The city block smelled like gasoline and fear.
Jes crouched beside the third device, her fingers tracing the wires like she was reading braille. Red, blue, yellow—all tangled in a nest of malice. The digital readout blinked.
4:47
"Dante, how many left?" she called out, not looking up.
A gust of wind answered before his voice did. He materialized beside her, hands in his pockets, looking like he'd just stepped out of a coffee shop. "Six more. Maybe seven. This guy really committed to the bit."
"Timer?" Sarah squinted at the device
"Same as yours. Four and change." He yawned. "You know, I was thinking—"
"Don't." Jes pulled a wire, watched the countdown stutter, then continue. "Just don't."
"—about getting a Corvette." Dante whispered
She paused, glanced up at him. "A Corvette."
"C8. Mid-engine. Beautiful piece of engineering." Said Dante crouched beside her, watching her work with the detached interest of someone observing a mildly entertaining YouTube video. "What do you think?"
"I think—" Jes yanked another wire. The timer stopped. 4:12. She exhaled. "—you should focus."
"I am focused." He was already gone, a blur of motion that left papers swirling in his wake.
Jes stood, her knees protesting. Being five-foot-nothing meant a lot of crouching in this job. She pressed her earpiece. "Command, device three is clear. Moving to—"
The explosion came from two blocks east.
Not one of the bombs. Something else. Something mechanical.
"Dante?" She was already running, her boots pounding pavement. "Dante, report!"
Static. Then: "Found our guys. Plural. And one of them really likes Iron Man."
She rounded the corner and immediately dove behind a parked car as a repulsor blast—or whatever the bargain-bin version was called—tore through the space where her head had been.
The armor was… rough. Welded plates, exposed wiring, hydraulics that hissed and sparked with every movement. It looked like someone had built it in a garage with spare parts from a junkyard and a fever dream. The helmet didn't quite fit right, canted at an angle that probably made depth perception a nightmare.
But the minigun mounted on the right arm? That worked just fine.
Bullets chewed through the car's engine block. Jes rolled left, came up running. The damage from the rounds—the kinetic force, the shrapnel, the heat—all divided into infinite fragments the moment they touched her. She felt nothing.
"Nice try!" she shouted, closing the distance.
The armor's pilot swung a clumsy backhand. Jes ducked under it, drove her fist into the knee joint. Metal crumpled. The pilot stumbled, servos whining.
Then she noticed the problem. There was someone else. Standing twenty feet away, arms crossed, watching. Just… watching.
Male.
Maybe.
Average height.
Average build.
Brown hair?
Or was it black?
He wore… something.
A jacket?
Hoodie?
The details slid off her perception like water off glass.
"Dante!" she called out. "Second hostile, your two o'clock!"
"Where?" Dante's voice came from somewhere behind her. "I don't see anyone."
The man smiled. Even that was forgettable.
The armored goon fired again. Jes twisted, letting the rounds pass through the space she'd occupied a heartbeat before. She grabbed the minigun barrel—still hot, but the heat divided until it was nothing—and yanked. The weapon tore free in a shower of sparks.
"You know," she grunted, dodging another wild swing, "the Mark I was built in a cave. What's your excuse?"
The pilot didn't answer. Probably couldn't hear her over the screaming hydraulics.
Dante blurred past, aiming for the second man—and ran right by him. Stopped, confused. "Wait, where—"
"There!" Jes pointed.
"Where?!"
The forgettable man's smile widened.
Oh.
Oh no.
Jes had fought telepaths. Illusionists. Reality benders. This was different. This wasn't making you see something that wasn't there. This was making you not see something that was.
He wasn't invisible. He was uninteresting. Unremarkable. Background noise. Your eyes registered him and immediately decided he wasn't worth remembering.
The armored goon charged. Jes sidestepped, grabbed the shoulder plate, and used his momentum to send him crashing into a storefront. Glass exploded. The armor didn't get up immediately—probably rebooting something important.
"Dante," she said carefully, "there's a man standing in the middle of the street. You need to trust me."
"Jes, I'm looking right at—" He paused. Squinted. "Wait. Is that… why can't I…"
"Yeah."
"
That's really annoying."
"Yep."
The forgettable man finally spoke. His voice was just as generic as everything else about him. "You can see me."
"Sort of," Jes admitted, not taking her eyes off him. "It's hard."
"Interesting." He tilted his head. Even that gesture was bland. "Most people can't even do that. They just… slide past."
Behind her, the armor was getting up. Servos whined. Metal scraped concrete.
"Dante," Jes said quietly. "Clock?"
"Three minutes, forty seconds. Still got four bombs out there."
"Can you find them without seeing him?"
"Probably. Maybe. This is really messing with my head."
The forgettable man gestured, and suddenly Jes couldn't remember which direction she'd come from. The street looked the same in every direction. No landmarks. No distinguishing features. Everything was equally unmemorable.
Clever.
If she couldn't remember the layout, she couldn't navigate. Couldn't find the bombs. Couldn't plan.