The embassy sat on several acres, with nicely-manicured lawns and a number of good-sized trees. It was behind one of these – a thick, towering oak near the gated entrance – that I pinpointed our voyeur.
I telescoped my vision and then cycled through the light spectrum until I could see almost as well as in daylight.
“Got him,” I said. “One guy, lurking behind a tree at ten o’clock, peeking around it every few seconds.”
“I got him, too,” Electra declared. It was a subtle reminder of the fact that her power allowed her to detect people by their bioelectric fields. “Does he seem dangerous?”
“I’m not picking up that kind of vibe from him, but he’s holding something in his hand,” I said, noting that our watcher had a tight grip on an object of some sort.
“Gun?”
I watched for a second, then let out a sigh of relief. “No – a digital camera with a telephoto lens.”
Electra let out a disgusted sigh as she stepped from behind me. “Paparazzi.”
I took a few steps forward and shouted, “Hey, you! By the tree! What are you doing?!”
The reaction was immediate: the fellow behind the tree took off, running towards a brick wall that framed the embassy grounds near the front gate. I gave Electra a telepathic heads-up, then teleported us.
We popped up a few feet behind our late-night visitor, who slipped a camera strap over his neck as he ran and then leaped for the brick wall, which was about nine feet tall. As he pulled himself up, Electra raised her hand, and I noticed that it was filled with a small, pulsing electrical charge.
<Wait,> I told her telepathically.
Emotionally, I could sense that she was still fired up about our argument, and – although she’d shown excellent control over her powers of late – I was a little worried that she might accidentally fry this guy. Nevertheless, despite obviously wanting to take her frustration out on someone, Electra mentally agreed to stand down.
I turned my attention back to our friend with the camera, who had just pulled himself up high enough to kick a leg up to the top of the wall. He was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t even notice us behind him (not that he would have expected us to close the distance that fast).
I phased the brick wall, making it insubstantial. With nothing solid supporting him, our visitor fell to the ground, landing on his back with a solid thud that knocked the wind out of him. As he began to cough, I telekinetically grabbed his ankle and pulled him farther inside the embassy grounds before making the wall solid again.
I teleported his camera, which had been attached to the strap around his neck, into my hand. Photography wasn’t my forte, but from what I could tell it was a high-end model and had probably cost a pretty penny.
Taking his camera seemed to galvanize our visitor in some way, as he seemed to tap an inner reserve of sorts and struggle to his feet.
“Who are you?” I asked as soon as he stood up.
“Just a photographer,” he said, sidestepping my question. As I looked him over, I noticed that he was young – early twenties at most. Dressed in corduroy pants and a fleece jacket, he was maybe an inch shy of six feet in height, with a slender build and sandy hair that was just a tad bit long.
“A photographer,” I repeated, sounding skeptical. “What are you doing here?”
I sensed nervousness and anxiety coming from him, but he managed to answer in an even tone, saying, “Just hoping to get a picture of the princess.”
I raised an eyebrow at this. “Indigo?”
“Yeah,” he answered with a nod.
“Word on the street says she’s staying at Alpha League Headquarters,” I said. That was indeed the rumor, but one which we ourselves had started in order to have some privacy. “That being the case, why are you here?”
“There’s an army of photographers over at League HQ,” he replied. “They’re entrenched around the place like they’re conducting a siege. If Indigo takes one step outside, there’s going to be a million pics of her posted across the internet in minutes.”
“So shouldn’t you be over there trying to make it a million-and-one?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s the rare pics that are valuable – the ones that are unique in some way. I realized that if everyone had a photo of Indigo, then they wouldn’t be worth as much. But if I could bring something to the table that others didn’t have, my work would have added value. So I did a little research into her past and found out that this was Indigo’s embassy back in the day.”
I kept my face impassive as he spoke, but had to admit to being impressed. The records weren’t exactly sealed but they weren’t that straightforward either; thus, tracing everything back was a notable bit of detective work.
“So you came here on a hunch that Indigo might show up,” I surmised as he finished speaking.
He shook his head. “No, I was honestly just hoping to get a few shots of the place that I could sell to anybody who might be interested in her backstory. It was just dumb luck that I was here when your girlfriend” – he nodded towards Electra – “pulled up.”
“My girlfriend?” I repeated, frowning. He seemed harmless, but I really didn’t like the notion of this guy knowing anything about me or Electra.
The fellow held up his hands defensively. “Hey, dude, it’s just an expression. She could be your sister for all I know.”
I didn’t immediately answer. Instead, I took a moment to flip through the pictures he’d taken. The most recent ones were of me and Electra, but mostly her – about a half-dozen shots that actually looked very nice, despite the lack of adequate illumination.
