The first thing I did after deciding not to waste my second life was ask for a notebook.
In my mind, it was supposed to be simple. I would ask for an ordinary notebook, Laurie would give me one, and I could begin recording everything I remembered without attracting attention.
I should have known my mother better.
She was incapable of responding modestly to any request even remotely related to drawing.
She came home that evening with three notebooks tucked beneath one arm, two boxes of colored pencils, a set of markers, a transparent ruler, and a sheet of stickers depicting smiling animals. She placed everything on the living-room coffee table with the satisfied expression of a woman who had just supplied an entire art studio rather than fulfilled the request of a six-year-old.
The living room bore her mark everywhere. Rolls of fabric leaned against one wall, an unfinished dress waited on a mannequin near the window, and sketches covered the small table beside her sewing machine. The apartment was never truly tidy, but it was not dirty either.
It was alive.
The colors, threads, pins, and scraps of paper merely seemed to migrate according to whichever project she was working on.
"What did you want to draw?" she asked, sitting beside me.
I selected the least conspicuous notebook. Its cover showed a green dinosaur holding a red balloon. It could have been more discreet, but the other two were covered in glitter.
"Cities," I answered.
"Whole cities?"
Her face brightened as though I had just revealed a long-hidden architectural calling.
"Yes. With streets and buildings."
"Then you need a ruler. Wait, I happened to buy you one."
She pulled the ruler out of the bag and placed it in front of me with almost comical solemnity. I thanked her, then waited until she returned to work. She put her glasses back on, sat at her machine, and resumed guiding a piece of purple fabric beneath the needle while humming along with the radio.
I sat on the floor with my back against the couch, where she could still see me without being able to read what I was writing. On the first page, I drew three columns as straight as my still-clumsy fingers allowed.
CONFIRMED
PROBABLE
DO NOT PANIC
The last column had no practical purpose.
It still felt necessary.
I wrote Gotham City, Metropolis, Wayne Enterprises, Queen Industries, and S.T.A.R. Labs in the first column. The letters trembled, and some of them crossed the lines. I knew how to write, but knowing a movement and possessing the physical coordination required to perform it were two different things.
After only a few words, my fingers already hurt.
I continued anyway.
In the second column, I wrote Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Lex Luthor, and several other names I was less certain about. I remained motionless in front of Darkseid for a long time, my pencil hovering above the paper, before finally placing him in the third column.
It was probably the best possible use of that category.
My memories were not as precise as I would have liked. I knew the broad outlines of the DC Universe, of course. Bruce Wayne would become Batman. Clark Kent would become Superman. Diana came from Themyscira. Hal Jordan, or perhaps John Stewart, would receive a green ring.
The details, however, were a complete mess.
I had read comics without following every series. I had watched movies, cartoons, and several adaptations that contradicted one another. In one version, a character died. In another, that person had never been born. Some cities had been destroyed, rebuilt, erased by a cosmic crisis, and then destroyed again, while even the readers seemed to have forgotten half the consequences.
I knew enough to be afraid.
Not enough to form an actual plan.
What worried me most was that my memories were already beginning to lose their sharpness. It did not affect the essential events of my former life. I could still picture the bank lobby perfectly, the pistol in my hands, and Claire's face above me.
But certain secondary names escaped me. Storylines I had read as a teenager blended together. Sometimes I remembered a scene without knowing whether it came from a comic, a film, or a television series.
I needed to write everything down before time erased more of it.
I added Krypton, Themyscira, Atlantis, Apokolips, the League of Assassins, Amanda Waller, and Project Cadmus. The last name came with one very specific feeling: Cadmus was to be avoided.
I remembered clones, experiments, and government laboratories.
Nothing likely to improve the day of a reincarnated child.
After the list, I wrote my first rules.
The first was obvious.
Do not tell anyone that this world is fictional.
The sentence would have sounded absurd to any other child. To me, it summarized a very real danger. If I told the truth, people would think I was ill. A psychologist might decide that I had invented Frank to explain trauma or a feeling of disconnection. My parents would worry. Doctors would ask questions.
And if someone genuinely believed me, the situation might become even worse.
The second rule required more thought.
Do not seek out the heroes.
I knew where Bruce Wayne lived. I even knew the name of his butler. Part of me wanted to take a train to Gotham, appear at the manor, and tell him that I knew what he would become.
It was a stupid idea.
Bruce was nine years old. His parents had just died. He did not need some strange child telling him about a future war against a murderous clown. As for Alfred, he would probably have me escorted away before calling child protective services.
I did not know the exact timeline either. An attempt to prevent one event might only cause another. Perhaps warning Bruce about the Joker would lead Batman to begin looking for him before he even existed. Perhaps my information would attract the attention of someone far more dangerous.
I underlined the rule twice.
The third was simpler.
Learn to survive on my own.
I had no powers.
I had tested myself within the limits of what a six-year-old could attempt without being sent to the hospital. I could not fly, move objects with my mind, or produce heat from my eyes. I was no stronger than other children. No interface appeared before me. No mystical animal had chosen me.
I was normal.
In my old world, that would have been good news.
In this one, it felt like a fatal vulnerability.
I listed the areas in which I could improve: physical conditioning, first aid, observation, law, investigation, psychology, and finance. The last category might have seemed strange for a child, but Batman would never have been Batman without the Wayne fortune. A poor man with the same obsession would mainly have ended up bankrupt, injured, or arrested for illegal possession of weapons.
Laurie left her machine a few minutes later and approached me. I immediately closed the notebook, a little too quickly to appear natural. She stopped in front of me with her hands on her hips, then looked down at the dinosaur cover.
"A secret project?" she asked with an amused smile.
"Yes."
"Does it involve drawing on the walls?"
"No."
"Cutting my fabric without permission?"
"No."
"Taking apart something that still works?"
I shook my head.
She adopted a falsely serious expression, as though weighing the risks.
"In that case, I suppose I can respect your secret. But if the dinosaur starts asking me for money, you tell me."
She leaned down, kissed my forehead, and returned to work.
I waited a little longer before sliding the notebook beneath my bed.
It was a poor hiding place, probably the first one an adult would check. Yet no one seemed capable of imagining that a six-year-old might be hiding notes about alien invasions and secret organizations beneath his mattress.
Sometimes age was the best camouflage.
---
Elementary school quickly confirmed what I had feared.
It was very difficult to possess an adult's memories while pretending to discover the alphabet.
My classroom was on the first floor of a redbrick building constructed several decades earlier. The radiators banged every morning before producing excessive heat, the windows did not close properly, and the desks bore the initials of generations of children. Colorful pictures covered the walls: animals, seasons, numbers, and capital letters cut from cardboard.
Our teacher, Mrs. Alvarez, wore a different animal-shaped brooch every day. She had a calm voice, short black hair, and the particular ability to detect a lie without ever raising her voice.
I underestimated her for exactly two weeks.
One morning, she asked us to read a story about a dog that refused to share its bone. I had finished the text before she completed her explanation of the exercise, but I dragged my finger beneath the words and deliberately slowed myself down. I had adopted that method to avoid appearing abnormally advanced.
Mrs. Alvarez approached my desk and placed another book in front of me.
The cover showed the planets of the solar system.
"Try this one instead, Malcolm."
I looked up at her, attempting to appear confused.
"Why?"
"Because you've already read the other one."
I looked down at the book about the dog.
"No, I haven't."
"You turned the pages at the correct speed, but your eyes were always three lines ahead of your finger."
She did not seem angry or worried.
Only observant.
I slowly picked up the book about the solar system.
"Can I really read this?"
"You can try. You won't be punished if you can't, and you won't be punished if you can."
The last sentence was probably meant to reassure me.
It had the opposite effect.
It confirmed that she understood I was hiding.
At the end of the day, she asked to speak with Laurie. I remained seated on a small chair near the desk while they talked. Late-afternoon sunlight passed through the windows, casting orange rectangles across the floor. The other students had left. The silence made every sound louder: papers being stacked, a chair creaking, distant voices in the corridor.
"Malcolm reads far above the expected level," Mrs. Alvarez explained. "He understands what he reads and can answer complex questions. It isn't simply memorization."
Laurie placed a hand over her chest.
"I knew it."
The pride in her voice made me smile and feel guilty at the same time.
"However, he is attempting to hide it," the teacher continued.
Laurie turned toward me. Her smile faded slightly, replaced by gentle concern.
"Why would you do that, sweetheart? Are you afraid the other children will make fun of you?"
I stared at the owl-shaped brooch pinned to Mrs. Alvarez's blouse. Telling the truth was impossible. I could not explain that I feared attracting the attention of government organizations capable of turning unusual children into research subjects.
"I want to stay with my class," I answered.
This time, it was not an excuse.
I did not want to skip several grades, find myself surrounded by older students, and constantly have to justify my knowledge. Most importantly, I did not want to sacrifice a new childhood simply because I had already lived through the material being taught.
Mrs. Alvarez crouched in front of me so that her face was level with mine.
"No one is going to force you to leave your classmates. But you shouldn't pretend not to understand simply to make other people comfortable. You can learn faster and still need them."
I did not answer immediately.
I had thought of my life as a mission.
Learn.
Train.
Observe.
Prepare to survive.
The other children did not appear anywhere in that plan. They seemed loud, unpredictable, and preoccupied with things I had already outgrown. One spent recess telling everyone that his father knew Michael Jordan. Another regularly ate the glue intended for craft projects.
Mrs. Alvarez was right about one thing, however.
I did not want to be alone.
A few days later, she seated me beside Nathan Cole.
Nathan wore glasses that were too large for his face, always had untidy hair, and possessed more knowledge about dinosaurs than any reasonable child should be able to contain. He turned toward me before I had even placed my notebook on the desk.
"Did you know velociraptors probably had feathers?"
"No."
"It's true. And they were much smaller than they are in the movies. Movies lie."
He said it with personal gravity, as though Hollywood owed him an apology.
"Okay."
"You don't care?"
His directness surprised me.
"A little," I admitted.
Nathan shrugged.
"I don't care about planets either."
That was the beginning of our friendship.
He did not immediately become my best friend. We did not share the same interests, and whenever a subject excited him, he spoke without stopping to breathe. But he never asked why I read more difficult books. He simply accepted that I knew certain things, in the same way I accepted that he could identify twenty species of dinosaur from the shape of a jawbone.
Through him, I gradually rediscovered what it meant to be a child.
We constructed a fortress out of cardboard boxes at the back of the classroom. We raced across the playground for no reason except to be the first to reach the fence. We spent an hour debating whether a tyrannosaurus could open a door.
During a lesson about the solar system, a student pronounced Uranus with an unfortunate emphasis. Half the class burst into laughter. At first, I tried to remain serious, convinced that Frank would never have laughed at such an idiotic joke.
Then Nathan leaned toward me and whispered, "That planet really needs a new public-relations department."
I laughed until my stomach hurt.
It was one of the first times I clearly understood that Malcolm was not merely a younger version of Frank.
Frank would have rolled his eyes.
Malcolm was six years old and found Uranus hilarious.
Both could exist at the same time.
---
At eight, I asked Laurie to enroll me in gymnastics.
She was bent over the large table in her studio, a measuring tape around her neck, cutting a piece of white fabric according to a pattern held in place with pins. The light from the window made the dust and fibers suspended in the air look like tiny sparks.
She stopped in the middle of the movement.
"Gymnastics?"
"Yes."
"You want to do flips?"
"Not immediately."
She placed her scissors on the table, then examined me from head to toe. I was thin, fairly flexible for my age, and covered in small marks from my frequent encounters with furniture.
"Why gymnastics? You've never mentioned it before."
I could not explain that acrobats seemed to survive far longer than ordinary police officers in the DC Universe. Dick Grayson was the best evidence of that.
"I want to learn how to move better. How to keep my balance and fall without hurting myself."
Laurie tilted her head.
"You could also say that you think it looks fun."
"I think it looks fun."
She studied me for several more seconds, fully aware that I had adjusted my answer to meet her expectations.
"You really are a strange little boy."
She did not say it with concern. Her voice was affectionate, almost proud.
"But I would rather have a child who wants to learn how to fall properly than one who thinks he will never fall. I'll look into it."
The gymnastics hall was inside a municipal sports center whose walls smelled of rubber, chalk, and cleaning products. The ceilings were high, voices echoed, and the floor was covered with blue mats. Children ran between the bars, balance beams, and trampolines with a confidence I immediately found suspicious.
In my imagination, gymnastics was supposed to be elegant. I would learn to control my body, roll, jump, and avoid obstacles like the heroes I had seen on-screen.
The reality began with fifteen minutes of stretching.
Then a coach named Linda asked me to touch my toes without bending my knees. I discovered that I possessed muscles capable of protesting with remarkable intensity.
I was not bad.
I simply was not particularly gifted.
Some children folded themselves as though their bones were optional. I possessed an adult's self-awareness and the flexibility of a slightly damp piece of furniture. I fell often. I struck my elbows, my knees, and, during one poorly controlled attempt at a forward roll, my nose.
I continued.
There was something comforting about progress. There was no destiny, no unpredictable timeline, and no cosmic set of rules. When I repeated a movement, my body improved. When I strengthened my arms, I could hold myself up longer. The results depended directly on the work I put in.
Terrence approved of the idea, although he quickly decided that gymnastics lacked discipline.
"There are rules," I protested one weekend as we ate dinner in his apartment.
The place resembled him. The furniture was dark, the books were arranged by size, and no object was present without a reason. Even the cushions appeared to have received precise instructions.
"I didn't say there were no rules," he replied. "I said that a group of children running along balance beams does not constitute a complete educational structure."
"It's much harder than running."
"I don't doubt it."
He carefully cut his chicken before adding:
"I could enroll you in karate."
I had difficulty concealing my enthusiasm.
When Laurie learned the news, she accused him of trying to turn me into a miniature soldier. Terrence replied that martial arts taught discipline and control. They argued for ten minutes before realizing that I had already agreed.
The dojo occupied the back of a small commercial building. The floor was covered with mats, the walls were almost bare, and the air smelled of fabric, sweat, and disinfectant. Our instructor, Mr. Tanaka, was a thin man with graying hair whose voice never needed to rise to impose silence.
The first few weeks were even less spectacular than gymnastics.
We repeated stances, footwork, and basic strikes. Mr. Tanaka constantly corrected the position of my feet, the angle of my shoulders, and the height of my hands.
"Speed comes after form," he repeatedly told us.
In the movies, that sentence would have preceded a musical montage depicting breathtaking progress.
In reality, it preceded another twenty minutes of the same movement.
I continued to enjoy the training.
I was not becoming an invincible fighter.
I was only becoming steadier, more attentive, and slightly less vulnerable than before.
By ten, after two years of gymnastics and one year of karate, I was more flexible than most children my age and better at controlling a fall. I also knew that a determined adult could still overpower me without much difficulty.
That knowledge was just as important as the techniques.
A few lessons did not turn a child into a hero.
They only gave him one more chance not to make the worst possible mistake.
---
The first real fight of my second life took place behind the school gymnasium.
The sky was gray, the ground was still wet from the morning rain, and the brick walls retained the cold smell of water. Most of the students had already left with their parents or boarded their buses. I had forgotten a book in my classroom and taken the passage behind the gym to reach the secondary exit.
I heard Nathan before I saw him.
"I told you, I don't have any money."
His voice was trembling.
I slowed down and rounded the corner of the building. Nathan stood near the large metal trash cans, clutching his bag against his chest. Two older boys blocked his path.
The first was named Kevin Morris. He was eleven, nearly a head taller than I was, and possessed the satisfied expression of a child accustomed to watching others retreat. His friend remained slightly behind him, more interested in the spectacle than in the money.
"You have money to buy food," Kevin said. "So you have money to pay me back."
"I didn't borrow anything from you."
Kevin placed one hand on Nathan's shoulder and shoved him against the wall.
The intelligent decision would have been to find an adult.
I knew that immediately. The nearest staff office was less than a minute away. I could shout, attract attention, or quietly leave.
But a minute could be a long time when someone was trapped against a wall.
"Kevin."
He turned toward me.
His face showed surprise first, then annoyance.
"What do you want?"
"Leave him alone."
I tried to keep my voice steady, but my heart was already beating too quickly. I did not feel brave. I was afraid, just not afraid enough to leave.
Kevin looked behind me to make sure I was alone.
"Or what? You'll call your mother?"
"Or I'll find a teacher, and Nathan will explain that you were trying to take his money."
His friend shifted, less comfortable now that the situation threatened to have consequences. Kevin approached me.
"You think they'll believe you?"
"They might believe two students against one."
I hoped Nathan would speak.
I was not certain he would.
Kevin shoved me with both hands. I stepped backward and felt my shoes slide slightly across the wet ground.
"Go away, Malcolm."
"No."
I said it too quickly.
His face hardened. He tried to shove me again, but this time I redirected his arms and stepped aside, as Mr. Tanaka had taught us. Kevin lost his balance. He recovered almost immediately, more humiliated than injured.
His fist came toward me.
I saw it coming. The movement was broad, telegraphed by his shoulder, and relatively slow.
That did not mean I avoided it perfectly.
His knuckles grazed my cheek. A hot pain spread beneath my eye as I ducked. I grabbed his wrist, placed my foot behind his ankle, and pushed with all my weight.
Kevin fell heavily onto his back.
For one second, there was complete silence.
Nathan stared at me with his mouth open. The other boy stepped backward. I felt a surge of pride that was as immediate as it was shameful.
I had done it.
Then Kevin got back up and punched me in the stomach.
The air left my lungs. I dropped to one knee, unable to breathe. All my training, all my preparation, and all my ideas about controlling a confrontation vanished beneath one brutal and very simple pain.
Kevin raised his foot.
Nathan threw his bag into Kevin's face.
Books and a plastic box struck Kevin beneath the chin. He staggered backward, swearing. At the same moment, a staff member rounded the corner of the building, attracted by the noise.
What followed was less heroic.
We all ended up in the principal's office. The walls were decorated with diplomas, photographs of sports teams, and a poster proclaiming that every conflict could be resolved through communication. My cheek was red, my stomach hurt, and it felt as though I were breathing with a weight on my chest.
Kevin claimed that I had attacked him for no reason.
His friend confirmed it.
Nathan explained what had actually happened, but his hesitant voice did not appear to impress the principal, who mostly looked tired.
Laurie arrived first. She entered the office with her coat still open and visible fear in her eyes. Before asking a single question, she knelt in front of me and took my face between her hands.
"Where does it hurt? Look at me. Did he hit you in the head? Are you having trouble breathing?"
"I'm okay, Mom."
"Don't tell me you're okay simply to make me stop worrying."
Her voice trembled slightly. Her fear made me feel more ashamed than any possible punishment.
"My stomach hurts, but I'm breathing normally. My cheek stings a little."
She gently ran her thumb beneath the mark.
"Did someone hit you?"
"Yes."
"Did you hit him too?"
"Not exactly."
The principal cleared his throat.
"Malcolm knocked the other student down."
Laurie slowly turned her head toward me.
"You threw him to the ground?"
"He mostly fell because of his balance."
She closed her eyes, probably torn between the desire to scold me and a certain pride she did not want to encourage.
Terrence arrived about twenty minutes later, still wearing his suit. He briefly greeted the principal, sat beside Laurie, and listened to the entire story without interrupting. His face remained calm, but I knew my father well enough to notice the tension in his jaw.
When the principal had finished, Terrence placed his hands on his knees.
"I would like to understand precisely what my son is being punished for. Is he being disciplined because he defended another student, or because he used force when another solution was available?"
The principal hesitated.
"Both, in a way."
"Those are not the same behaviors, and they should not be treated as though they have the same value."
"He should have found an adult."
"On that point, we agree."
I looked toward him, surprised.
In the car, he remained silent for several blocks. The rain had begun again, light and steady, and the windshield wipers marked the rhythm of our journey. I watched the drops slide across the window while my stomach continued to ache.
Terrence eventually spoke in a voice less severe than I had feared.
"Why did you intervene?"
"Because Kevin was trying to steal from Nathan."
"I am not asking what happened. I am asking why you chose to intervene in that manner."
I clenched my hands on my knees.
"He was going to hit him."
"Did you know that, or did you think it?"
"I knew it."
He glanced briefly in my direction.
"No, Malcolm. You inferred it from his behavior. Perhaps you were right. But a strong conviction is still different from a fact."
The distinction annoyed me because it was accurate.
"I wasn't going to leave Nathan alone."
"I am not asking you to abandon him. You could have shouted. You could have run for a teacher. You could have told Nathan to leave while you remained at a distance."
"I wanted to stop him myself."
The words came out more quietly than I intended.
Terrence remained silent for a moment.
"That is what concerns me."
"But I helped Nathan."
"Yes, and I am proud that you refused to abandon him."
I looked up at him.
"I'm proud of your courage," he continued. "But I don't want you to use that courage to justify every decision made under the influence of emotion. You've been training for several years, and you wanted to know whether it worked. Tell me I'm wrong."
Shame rose into my throat.
I did not answer.
He sighed, not with anger, but with worried exhaustion.
"Doing the right thing is not always enough. The manner matters. The consequences matter. If Kevin had struck his head and been seriously injured, your intentions would not have erased the result. If his friend had been carrying a knife, you might have died."
The bank returned to my mind.
I had acted because Claire was in danger. I had always considered that choice the only morally acceptable decision.
But perhaps part of me had also wanted to be the hero I had dreamed of becoming.
I did not regret helping Nathan.
I regretted not thinking more carefully.
The next day, I opened my secret notebook and added two sentences beneath my rules.
Never mistake courage for recklessness.
Then, after a long hesitation:
Learn how to win without having to fight.
The second rule would prove much more difficult to follow.
---
The dinosaur notebook gradually became a collection of notes, files, and extra sheets attached with tape. I was twelve when Laurie bought our first family computer.
The machine occupied a significant portion of the small desk in one corner of the living room. Its monitor was enormous, its case was beige, and its tower produced a constant hum. Connecting to the Internet required using the telephone line. The modem then emitted a series of crackles, whistles, and electronic shrieks that made it sound as though a robot were slowly dying inside the apartment.
Laurie appeared in the doorway the first time she heard it.
"What did you do to it?"
"Nothing. It's connecting."
"Does it really need to suffer that much?"
"Apparently."
She regarded the computer suspiciously.
"We sent men to the Moon, but no one managed to invent a less horrible noise?"
Despite its limitations, the Internet transformed my research. I could now consult archives and articles without asking an adult to accompany me to the library. Search engines were slow, the results were poorly organized, and many websites appeared to have been designed by people with an intense passion for blinking text.
I found information nonetheless.
Wayne Enterprises remained one of the most powerful corporations in the country. Queen Industries regularly appeared in the business pages. S.T.A.R. Labs issued press releases about energy, medicine, robotics, and experimental physics.
Every project had the reassuring tone of a future catastrophe.
LexCorp still did not exist.
I found several people named Luthor: a dentist, a professor, and a fraudster from New Jersey. None of them was a young, bald genius at the head of an industrial empire.
Ted Kord produced no useful results. If he existed, he was still too young and unknown to appear publicly.
Bruce Wayne, however, was impossible to avoid.
His name appeared in business, society, and legal articles. Journalists speculated about the future of his fortune, his mental health, and his relationship with Wayne Enterprises. Some photographs showed him at charity galas, rigid in a suit far too formal for his age.
I never attempted to contact him.
The rule held.
I also searched for my former life.
That proved much more difficult.
I began with the bank. No robbery matched. The address of my old apartment existed, but the building had been converted into offices before I was born. I searched for Paul, Mr. Patel, and other names from the neighborhood without finding anything useful.
Claire was nearly impossible to locate without her last name.
My parents, however, might have been possible.
I knew their full names.
I could type them.
I never did.
For several nights, I sat in front of the search bar with my fingers on the keyboard, unable to enter anything. Finding strangers would have confirmed that my family did not exist in this world. Finding identical people would have been even worse. I would not have known whether they were truly my parents or merely foreign versions wearing their faces.
Eventually, I accepted that my first life belonged to another universe.
It had left no trace here.
The pain had not disappeared, but it had changed. It was no longer an open wound occupying every thought. It resembled a deep scar, sensitive when touched and always present, even on happy days.
What worried me now was how distant Frank seemed to be becoming.
I retained his memories. I could still imagine his reactions, habits, and judgments. But my tastes and emotions no longer always matched his.
Frank liked black coffee. At twelve, I still thought coffee tasted like burned soil.
Frank had never possessed the patience to draw. I could spend hours beside Laurie, pencil in hand, working on a face or silhouette.
Frank had felt an almost sacred pride in his uniform.
I was beginning to understand that a uniform could inspire as much suspicion as respect.
That final difference became obvious one Saturday afternoon.
Nathan and I had entered a department store to buy a birthday gift for his mother. The place was vast, brightly lit, and filled with soft music that disappeared beneath conversations and announcements from the speakers. The aisles were crowded with clothes, toys, electronic devices, and promotional displays.
We were twelve years old, had enough money to purchase the gift, and had no intention of stealing anything.
The security guard began following us near the video-game section.
At first, I assumed it was a coincidence. I knew the job. Guards walked around, watched customers, and sometimes changed aisles for no particular reason.
Then he followed us into the next department.
And the one after that.
Nathan eventually moved closer to me.
"He's watching us," he whispered.
"I know."
I continued walking without turning my head. In the dark reflection of a blank television screen, I saw the guard stop several yards behind us.
He was white, in his forties, with a stomach pressing slightly against his shirt. His eyes remained fixed on my hands and the pockets of my jacket.
A group of white boys our age passed behind him, laughing, one of them handling a game he had taken from a shelf. The guard barely glanced at them.
Then his eyes returned to me.
Nathan wore glasses, an oversized sweatshirt, and pale trousers. I was a Black boy, taller than he was, dressed in a dark jacket. We were doing exactly the same thing. Yet I understood with brutal clarity that we were not being seen in the same way.
He was not watching me because I had done something.
He was waiting for me to do something.
I kept my hands clearly visible. I took care not to touch anything without a reason. My body tensed despite me, which risked making me appear precisely more suspicious in his eyes.
Nathan noticed the change in my behavior.
"We can go somewhere else," he said quietly.
I watched the guard in the reflection.
Part of me wanted to turn around and directly ask him why he was following us. Frank might have done it, convinced that a reasonable colleague would recognize his mistake.
Malcolm already knew that a uniform guaranteed nothing.
"We'll buy the gift and leave," I answered.
At the register, the guard remained near the exit. The cashier accepted our money, placed the item in a bag, and handed us the receipt with an absent smile.
The guard did not stop us.
He did not search us.
He did not even speak to us.
He had therefore done nothing specific enough for me to accuse him easily.
That was almost what made me angriest.
Outside, the cold air struck my face. Nathan remained silent for several seconds, holding the bag in his hands.
"He thought we were going to steal something."
I watched the cars moving through the parking lot.
"He mostly thought I was going to steal something."
Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He was white. That was not his fault, but I could see that he did not know what to say. Eventually, he clutched the bag against himself.
"That's disgusting."
"Yes."
That evening, I told Terrence what had happened. He was standing in his kitchen, a cup of coffee near him. When he understood, his expression barely changed. Only his hand tightened around the handle.
"Did he accuse you of anything?"
"No."
"Did he ask to search your bags or pockets?"
"No."
"Did he speak to you?"
"No."
I felt my anger returning.
"So we can't do anything."
Terrence slowly placed down his cup.
"The store will say that he was watching every customer. The guard will say that he was following his instincts or monitoring a high-risk section. Without more explicit behavior, it would be difficult to prove."
"But he wasn't following the others."
"I know."
His voice was calm.
His eyes were not.
"What was I supposed to do? Ask him why he was following me?"
"Not necessarily. In that situation, leaving without an incident was probably the safest option."
I almost rose from my chair.
"So I do nothing and accept it?"
"I did not say you should accept it."
"That is exactly what it sounds like."
Terrence inhaled, then leaned back against the counter.
"Malcolm, listen to me. There is a difference between allowing someone to define your worth and choosing the moment when you can genuinely hold them accountable. You were a child in a store, facing an adult in uniform. A confrontation could have ended with a fabricated accusation, a search, or the police becoming involved."
"And what if he does it again to someone else tomorrow?"
"He probably will."
The honesty of his answer stopped me.
"Then what is the point of saying nothing?"
"To return home safely."
He moved closer and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"I am not asking you to consider it fair. I am asking you to understand the world in which you live. Sometimes you will be viewed as suspicious before you have even spoken, simply because certain people will see your skin, your age, your clothes, or the neighborhood you come from before they see anything else."
He paused. His voice became quieter.
"You will learn to recognize those moments. You will also learn that your anger is legitimate. But if you allow every injustice to choose when and how you act, then other people will still be controlling your decisions."
I looked down at the table.
Frank had never experienced that scene.
He had been a white man. He had walked through stores without wondering whether a security guard would interpret every gesture as proof of guilt.
I was Malcolm.
African American.
The son of Laurie and Terrence.
My experiences would never be exactly the same as Frank's, even if I carried his memories.
That day, the truth stopped being theoretical.
I was not a dead man merely restarting his life in a new body.
I had become someone else.
---
In middle school, my reputation depended on whom you asked.
Teachers described me as serious, polite, and sometimes too stubborn. The other students generally used the words intelligent, strange, or uptight. Nathan said I was the only human being capable of listening to him talk about fossils for twenty minutes without pretending to faint.
I joined the debate club at Terrence's insistence. Meetings took place in a cold classroom after school, around tables arranged in a circle. I learned how to construct an argument, anticipate objections, and, most importantly, understand that being right was useless if no one could follow my reasoning.
I also joined the school newspaper. The smell of ink, the sound of keyboards, and the disorder of the drafts sometimes reminded me of Laurie's studio, although teenage journalists were far less organized than fashion designers.
I continued gymnastics and karate.
At fourteen, I was in good physical condition. I knew how to fall, maintain my balance, and strike properly. I could run for a long time and climb certain obstacles without panicking.
I was not an elite fighter.
Against an armed adult, I would still have been about as effective as a particularly determined chair.
I kept that comparison in mind.
My interest in investigation became public because of Mr. Webb's wallet.
He taught history and possessed a monotonous manner of speaking that made it sound as though wars, revolutions, and presidential assassinations had all taken place inside an administrative office. One lunchtime, his wallet disappeared from his bag. It contained about a hundred dollars, his cards, and several keys.
The student immediately accused was Jamal Price.
Jamal had stolen candy two years earlier. He had argued with Mr. Webb that very morning and had been in the corridor during part of the lunch break.
The administration quickly considered the matter solved.
Jamal denied it.
Few people believed him.
I did not know him well. We shared two classes and a mutual dislike of group assignments. He had a mocking smile, spoke too loudly, and seemed to consider every rule the beginning of a negotiation.
But the timeline did not fit.
Mr. Webb's bag had been behind his desk. To take the wallet, Jamal would have needed to enter the classroom. Yet he had spent much of lunch arguing with a staff member in the cafeteria, in front of several witnesses.
He might have had ten minutes.
It was possible.
What was not possible was Mr. Webb's claim that he had seen the wallet inside his bag shortly before the next lesson. He said that he had checked the bag.
Not the wallet.
I approached him after school. The classroom was nearly empty, illuminated by gray light. He was placing papers inside his briefcase with impatient movements.
"Are you certain the wallet was in your bag after lunch?"
He looked up.
"Yes, Malcolm. I've already explained this."
"Did you see it?"
"I opened my bag."
"But did you see the wallet?"
His face closed.
"Why are you asking all these questions?"
"Because Jamal says he didn't take it."
"People lie."
"Yes."
"And you think he's telling the truth?"
I considered my answer.
"I mostly think we don't know yet."
He did not like that sentence.
The assistant principal liked it more when I explained the problem to her. She agreed to check the hallway recordings.
Jamal had never entered the classroom.
Another student had.
Samantha Reed had taken the wallet to retrieve a key Mr. Webb kept inside it. She wanted access to a storage room where her confiscated telephone had been locked away. She had then panicked and hidden the wallet in another classroom.
The case was nothing spectacular.
Jamal was cleared.
Samantha was suspended.
Mr. Webb did not thank me.
Jamal found me near the lockers the following day. The corridor was nearly empty, with the voices of the other students echoing farther away.
"Why did you believe me?" he asked.
He was attempting to appear relaxed, but I could tell the answer mattered.
"I didn't believe you."
His face hardened.
"Nice."
"I didn't believe Mr. Webb either."
He looked at me in surprise.
"So you don't believe anyone?"
"I prefer to check first."
He remained silent for a second, then smiled.
"You're really strange, Beaumont."
"So I've been told."
Terrence learned the story from the assistant principal. He attempted to conceal his pride when we discussed it, but his smile betrayed him.
"You did well."
"I didn't discover anything complicated."
"You asked a question that the adults present hadn't asked."
"Which one?"
"Does the most convenient version actually match the facts?"
He leaned back in his chair.
"Many people decide who seems guilty first, then use everything they find to confirm that decision. You did the opposite."
From that day onward, other students began coming to me with problems I was completely unqualified to solve.
Missing objects.
Anonymous messages.
Rumors.
One girl even asked me to determine whether her boyfriend was cheating on her.
I refused.
There were limits to my commitment to the truth.
---
At fifteen, I finally knew what I wanted to become.
I announced it to Terrence one Sunday evening in his apartment. He was preparing dinner by following a recipe with the intensity of a prosecutor presenting a capital case. The vegetables were lined up on the cutting board, the meat had been measured, and every utensil occupied a precise position.
"I want to become a detective," I said.
He stopped in the middle of a movement.
"A police detective?"
"Yes."
"Not a lawyer."
"No."
He slowly placed down his knife.
"You could become an excellent lawyer. Your grades are outstanding, you argue well, and you already understand procedure better than some students."
"I know."
"You could even work in criminal law."
"I know that too."
He dried his hands, then turned completely toward me.
"And you don't want to."
It was not truly a question.
"No."
A brief disappointment crossed his face. It did not last, but I saw it.
"Does this come from your old fascination with uniforms?"
I stiffened.
"What fascination?"
"At four, you drew security guards. At six, you asked for books about the police. At eight, you wanted to understand how investigations worked."
He picked up his knife again.
"I am a prosecutor, Malcolm. Occasionally, I observe my own son."
I smiled despite myself.
"It isn't the uniform."
"Then explain it to me."
I watched the steam rising from the pot. The complete truth was impossible. I could not tell him about Frank, the bank, or Batman.
"I want to be there before the case reaches you."
Terrence frowned slightly.
"I want to know what actually happened. I want to speak to witnesses, understand the scene, and find what everyone else missed. In court, you have to work with the evidence people bring you. I want to be the one who finds it."
His expression gradually changed. The disappointment had not disappeared, but it gave way to more serious attention.
"You understand that the real job is nothing like television?"
"Yes."
"You will spend far more time writing reports than chasing criminals."
"I know."
"You will see difficult things. Victims. Families. Sometimes children."
I felt the memories of the bank rising within me.
"I know."
Terrence remained silent for a long time.
"I don't think you understand it completely yet."
"Probably not."
That answer appeared to satisfy him more than the others.
"But it's what I want."
He slowly nodded.
"I am a little disappointed."
His honesty surprised me.
"But that does not mean I will try to prevent you. You will need to study seriously, understand the law, and learn to write a clear report. You will also need to accept that the institution will not always match the idea you have of it."
I thought about the store.
"I've already accepted that."
"No. You understand it intellectually. Accepting it when you become part of that institution will be different."
The conversation with Laurie took another direction.
She remained seated across from me in her studio, a pencil stuck in her hair and a piece of fabric resting on her knees.
"A detective," she repeated. "So you'll be wearing dull suits and ugly shoes."
"Probably."
"We'll have to work on that."
"I thought you were going to talk about the danger."
"I was getting to it."
Her smile gradually disappeared. She put down the fabric and took my hand.
"Are you truly certain that this is what you want? Not what you think you have to do to prove something to your father, to me, or to yourself?"
The question touched me more deeply than I would have liked.
"I'm certain."
"You have nothing to prove, Malcolm."
"I know."
She squeezed my fingers.
"You say that often when you want the conversation to end."
I lowered my eyes.
She knew me too well.
"I want to help people. I want to understand why some people are accused too quickly and why others never are. I want to be useful before it's too late."
The last sentence escaped almost despite me.
Laurie watched me closely.
"Before it's too late for whom?"
I thought about Claire, Nathan, Jamal, and the boy I had once been.
"Anyone."
She remained silent, then leaned forward and kissed my temple.
"Then choose this life because you want it. Not because you're trying to repair something that broke before you were old enough to understand it."
She was probably referring to their divorce.
I was thinking about Frank.
"I choose it," I answered.
This time, it was true.
---
At sixteen, Terrence found me a summer job at the district attorney's office.
He insisted that he had not obtained any special treatment for me. I therefore spent two months filing documents, making photocopies, and bringing coffee to people who knew my father.
Nepotism apparently possessed several levels of subtlety.
The offices occupied several floors of a large gray building downtown. The corridors smelled of paper, coffee, and air-conditioning. Employees constantly moved around with folders beneath their arms. Telephones rang, printers operated without interruption, and almost everyone appeared to be running late.
The work was frequently boring.
It was also essential.
I discovered that investigations almost never relied upon a sudden revelation.
They relied upon hours of verification, unanswered telephone calls, incorrectly filed photographs, unreliable witnesses, and reports in which every line might become important months later.
I watched a strong case collapse because a police officer had documented a seizure incorrectly. I watched a probably guilty man walk free because the principal witness changed his story. I also watched a suspect be cleared because of a gas-station receipt no investigator had checked for several weeks.
Justice was not a perfect machine.
It was more like an old building whose foundations remained standing because certain people continued repairing the cracks.
A detective named Harris agreed to speak with me during his breaks. He had a gray mustache, wrinkled shirts, and a reputation for never throwing away a piece of paper until a case was closed.
We were sitting in a small break room across from a vending machine that regularly swallowed coins.
"Your father says you want to become a detective," he said as he opened his sandwich.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I like understanding things."
He shook his head.
"Bad reason."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"Because most of the time, you'll never understand everything. You'll find out who did what. Sometimes you'll know why. But you'll rarely get a perfect answer that neatly closes every door."
"Then what's a good reason?"
Harris chewed slowly before answering.
"Being able to continue even when you don't like the answer. Even when you don't find everything. Even when the person you arrest resembles you more than you'd like."
It was not inspiring.
That was probably why I believed him.
He taught me how to read a report without getting lost in the details, how to construct a timeline, and how to clearly separate facts from assumptions. He also showed me how a poorly worded question could contaminate a witness statement.
One afternoon, he placed a file in front of me.
"Never walk into a room wanting to be right."
"Why?"
"Because your brain will always find something that makes you feel as though you are. Walk in to discover what happened, even if it destroys your first theory."
I wrote the sentence in my old notebook that same evening.
The dinosaur cover had almost disappeared beneath layers of tape. Pages devoted to heroes and cosmic threats now shared space with notes on procedures, forensic science, and investigative mistakes.
I was no longer writing only to survive the DC Universe.
I was building the person I wanted to become in the world that currently existed.
The difference mattered.
---
At seventeen, I had an almost normal life.
I took advanced classes without attempting to hide my intelligence. I had understood that concealing every ability sometimes attracted more attention than simply doing good work. I belonged to the debate club, the school newspaper, and the gymnastics team. I still practiced karate three evenings a week and ran in the mornings whenever the weather allowed it.
I was neither a billionaire genius nor a prodigious fighter.
I was a disciplined teenager in good physical condition who was probably far too organized.
I also had friends.
Nathan was still there. His obsession with dinosaurs had evolved into a serious interest in paleontology, which he considered a major development. Jamal had joined us in high school. He wanted to become a journalist and considered my reluctance to spread unconfirmed information a character flaw.
We went to the movies, played video games, and occasionally spent entire evenings doing nothing useful.
I even had a girlfriend for four months.
Her name was Melissa. She played the piano and had a laugh that always began with a very short breath. She broke up with me after an argument in a café near the high school.
"You don't have conversations with me, Malcolm," she said, her hands closed around her cup. "You interrogate me."
"I'm only asking questions so I can understand what you mean."
"No. You look for a flaw in every sentence. You want everything to be consistent, even when I'm simply angry or sad."
I immediately became defensive.
"I can't respond properly if you don't explain what's wrong."
"I'm not asking you to respond properly. Sometimes I'm asking you to listen without turning my feelings into a problem that needs to be solved."
I remained silent.
Her expression softened slightly.
"You're kind, Malcolm. You really are. But you behave as though every conversation might become a report."
She was right.
Later, I asked Nathan and Jamal for their opinions.
They confirmed it with far too much enthusiasm.
I worked on that flaw.
Perhaps that was my greatest achievement during those years.
Not the grades.
Not the training.
Not the accumulated knowledge.
I had learned to live.
Frank had built almost his entire identity around a goal he never reached. He wanted to become a police officer, wear a real uniform, and prove that he was useful.
I wanted to become a detective too.
But I drew with Laurie.
I endured Terrence's meticulously planned dinners.
I could lose a competition without considering my life a failure.
I could spend an evening with my friends without feeling guilty for accomplishing nothing.
I loved this family.
I loved my friends.
I loved Malcolm.
That made the world even more frightening.
At first, I wanted to survive because I refused to die a second time without accomplishing anything.
At seventeen, I wanted to survive because I now had a great deal to lose.
The heroes had still not appeared publicly.
There were rumors, of course. Strange sightings in Kansas. Sailors speaking of shapes beneath the ocean. An article about a man who had survived an impossible accident near Central City.
Nothing precise enough to place in my "confirmed" column.
Bruce Wayne was twenty years old.
Newspapers reported on his studies, travels, and unpredictable behavior. Some described him as an irresponsible heir. Others assumed he was preparing to return to Wayne Enterprises.
I believed none of those versions.
I knew what he was probably preparing for.
I simply did not know when he would return.
My university acceptance letter arrived in March 2006.
Laurie found it in the mailbox and climbed the stairs shouting my name before she had even closed the door. I came out of my bedroom and saw her standing in the middle of the hallway, still wearing her coat and waving the envelope with an enormous smile.
"You got in!"
I descended the last few steps.
"Did you open it?"
She stopped.
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"Rejection envelopes are smaller."
"That's a myth."
"I'm your mother. I recognize a good envelope."
I took the letter from her hands. My fingers trembled slightly as I opened it.
I had been accepted into the criminal-justice program I had chosen, with a partial scholarship.
Laurie read the first line over my shoulder and let out a cry before embracing me. I laughed, almost suffocating against her coat.
Terrence arrived an hour later. He had left the office early, an event sufficiently rare to deserve historical documentation. I reread the letter in the living room while he stood near the window with his arms crossed.
"Congratulations," he said when I finished.
His voice was firm, but his eyes were shining.
"Thank you."
"You know that you can still attend law school afterward."
Laurie gave him a look.
"He has been accepted for less than two hours."
"I am merely reminding him that he has several options."
"And he knows them."
Terrence removed his glasses and briefly rubbed his eyes.
"I know he knows."
He turned toward me, and his composure cracked slightly.
"I'm proud of you, Malcolm."
The sentence was simple.
It touched me more deeply than all his advice combined.
We ordered food and opened a bottle of champagne I was not allowed to touch. Nathan and Jamal came by later. Laurie took enough photographs to document the event from every possible angle.
For several hours, I did not think about Batman, Superman, or a future catastrophe.
I was simply a high-school student who had been accepted into college.
The son of Laurie Harrowing and Terrence Beaumont.
The friend of Nathan and Jamal.
Malcolm.
Later that night, when the apartment had become quiet again, I returned to my bedroom. The walls still displayed some of the drawings I had made as a child, accompanied by photographs, gymnastics medals, and books accumulated over the years.
I knelt beside the bed and retrieved the old notebook.
The hiding place had not changed in eleven years.
No one had discovered it, which raised serious questions about my family's observational abilities.
I opened it to the first page.
My hesitant six-year-old handwriting still filled the three columns.
Confirmed.
Probable.
Do not panic.
I picked up a pen and added a new sentence beneath the old rules.
Have a life worth protecting.
I stared at it for a long time.
At seventeen, I had no powers, no fortune, and no access to extraordinary technology. I did not personally know a single hero, and I had no idea when the story I feared would truly begin.
But I was no longer the little boy frozen in the middle of a crosswalk, convinced that death might take away his second chance before he had even begun to live.
I had learned.
I had trained.
I had grown.
It would never be enough to survive everything the DC Universe could produce. Nothing would be.
Even Superman died sometimes.
The goal was not to become invulnerable.
The goal was to be ready when danger arrived while refusing to sacrifice my entire life to the fear of what might happen.
I closed the notebook and returned it beneath my bed.
In a few months, I would graduate from high school. In a few years, I could join the police and become the detective I had chosen to be.
Bruce Wayne was not Batman yet.
The world still appeared normal.
I still had time.
At least, that was what I believed.