll tell you. If we ever get to that point, that's my last day on the job. Things will have officially gotten too weird for me.”