In the end, Corby was the last one to zero in on the boy, out of a bunch of them police vehicles. He grunted, disappointed in himself. Nothing he could do about it though. He was royally out of shape, and he knew it. The boy, in the meantime, was spotted riding a city train. Not on the inside though, like a normal person. No, he was riding it on top.

Walking the metal roof of the train as if it were a sidewalk, he was unfazed. Corby supposed he wouldn’t know the difference anyway. The boy wasn’t from anywhere around here, he already figured, and it was going to make things harder for him. Because, if he wanted to save him from the dangers that lurked out in the world, he would have to save him from himself first.

Case in point, the boy went for a stroll on top of the moving train, unaware that it could be dangerous. Corby’s stomach churned at the thought of what else he might do in the city. He was doing it so casually too, you’d think he never heard of the laws of physics. Doy! It was like, by default, he had some perverse (possibly alien) understanding of the world. The speed of the train, for one, didn’t seem to bother him at all; it didn’t even seem to tickle his instinct of self-preservation. Instead, he seemed to be having a lot of fun up there, not even realizing he was doing something wrong. He couldn’t have been this foolish on purpose. Corby frowned looking at him. Who knew what he was going to do next if he didn’t stop him?

Sure, he’d fallen from the sky earlier and survived it. Straddling a city train by comparison must have seemed like no big deal. But Corby knew it was a big deal. From his experience, lack of awareness meant trouble. If the boy thought he was invincible, he could have ended up with a misconception that was going to cost him his life. Corby wedged his foot on the accelerator, following the train; whether or not the boy was actually going to need him, he’d be there for him regardless.

The boy, on the other hand, was on top of the world right now, as far as he was concerned, literally and figuratively. He was, if nothing else, enjoying the city. The city looked great and it was exciting to finally be able to see it; he had a great vantage point too. And for the lack of understanding, he made up with enthusiasm, and also acute awareness because everything interested him. He didn’t want to miss a single thing. He was built for this. Being alert and exploratory was what he was good at. He was curious by nature; looking at things with his eyes wide open, noticing what otherwise escaped the eye. And he loved it too. He was in his own element. Everything excited him. Very few people in modern-day New York would still be capable of something like this. Most of them went through their days with their eyes closed, going through motions absent-mindedly, without really seeing things, without being present in the moment. But not the boy; he wasn’t like this. He was present, inquisitive, and he was taking it all in. He was open to the world with every fiber of his being. He thought the city was amazing, and he thought life was wonderful.

Through a maze of buildings, the train took him somewhere he didn’t know where, and he didn’t care. It was unlike anything he’d experienced before–the city. The scope, the magnitude of things, so many things moving. Not that he’d experienced much of anything in his life, but out of everything he’d experienced this was–by far–the best.

The train slipped in and out of tunnels that appeared and disappeared right before him, boring into the buildings like rabbit holes. As far as the eye could see there were buildings, towering over him. And just at the very top, there was a patch of baby-blue sky. He wanted to climb higher, to get a better view of it. He considered dismounting the train but before he got a chance, several police vehicles descended upon him from above, once again arresting his attention.

“This is police,” an officer spoke, repeating his catchphrase, a little more forcefully this time. “You are surrounded! There’s nowhere else to go. You’re gonna slowly turn around and put your hands on the floor. Do you understand me?”

The boy turned to the voice, magnetized. The sound of it held his attention more than what he was saying. For his hunger to understand everything, his brain soaked information in, much like a cleaning sponge absorbed water, without allocating time for processing it yet though. His weird quasi-alien brain had unlimited processing power but it required time to warm up; first, he needed to learn how to do it. Until then, he was just going to let it all in–everything he encountered. And that was probably why when the officer stopped talking to him, he immediately lost him. The boy moved on to other things; there were simply too many to choose from. Small things, big things…everything seemed to demand his attention all at once. And he let his eyes wander, not having the presence of mind yet to stop himself, not understanding that some things were more important than others.

The train was gaining altitude now, moving diagonally alongside the wall of a massive building. The boy could see reflections of himself in the façade glass. Never before had he seen his own reflection; it fascinated him, suddenly, more than anything else. He waved his hand to the person in the mirror, and the person waved back. He cackled; he couldn’t help himself. It was hard for him to make sense of it. It was simply…magic.

Getting calmer now, he studied his reflection more closely. Hidden under a fringe of ear-length red hair was his face, thin, fair-skinned, radiant. And those strange blue eyes were looking back at him from the mirror. He studied his own features, putting both his hands on his face. And it felt weird seeing his movements reflected in the mirror. He realized that both were the same thing though. Strange as it might have been, the person opposite of him was also him; and having studied himself sufficiently, he gave himself a congenial smile. Preoccupied, he didn’t even notice that the police were still following him, trying their best to catch up to the moving train. He caught their reflections in the mirror behind his back now and turned around.

“Freeze!” yelled the officer. “You have ten seconds to put your hands on the floor. This is your last warning.”

The boy looked curiously at the officer with his head sticking out of the side window. Which he found it odd that it was just his head and it was talking to him. In the eyes of the officer, the boy was odd-looking too. The thermobandages alone, not to mention that other than that he was practically naked. He didn’t even have shoes on. He was standing barefoot on a moving train, and on top of that he didn’t even seem to realize where he was even going. He was walking away from them now–

“Stop!” shouted the officer, scandalized. He was on drugs, must have been; that was the only plausible explanation.

But the fact of the matter was, nothing would have prompted the boy to stay in one place long, not with so many interesting things around, let alone put his hands on the floor, unless that was what he wanted. He moved to the other end of the train, curious now to see where it was going. The police followed him, though it was difficult for them to keep up with the moving train; their cars shook and shivered with turbulence. The boy simply didn’t know what he was doing; they, on the other hand–all in their thirties, forties, and fifties–should have known better.

Corby flew several stories above the police, keeping close but not too close; he didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention. If he went any lower they’d notice him. If he went any higher, he wouldn’t be able to track the boy. He was trying to be smart about it, okay? Out of shape as he was, he wanted a good vantage point on the boy, so that he could have an upper hand on his competition. And the presence of so much police was beginning to get annoying.

Looking down at the scene, he made rough estimates in his head. There were half a dozen police cars at play here. Others (about twenty more) were soon going to join them. There was no way Corby could snatch the boy right in front of them, whisking him away from under their noses. He frowned, rubbing his eyes; he wished he’d gotten more sleep. There must have been another way to get him without getting into a full-blown confrontation. He looked down at the scene again, giving his calculations another go.

There was a tunnel up ahead. If he was quick, he could intercept the boy on the other end of the tunnel. The boy was going to get on all fours, he was sure, to make it through the tunnel, and the police sure as hell wasn’t going to follow him. NYPD was a lot of things but not stupid. If he left now and skirted the building ahead of them, he’d be the first to catch the boy as he exited the tunnel.

Meanwhile, the police were done trying to communicate with the boy. All attempts failed. And it was pissing them off, quite frankly, how uncooperative he was being. Instead of talking, they decided it was time for the net gun. A door on one of the police cruisers opened, sliding aside mid-flight. An officer’s head stuck out. He looked left and right, assessing the environment, and then he brought out his net gun.