Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty...

I nodded. "So, um..." I rubbed the back of my neck.

Maddie sighed and put her hands together, looking up at me. She had taken her domino mask off. It was harder to ignore how cute her eyes were -- hazel brown, but always sparkling with energy that was all too human. It wasn't the luminous glow of some supers, just...

Just a spark.

You don't need to take her in now, Radi said, her voice soft. The prison will be there tomorrow, you know?

I smiled, still looking into Maddie's eyes. My hands closed around hers. Touching her made my skin tingle as I breathed in a short, shuddering gasp. "A-Ah," I said, then shook my head, squeezing her hands gently. "Do, you, uh, want to go on more adventures?"

Maddie blinked. She looked to the side. When she looked back, she had gotten her face under control. Her grin was infectious.

"I have some ideas," she said, her voice a quiet purr. She grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the edge of the forest, then stopped. "Wait, you can fly. Fly us to the beach! I think first...sandcastles!"

I landed us between two of the resort buildings, careful to keep us out of sight. I shifted back to my swim trunks and Maddie tugged on a T-shirt from nowhere. As she adjusted it, I playfully pouted at her. Maddie grinned, pulling out a pair of glasses and placing them on her face. The effect was alarmingly adorable. She had gone from cheerleader bombshell to 'nerdy, but still unbelievably attractive girl' in the space of a few seconds. The fact the T-shirt was clearly sized for a dude, hanging down to right below her bikini bottom just added to the appeal.

"Now," she said. "No one will recognize me."

"Didn't seem worried about that before," I said.

"To be fair, I had only been on the beach for five minutes," she said, shrugging and taking my hand as we walked together towards the sand. "But when you carve your face into Mt. Yellowstone with an orbital laser to celebrate your inauguration, you might want to keep your face on the DL."

"And so you wear a pair of glasses?"

"Worked for Hyperion," Maddie said, sticking her tongue out at me.

The sand was blissfully warm and the beach goers seemed to be unperturbed by the fact that a massive kijuu corpse was slowly being picked over by Project Aegis scientists about ten miles away. People splashed and swam in the water and kids ran by, chasing one another. I picked a spot that was mostly clear of people and set my knees down.

"So, rules for castle building," Maddie said, her voice imperious. "No nanites."

I frowned. "My hands are nanites. My whole body are nanites."

"Exactly," Maddie said, grinning.

"So, what you want me to do is simply sit back, watch you build a sand castle, and be super impressed?" I asked.

"Well, yes," Maddie said, sticking her tongue out at me.

I grinned at her. "How about this. I don't use my nanites for anything but normal human stuff. The person who builds the best sand castle..." I paused. "Gets to pick the next adventure?"

Maddie tilted her face forward. The glasses caught the sunlight and became two glowing ovals, transforming her formerly cute face into something ominous and dangerous. She pressed her fingers together and cackled quietly. "Mua-ahahahhaha!"

"So long as that adventure is not the Apocalypse Tower," I added.

"Aww." Maddie's head tilted slightly and her glasses became see through again.

I grabbed up a lump of sand and slapped it down, my hand starting to sculpt it into the shape of a tower. I stuck my tongue out of the corner of my lip as my fingers worked. Radi whispered in my ear. You know, you could use a cup to make the structure seem to be more circular than with-

"God, Radi, I know how to build a sand castle!" I said.

A shadow passed by. I looked up and saw Maddie was walking away from her building zone -- skipping, really. I watched her go, my brow furrowing, my hands still carefully working to scrape marti...martich...the defendy bits that go around the edges of the tower.

Matriculations? Radi suggested.

Yeah, those. My finger slipped, then, plunging into the tower and ruining all my work as Maddie bent forward. Her shirt rode up and her panties drew taut against the firm shape of her bubbly butt. The motion had also pressed the hairless lips of her pussy against her panties, making them clearly outlined. She had angled herself so that I, and I alone, could see it. My throat felt dry and my swim trunks felt very tight as Maddie took her time in pawing around on the ground before standing. Her hand brushed her hair behind her shoulder as she held up a bit of drift wood. My brow furrowed slightly.

What was she...doing?

Distracting you? Radi suggested. Though, I admit, her vaginal cavity is quite inviting. Would you enjoy plunging your thick rod of meaty tissue into her gaping opening and-

"Dear god, Radi, stop!" I squawked, my face turning as red as someone who had gone to sleep in the sun without their lotion.

When Maddie returned, she had collected a bunch of driftwood and I had found a cup. I had made two towers and was starting to form the wall between them. I was trying to make a recreation of King Arthur's castle, which he used in the Battle of Hastings. Apparently, Merlin had transported the whole castle on the back of a giant turtle to stop the fairiekind invaders. I was going to forego the giant turtle in favor of just rebuilding Camelot. There were five towers, a keep, and a moat...the moat would be a bit tricky if I didn't get the foundation right.

Maddie, meanwhile, had dug a small fire pit, piled up the drift wood, and was holding out her glasses. She adjusted the glasses, then held them at the right angle. Smoke started to rise from the drift wood. I blinked at her.

"Is that legal?" I asked.

"I just said no nanites!" Maddie said, grinning at me.

"No, I mean, making a fire on the beach!" I said as the tinder caught and she had a tiny fire crackling away.

"Pfffff!" Maddie blew air out through her lips.

By the time I had finished the curtain wall, Maddie had used the fire to melt some sand into glass -- using a pair of styluses she fished from her dimensional pocket and a fire warding spell to let her handle it with her fingers. The glass now sat in the palm of her hand as she etched it using focused sunlight with her glasses. I shook my head as I started on the keep.

When I looked up again, Maddie had four such glass beads sitting out in the sun and was working on the fourth.

Finally, I sat back, Camelot completed. The sun shone down on my creation and I felt quite proud of myself. The Council of History had provided the final details, and having the fine motor control that being all nanite definitely helped. But I had done most of the real hard work, like scooping. And pushing. And scraping. And Maddie hadn't built a single thing, beyond those ten little beads. She was leaning back on her palms, watching them shine under the sun.

"Times up," I said.

"Not quite," Maddie said, her voice a sing song.

Ding.

Each bead chimed at the same time. Then they all extended a set of tiny legs made of glittering crystal. They turned from beads into spiders, standing and marching up towards my castle. They ringed around it, then scuttled forward. Lasers shot from the center of the 'beads', cutting through the walls, leaving behind smoking holes as Maddie started to cackle. The spiders climbed through the holes as Maddie's cackling got louder and louder. They smashed into the keep. Soon, one was on the roof of the sand keep, using its tiny spider arms to wave a small flag made of twigs and cloth.

"My castle now," Maddie said, lacing her hands behind her neck and leaning backwards with a proud smirk.

I frowned. "I feel like you don't quite get the point of sand castles."

"I shall free the serfs," Maddie said. "And abolish the monarchy!"

I snorted. "I'm the king, though."

"Off with your head!" Maddie chopped at the air.

"But my queen!" I gasped, my hand going to my chest.

Maddie giggled. "Her head too! Actually, wait, is your queen hot?"

I nodded. "Of course!"

"Then she'll be my sex slave," Maddie said, casually.

"Wait, I feel like this revolution has internally contradictory viewpoints," I said, unable to stop myself from laughing as the spiders started to shut down -- the power they had soaked in from sitting in the sun for an hour fading. Maddie shrugged.

"Meh," she said. "America was founded on the principle of all men being equal when we live in a world where men are objectively not equal. Some people are born being able to fly. Others can barely tie their shoes. Equality is a myth." She grinned. "But like all good myths, like the golden rule and world peace, it equality is something worth working towards. We may never get it, but in the seeking, we become better people."

I blinked slowly. "D...deep?"

Maddie shrugged. "Still, I won at sandcastles-"

I stood and stomped on the castle. It crumbled into dust and I grinned down at her, then slapped my foot on the ground to the left. A castle -- made of solid gold -- formed in a shimmering haze of furiously working nanites. Once it was finished, it shone in the sunlight, brilliant enough that looking at it was actually kind of painful. Maddie gaped at me.

"Cheater!" she gasped.

"I believe the term is differently ruled," I said, grinning at her.

Maddie scowled so hard that I was actually worried that I had gone too far. Then she laughed, sprang to her feet, and saluted at me.

"All right, Xander!" she said. "What's our next adventure?"

"Face painting," I said, the first thing that sprang into my brain.

Maddie smirked. "What are we, twelve?"

I grinned and took her hand. "What are you, chicken?"

"No," she said, grinning at me. Her fingers interlaced with mine. I felt my heart skip a beat again. When had Maddie started standing quite so close to me? I could count every freckle on her face. I opened my mouth, about to say something. I wasn't sure what. Then Radi broke in.

Kiss her!

"Shut UP, Radi!" I -- and Maddie -- said at the same time. I started and looked at Maddie, arching an eyebrow.

She grinned. "I can read the microexpressions on your face. I've figured out what it is when Radi is annoying you." She stuck her tongue out at me. Or maybe not at me.

Why! I never! I say that we end this day immediately. Don't kiss her.

"I'm sorry, Radi, I can't hear you," I said as I started to walk with Maddie along the beach -- heading towards one of the stairs that led off the beach and onto the resort itself. "You're breaking up! Ksssshhh." I imitated the sound of static with my mouth. Maddie covered her mouth with her hand, her shoulders shaking with giggles.

That's not funny... Radi sounded as poutey as I had ever heard her.

Finding a face painter didn't take long. The woman doing the work was a native Hawaiian and she was doing a brisk trade in daubing white and red and green paints across the faces of the children of tourists. Once we stepped up, she beamed at the two of us.

"Here to get prettied up for the rest of your date, cuties?" the woman asked, grinning.

"We're not-" I started.

"Totally!" Maddie said, nodding, then shooting a look at me. That look said, quite plainly: Come on, dude, play along.

I bit my lip, then smiled at the Hawaiian girl. 'It's not a we thing. She lost at sandcastles-"

"I did noooooot!" Maddie whined.

"So, she gets face painted, huh?" the girl grinned at me. "Got it. I think she'd look cute with whiskers."

Maddie put up a token resistance. But soon, she was sitting in the chair, her glasses in my hands. I looked through them curiously as the face painter daubed red lines along her cheeks. Looking through the haze of numbers and letters and gylphic readouts that filled Maddie's glasses made my head hurt. I shook my head, lowering the glasses from my head.

"Can you decipher that stuff, Radi?" I asked, quietly.

Oh? Now you need our help? Humph!

I sighed. It sounded like Radi was in a definite grump. But before I could really start to talk to her, Maddie stood from the chair, her hands over her face. She groaned. "A mirror! A mirror!" I laughed, holding up the mirror the face painter had beside her chair. Maddie looked at herself, then with a melodramatic flourish, threw herself to her knees.

"I'm hideous!" she groaned.

It did look a little garish. A bright red paint job covered her nose, while sleek whiskers had been painted across her cheeks, and a pair of triangles had been painted over her eyebrows. I took the mirror from her hands as she clapped her palms over her face, faux-crying.

The face painter shook her head. "So, you want one?"

I opened my mouth -- but it turned out Maddie had had a plan. From her kneeling position, she was more than able to shove me from behind and at the knees, sending me toppling forward into the chair. She must have worked the plan out with the face painter while I had been distracted because the face painter leaped on me.

I screamed for help.

But no one could.

###

Maddie and I kept adventuring for the rest of the day. We visited the museum of natural history and got to admire the actual sled used by Pele during her eventful Hawaiian lava sledding competition with several other kupu. We went to the launch facility for the orbital correction rockets that kept the chunks of Luna from falling to Earth. Every nation on Earth had a launch facility, but the onus was on the equatorial countries to launch more rockets than others -- since they could launch the rockets cheaper and easier. It was all very complicated and Maddie took great pleasure in explaining it to me as I picked at the huge dog nose painted onto my face.

We finally came back to the resort and had to pick a food place.

"McDonalds?" Maddie suggested.

"McDonalds?" I asked, looking at her. "You're out of prison for the first time in months, and you want to go to McDonalds?"

"Yeah," Maddie said, rubbing her hands together. "They're doing a new run of the McRib!"

I frowned.

She had a good point.

Soon, we were seated together in the gathering dusk of the evening. I dunked some chicken nuggets into Martian su-su sauce and watched the glowing blue goop shimmer around the nugget. I popped the meat into my mouth and enjoyed the fiery taste. Meanwhile, Maddie's face was smeared with BBQ sauce. She licked her fingers and groaned.

"I am going to get fat and sassy," she said, sighing.

"You're already sassy," I said.

"There will be maximum sass," Maddie announced, licking her fingertips. "Mmm! Finger licking good."

"That's KFC, isn't it?" I asked, dunking another nugget in su-su sauce.

"They're owned by the same parent company," Maddie said. "Conglomco Hugecorp."

"That is not a real corporation," I said -- and started as I felt Maddie's foot. She had slipped it from her sandal and bumped it against my shin. My fingers caressed me and I tried to not blush. My own foot slid up, meeting hers. Our toes touched. Maddie grinned and cocked her knee underneath the table, pushing the base of her foot between my thighs. I froze as she touched my cock through my swim trunks.

"Huge corporation," she murmured.

I flushed. "Maddie-"

"Sorry," she said, taking her foot away from my groin. I gulped, my throat dry. Maddie sighed as she looked down at her McRib. As she did so, there was a rustle of a cape in the air and then a sleek figure dropped down behind me. I spun my head back and started as I saw none other than Knightgirl. She was clad in her form fitting plate mail and had her sword strapped at her hip. People in the McDonalds oohed loudly as they saw her.

She walked up to me. "Verily and well met, Archive, I hate to interrupt your vacation, but Ozymandias has escaped from prison."

Maddie tensed at the mention of her name. Her supervillain name. The name that I tried to not think about -- I watched cable news. I didn't know if I was one of the people programmed to go into a fugue when I said it. Though...

We, um, actually did find that code and edited it out, Radi said, her voice soft. I'm sorry I got mad at you, earlier. I think I...I might be slightly jealous.

Now was really not the time. I opened my mouth, about to explain why I was currently sitting here with Maddie and why she hadn't gotten crammed back into jail before the rest of Project Aegis noticed. But before I could, Knightgirl lifted her mailed hand.

"Have you seen her?"

I looked back at Maddie. She was adjusting her glasses shyly.

I looked back at Knightgirl.

"No," I said.

"Then I shall leave you to your date," Knightgirl said, bowing her head. "Greetings, um-"

"This is, uh, Sarah," I said, quickly. "Sarah, uh, Fa...Lin...kon..." I mentally kicked myself. Why the fuck had I given a fake last name? Who the fuck cared! Knightgirl didn't care what her fucking last name was!

"Yes, Sarah Falinkon, of the Seattle Falinkons," Maddie said, her voice cheery. "We actually met today. I didn't know you were a superhero, Xander! That's so cool!"

Knightgirl bowed her head to us. "Sorry for the interruption you two. Enjoy your, ah, date."

And with that, Knightgirl leaped into the air.

Once she was gone, Maddie reached up and took off her glasses. She looked down at them, her eyes soft. She bit her lip. "There's, uh, a downside for being super-intelligent."

I opened my mouth, but Maddie continued forward before I could.

"You can predict people. Superheroes are harder to predict due to the fact that their abilities give them new options. It's hard to model a human behavior when that human being is a wild outlier. You need time to get to know them, time to gather information, that kind of thing." She shrugged, her fingers turning the glasses around and around in her hands. "But some heroes are kinda simple. Some heroes you know that they'll do the right thing. And you are one of them, Xander."

She paused. "I calculated six different end points for today. Ten percent when I met you. Thirty, after the first disaster. Not sure what the disaster was, but they invariably happen. Forty, after the adventure. The odds increase on that arithmetic progression until, well, someone from the Project comes to find me."

She blushed. "Thanks for falling into the smallest percentile, uh, Xander."

I smiled slowly. Maddie started to stand, stammering. "S-So, uh, more adven-"

I took her hand. "Yes." I said, then stood. "More adventure."

Maddie squeaked as I slid my arm under her legs and held her to my chest. Then I flew upwards -- shooting away from the ground. Soon, we were floating above the islands and the ocean. I held Maddie to my chest and leaned back on a cushion of zero-point energy and graviton waves. As I laid back, I turned her so she could look outwards at the curve of the horizon. Here, above the clouds, the starry sky glittered overhead. The streak of white that was Earth's ring system -- produced after Luna's destruction -- swept overhead, thicker at the middle of the heavens. It met and intersected with the Milky Way.

"You haven't gotten a chance to see the stars in a while, right?" I asked.

"No," Maddie said as we laid back in the warm summer evening. "Thanks, Xander."

We lay there for a timeliness moment. Time felt sticky and syrupy -- and I wanted the moment to last forever. Just me and a beautiful, wonderful, infuriating, complicated girl in my arms. Forever.

Maddie turned. The moment shattered. I got ready for her to ask me to take her back down.