Ena looks up at the apartment building. “I guess we are. I should have asked this before, but what’s the plan? I don’t want to do anything illegal.”

Elio scans the building. “Don’t worry, you won’t. You just gotta keep the old man talking as I sneak in and grab the bird. Easy, right?

“Right, and how am I going to do that? Do you know his apartment number?”

“806, right there on the corner.” Elio points at an 8th-floor balcony. “He loves talking, so it won’t take much to get him going. He was very chummy with me until I mentioned his ex-wife, so just don’t bring her up.”

“But what do we do if it gets scary? Like if he tries to stop us or fight us?”

“Just run away. He’s old and frail, so he won’t be much of a threat, but he might get hurt if you touch him.”

Ena feels relieved with that answer. “Well, alright, and you promise to help me with my ability afterwards?”

With a carefree grin, Elio pats Ena on the shoulder. “Yeah. Sure. And speaking of your Bounce, let me Alter it real quick.”

“How long does it take for you to Alter another’s ability?” Ena says as she removes Elio’s hand from her shoulder.

“Not too long, depends on how complex it is and how often I use it.”

“Does that mean mine might take a while?”

“No, I’ve already got it to work as the perfect lock pick. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Huh?” exclaims Ena. “Perfect lock pick? How?”

Elio looks at his hands and smiles. “With your Bounce, I can make the inside of a lock elastic, making the pins bend as I twist the cylinder. A bump key would be perfect for this.”

“Bump key?”

They are like blanks of keys that can be used to bump a lock open, but I've got some bobby pins and hairpins, which should let me pick it. The bobby pin will be the pick and the hairpin will be the tension wrench. But with my Alter of your Bounce, these pins should shoot up.

“Uh, okay.” Ena wonders about her Bounce: “Could I use my bounce like that, or is that only possible because of your Alter?”

“Theoretically yes, you just need to learn to use your Bounce on your hands, how to focus it on a smaller location, and how to apply it to only specific parts of an object. The first two are pretty basic for training, but the last one would require more detailed work.”

Ena nods her head. “Interesting, if what you said is true, it can do more than I thought.”

“See, I told you your Bounce is fun.”

“If you say so,” Ena, wanting to get started, looks up towards the apartment. “Shall we do this?”

“Yes. Let’s.” Answers Elio. “The elevator might be faster than me climbing up to the balcony. So I’ll call you when I’m in position.”

Ena leans back, stretching her back. “Alright.”

Elio pats Ena’s shoulder again. “See you in a bit, and remember to leave if it gets too rough up there.”

“Will do.” Ena says as she heads towards the entrance of the apartment.

Elio glides over to the side of the apartment. Ena’s mind starts to race as she gets closer to the entrance. For some odd reason, she isn’t concerned about what she’s about to do but how she’ll get inside.

“Those doors must be locked. Even if they’re not, they might stop me before I can even get to the elevator,” she thought as she stopped right in front of the entrance doors.

 With sweaty hands, she pulls her phone out, pretending to scroll through it as she debates on what to do now. As she thinks of the best option to get inside, a deliveryman exits the apartment building, holding the door open for her as he does. A wave of relief rushes over her at the sight of the open door. She keeps her cool and thanks the deliveryman as she enters the apartment building.

Her eyes dart around the lobby, only spotting a few people in the lobby. “Good,” she thought.

She walks stiffly towards the elevator. “Just act like you belong here.” She thinks.

She enters the elevator and presses the 8th floor button. As the doors close, she lets out a sigh of relief and a smile of mischief grows on her face as the doors close.

As she watches the numbers on the elevator go up, she mutters. “Wait… what am I going to say to the guy? I need to keep him busy. How? He’s an old guy, right? What do old guys like to talk about? But Elio said he likes to talk, so it should be easy.” She winces. “Please don’t be creepy.”

DING

The ding of the elevator interrupts her racing thoughts as it reaches the 8th floor. The doors open, but she remains inside, glancing at the door and the floor number for a little too long, where the doors start to close, forcing her to hop out into the hallway. Standing at one end of the hallway, she takes a deep breath and exhales before she starts to walk down towards apartment 806.

“Excuse me, can you help me with…? No, that’s no good.” She mumbles to herself. “Hello, is your water running? What? No. That doesn’t make sense. Unless I..uh…What do I do?

Before she can think of the right words, she arrives in front of the apartment.

“Oh.” She whispers, surprised she’s already there.

She fidgets with her hands, worrying about what to say when her phone rings. She fumbles to grab her phone, trying to answer it before anyone hears the ringing. “Hello?” She quietly answers.

“Heeeey there.” Elio cheerfully chats. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I just got to his door.” Ena Answers. Are you already on his balcony?

“I got up much faster than I thought. I forgot what a great climber I am. But I wouldn’t say I’m on his balcony. He has his blinds open, so I can’t just hide on his balcony. So I’m just hanging off the edge.”

“You’re hanging off the edge of his balcony? How are you talking to me then?”

“One arm to hang from and one to hold the phone. I should get some earbuds. Are you ready to do some good ol’ distracting?”

“I think so, I’m right at his door. What should I say?”

“I don’t know, just ask him how the neighborhood is or something. But who do we not bring up?”

“His ex-wife.”

“Exactly, well, good luck. Have fun.”

“Sure,” Ena smirks. “I’ll knock on his door in a moment, get ready.”

“I’m ready when you are.” Elio says as he hangs up and struggles to put it in his pocket as he hangs from the ledge. Now with both arms free, he lifts himself up to peek over the ledge to look inside the apartment.

Ena bounces on the balls of her feet to get herself pumped up, then with a quick jab of the finger, she pokes the doorbell.

Ding Dong

The ring of the doorbell echoes throughout the apartment, which is shortly followed by the sound of an old man grunting as he gets out of his comfy chair.

“Who could it be this early?” An old man with short white balding hair says to himself as he tightens his bathrobe belt.

As he reaches the door, Elio pulls himself over the balcony and lands on the balcony’s floor. He silently crouches down and creeps towards the door.

The old man opens the door to meet Ena. He looks at her with a perplexed look. “Can I help you?” He says it in a harsh, short tone.

“Yes,” Ena says nervously. “I’m Kano Ena, and Sorry for disturbing you… So early… but I just moved here, and I was wondering if you could tell me about the neighborhood.”

The old man eyes Ena up and down as Ena tries to cover up her tense breathing.

“I’ve seen you around, and you seemed very kind and helpful.” Ena quickly adds.

The old man nods his head, agreeing with her. “You got good eyes, young lady. Ena, was it? I’m Makoto Tanaka. I’ve been living in this apartment for only a little while now, but I’ve been in this neighborhood for decades.”

Ena relaxes a bit at Tanaka’s attitude. “So I came to the right man.”

 “Damn straight. What do you want to know?

“I was wonder-”

“Well, let’s first talk about the sun.” Tanaka cuts her off and starts to ramble. “It hits perfectly on this building. Oh, I’ve lived in a few places with bad sun. You don’t want bad sun, but this place has good sun. Good sun is good, very Important, it gives good green too. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, like-”

“It means there’s good grass around.” Before Ena answers, he resumes talking. “Which gives good air, which gives good business. There are many good businesses around here.”

Elio presses his head against the sliding glass door of the balcony to watch the two chat and to make sure he won’t see him. After confirming Ena is safe, he moves his attention towards the handle of the door. His face drops as he examines the handle. There is no keyhole from the outside because it’s a handle to a sliding glass door to a balcony on the 8th floor; of course, it wouldn’t have a lock.

Elio laughs to himself. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

He places his hand on the handle. “I can still make this work, right? This is a latch lock, common for these sliding doors. All I have to do is make the curve of the latch elastic, and then when I pull the door, the latch will just bend, and it’ll open. Instead of bending the pins of a lock, I just need to bend the ridge of the latch, easy. That should work, right? Should I make a new Alter?”

Elio peeks up at Ena, who’s still talking to Tanaka. “She’s right there, I can make another Alter of her Bounce that’s better for a latch. She is on the other side of the door, which makes it harder for me to connect, but it is glass, so it should be easy.”

His eyes close as his mind dives into a pool of darkness. He looks up in the darkness towards where Ena would be standing in the real world. First, he only sees a dim light, but as he focuses on it, it turns into a small glowing sky-blue orb that’s floating in the darkness. “What a lovely color.” He thinks to himself. 

He molds a similar orb in front of him, carefully squishes the orb into his hands, then he rolls it into his palms, changing the orb’s shape into a cylinder, and finally, he breathes onto it, causing the blue to grow into a darker hue. The hemisphere is now a thin cylinder; it will easily penetrate through the handle to reach the internal latch. The volume of the new shape is less than half of the original Bounce, but with less volume, the strength of the elastic reaction increases. Bounce is now well-suited to penetrate the handle. All of this alteration took Elio less than ten seconds to do.

 “Now, carefully.” He whispers as he places his left hand on the handle and his right on the wall next to the handle, where he believes the internal latch is. Applying the Alter Bounce to the handle, he begins to carefully pull the door handle. However, the door doesn’t seem to want to budge, let alone open. Elio believed that with the Altered Bounce, the latch would bend easily.

 “I can feel the Bounce penetrating through the handle. But I can’t tell if it’s hitting the latch, am I missing it?“ He takes a moment to reposition his hands, trying to arm for the latch. “Let’s try this again.”

After a slow but strong pull of the handle, Elio can feel the latch starting to bend as it slowly moves. The door has barely moved, but it’s just enough for Elio to see just a little part of the latch.

“There you are.” He squints at the latch. “Seems like I missed most of it. That’s why it felt like I was just forcing it open.”

Elio scarfs at himself. “I’m rusty. But I can just move the Bounce and it should be fine.”

He looks up at Ena, who’s still trapped in the conversation with Tanaka

While holding the handle with his left hand, so it doesn’t close completely, and he loses what little progress he made, he moves his right hand where the latch is, so now the full power of his Alter is on the latch. He resumes pulling now, but this time he can feel the latch bend like hot plastic.

“Good, this is goo-”

SMACK

Like a spring under pressure being released, the sliding door snaps across its bottom rail, slamming against the wall. Elio lets out a defeated sigh. “Oops.”

Tanaka’s head quickly snaps towards the sudden sound. He spots Elio crouching on the balcony with the door wide open, letting the cool morning air breeze into the apartment. Elio’s eyes meet Tanaka’s as he stands up and gives a wave.