"He's right that it's not very safe here at night. New York has a much higher crime rate than here exactly because people go out at night whenever they want."

"Oh. But why's it still not safe at night if here people don't do that?"

"They would do that if other people went out. The very few people who do go out in spite of curfew often get into trouble because of it."

"Okay."

"Are you feeling more up to talk about things, this morning?"

"Yeah!"

"Good! Would you rather we talk here or somewhere else? We could go for a walk."

"I'd like to go for a walk!!"

"Then let's go!" she says, grinning, and leads the way.

Flap flap.

Down the elevator past the security guards into a not-quite-sunny-yet morning in Rio de Janeiro.

Flap flap!

"I noticed a book in your room."

"I woke up in the middle of the night. I guess because I went to bed in the middle of the day."

She smiles. "What book was it?"

"Principles of Urban Engineering." He even remembered to make it in Portuguese!!

"Wow. Isn't that a bit advanced?"

"If I'm going to fly around making stuff all the time - and that's kinda what I want to do - I need to know how to make stuff that won't fall apart or have the foundations crumble or sink into the ground or whatever."

"And you can understand all of it?"

"No, but if I don't get something it usually suddenly makes sense later, or I can ask someone, or I can make models and try it."

"That makes sense. You're a very intelligent kid."

Bounce bounce. "I have the best powers and I want to fix everything. If people died because I was dumb and didn't know what I was doing that would be horrible."

"That seems like an awful lot of responsibility to bear."

"I guess. But it'd still be true if I pretended it wasn't my problem."

"I'm not sure that's the most constructive way to think of it."