Unheroic Life of a Certain Cape-Chapter 79 Shoplifting for Dummies

Chapter 79 Shoplifting for Dummies
I never really left the town that far. After dropping Beth and her boy, I circled wide and kept to the scrubland until my lungs stopped clawing for air and my power had finally rested enough. Because of the lack of gas, I abandoned the stolen bike under a cluster of rocks. From then on, I moved on foot and traced my path to the town from a different direction.
Towns have a strict ID system, and they would have made my face easily by the entrance if I came that way. That was why I have to sneak in.
When the night grew thick enough to hide me, I finally reached my destination. The town lay ahead, hunched behind its makeshift defenses. A watchtower stood at the edge, jagged silhouette sharp against the moon. There were no lights there, but I felt the weight of a mind crouched inside. The guard’s boredom seeped into me through the threads of empathy I wielded.
Silver’s empathy had always been broader in reach, and Onyx’s sharper in precision. When Onyx surrendered there power to me, the two meshed, sharpened, and became something greater, an incredible power honed to cut clean through distance and haze. With it, I could taste fear, lust, hunger, suspicion, all bleeding from people far beyond what my own limits once allowed. That was the gift I walked with now, and the burden.
I skirted the tower’s shadow, hugging the rocks, waiting until no curious glance swung my way. Then I slipped closer, crouched low, and finally let myself dip beneath the earth. Cold dirt pressed against me, and then gravity’s pull inverted, spitting me out near the barricades.
The town’s defenses were crude but functional, from metal sheets welded together, rising into wire-mesh fencing that stretched tall enough to keep raiders and beasts at bay. On the other side of the fence lay an open area, with people drifting in and out. A handful strolled lazily, carrying sacks, murmuring, their heads full of tired, ordinary thoughts.
I wrapped myself in the empathic mask. It wasn’t invisibility, not really, but a suggestion, a subtle nudge that turned eyes aside and made memory blur around me. People’s minds filled the gap with familiarity, convincing themselves they knew me already, that I belonged here.
I stepped through the fence, phasing like a ghost. The metal rippled around me and spat me out on the other side. My boots hit the dirt, and the mask immediately went to work as I walked among the crowd.
“Hey, Joe!” someone called, waving casually.
“How’s the game, man?”
“What’s up for tonight?”
They spoke to me like I’d lived here my whole life.
It was still early in the night, explaining the number of people around. Though most of them stayed in their homes, busy with their own lives.
“Now, where’s the general store?”
“We got a mall, though?” said a granny as she pushed her cart by the sidewalk. “Oh, golly, I wish a strong young man would help me bring my groceries home, especially with this late in the night…”
I ignored her and began looking for the said mall.
With little effort, I found the mall simply by following where the empathic threads were clustered together. The mall was two stories tall, with broad shoulders of concrete and glass, and even a parking lot spread in front of it. A few rusted vehicles rested there like bones, but the size of the structure told me more than the cars did… This wasn’t some struggling hamlet; it was thriving, at least by frontier standards.
I passed by the guard at the door, a man with a shotgun that had seen better days. His suspicion barely brushed me before my empathic camouflage convinced him I belonged. His mind folded the image of me into some regular face he had seen a thousand times before. He didn’t even blink.
Inside, the mall carried the faint hum of activity. Not bustling, not city-sized, but alive. Children darted between shops, mothers haggled, and a couple of tired laborers loitered near the vending machines. My stomach growled, louder than I’d admit.
I made a stop by the arcade store, just long enough to slip my hand through the counter when the owner turned his back. My fingers passed through the wood and glass, brushing cool paper. I pulled a small stack of bills, marks, smooth and familiar to my touch. Phasing objects was a gamble when I didn’t know their form, but money? I’d handled enough of it to picture every crease and edge. It slipped free without resistance. Easier to snatch than a heart, I thought bitterly.
The scent of grease and grilled meat dragged me toward the food court. Bright signs flickered overhead. I bought without hesitation from burgers stacked on trays, fries spilling over paper cartons, pizza slices dripping with oil, a slab of lasagna oozing sauce, and grilled platters that smoked on my plate. Too much for one man, but hunger had a way of pushing shame aside.
I sat, spread the feast before me, and dug in. Each bite felt heavier than it should have, not just because of the food, but because of the quiet comfort that came with it. Warm grease, melted cheese, the crackle of charred meat… It was the closest I had felt to satisfaction in days, maybe weeks.
“They sure had a good burger…”
I didn’t rush my meal. The burger sat heavy in my hands, steam rising in lazy coils that smelled of char and something sweet from the glaze on the bun. I bit in slowly, letting the juices run warm along my teeth; the fat, the char, the soft give of bread, and the crunch of lettuce made a small, bright thing happen inside my chest.
The world narrowed to grease and salt and the stupid, human pleasure of chewing. Fries followed, hot and salty, and the soda fizzed in my throat like a private promise. I finished the plate with a kind of gratitude that felt almost childish, and for a blink, I let myself be pleased by how ordinary it all was.
“I almost forgot what good food tastes like.”
With my stomach finally sated, I turned my attention to the next order of business: an immediate wardrobe overhaul. My days as 'Eclipse,' the dapper card-flinging ghost, were definitively over. No more tailored suits, no more fedoras, and certainly no more flimsy playing cards serving as my projectiles.
Now… What would be an effective alternative to a deck of cards?
I made my way to the apparel section, scanning racks after racks. My gaze settled on a dark collection: a black leather jacket, a plain black t-shirt, black gloves, black pants, a black belt, black socks, and a pair of sturdy black boots. The ensemble screamed 'stereotypical biker,' a complete departure from my previous persona, and exactly what I needed.
In the fitting room, I shucked my old clothes and pulled on the new. The jacket felt snug, the shirt clung, and the pants... well, they were definitely a snug fit. I caught my reflection in the mirror, an unfamiliar figure staring back, my own 'bulge' rather prominently outlined.
A soft tap on the door broke my self-assessment. "Need any help in there?" inquired the store clerk in a cheerful tone..
"I'm fine," I called back, "but I might need bigger pants."
I passed the offending trousers under the door, and a moment later, she returned with a size larger. I wore them, and they fit me perfectly to my satisfaction.
"How are those?" she asked.
"It’s perfect," I confirmed, feeling a distinct improvement in both comfort and discretion.
The store clerk waited outside while I decided to make a run for it.
How should I put this? Stealing felt kind of fun…
I pressed my palm against the linoleum floor and let the intangibility bleed through me. The tiles softened, and I sank down, vanishing beneath her watchful eye. By the time gravity took hold again, I was crouched in the dim stairwell below the shop, the stolen clothes clinging to my skin like they’d always belonged there.
It had been a clean getaway, or close to it.
The novelty shop was next. It reeked of cheap plastic and dust, but my eye caught a dagger with a narrow shine that promised at least some utility. I palmed it without hesitation, sliding it under the new jacket. The mall didn’t have a weapons section, and this would have to do until something better fell into my hands.
I left the shop empty-handed, at least to anyone watching.
Projectiles. That was the next concern. Cards were off the table; too many memories, and too many eyes that might connect them back to me. I needed something with weight, precision, and the kind of object that didn’t scream its purpose until it was already buried in someone’s throat.
The polished halls eventually delivered me to a jewelry store, glittering displays flashing like stars caged in glass. An idea began to form in my head.
I stared at the pearl necklace behind the glass, not sure if they were real pearls or just well-made beads, but the shape and heft read like the kind of projectile that liked to find a target and stay. In Markend, I’d favored cards because they were stupidly light and lethal in skilled hands; here, my intangibility had strengthened enough that heavier things no longer burned my reserves the way they once did, and a string of pearls promised a different sort of accuracy.
“Hmmm… A single bead would be lethal enough for me to kill someone, so it should be fine…”
“Hey, that’s the guy, he stole that jacket he was wearing!” someone shouted, and the name yanked me out of the glass’s reflection. I turned and saw the store clerk I’d slipped past earlier, her face pale and furious as she pointed. “You bastard! My boss will kill me!”
A guard stood beside her like, carrying a shotgun. He barked, voice thick with the kind of authority towns were granted and frontier men took seriously. “Stay where you are or I will shoot!”
I phased through the display glass before the guard could pull the trigger properly. My fingers swept pearls off every stand I could reach. I stuffed them into my pockets and into the inside of the leather jacket until I felt the weight of a dozen small moons sitting against my ribs. The sound of glass shattering behind me was immediate as one of the guard’s shots had connected, thick shards tinkling to the floor where my reflection had just been. Town guards were no joke; the blast cracked the air with a noise that made clerks flinch and customers duck, and it made my empathic threads taste adrenaline mixed with cheap cologne.
People panicked, a neat, noisy scatter that the empathic mask I wore tried to smooth. I slipped through them, phasing my shoulders past startled faces and upward bodies, and made for the wall at the edge of the mall.
The second floor dropped away under my boots as I vaulted, a brief moment of falling through a crowdless corridor, and then the ground rushed up, so I phased down into it to soften the hit. The technique was almost graceful as I landed a short distance away, back up to the surface, and I moved without hesitation to the bike racks. A rickety city bike was chained there, its lock flimsy and stupid.
“Thief! Thief!”
“Oh, shit, something’s finally happening!”
“Get him!”
“Guards! Guards!”
“Get out of the way!”
I grabbed a bicycle chained to the rail, phased its lock away, and swung aboard, pedals catching quickly beneath my boots.