It looks awesome!  It isn’t Olympic-sized or anything, but it has a deep end suitable for cannonballs.  It’s surrounded by beach chairs, one of which contains…

… a ripped blonde, looking at him with some bemusement.  She’s got the “where are your parents, kid” expression.

He glances at her and strides right by, unbalking.  He does not cannonball, but he gets on the diving board and turns his back to the pool and spreads his arms out and lets himself fall backward.  Splash.

He orients himself in the water and gets his head above the surface and goes "ptuh ptuh" and waves at mysterious blond woman.

Yeah, okay.  He gets a wave back.  She considers for a few moments, then calls out.  “You wanna play some volleyball?”  Nobody else likes volleyball, it sucks.

"Sure!"

Yeah!  Finally!  She acquires and tosses a beach ball twice the size of Lucky's head towards him, then belly-flops into the pool.

(it stings a little, but it's good practice to deliberately resolve not to burn backlash on stupid things, when you don't have a regular partner)

He giggles at her and attempts to bop the beach ball back in her direction.

Wrist-bump, aiming behind the kid.  “How’d you get stuck in here?”

He will dive energetically after the ball!  He is a decent swimmer, certainly for a twelve year old kid, but not terribly careful about volleyball form.  "I'm here with my sister," he says.  "She can fly."

"Huh.  That's cool."  Carol's form is quite a bit better, and she's an esper.  And she's got an adult's reach.

... maybe she'll just go ahead and stick to one hand.  Make it fair for the kid.

Oh, are they playing volleyball volleyball?  He kinda figured they were just bopping this ball back and forth.  He can get serious.

...he is still, you know, a twelve year old kid with no particular competitive level pool volleyball experience, though, so mostly this means sometimes hitting it harder.

Well, he's definitely doing better, anyway.  Or she's doing worse.  Certainly one of those.  "You from around here, or did she fly you in for the 'quake?"

"Nah, we're local."  Bop.  "She only just started doing esper stuff.  You're really good at this."

Return bop with just two fingers.  "Born this way.  I mean, being an esper doesn't hurt."  She shrugs.  "But I've always been pretty sporty, long as I can remember."

"It makes you like faster and stronger, right?" he says.  "As well as your powers."

"Yeah.  Get through Hell Week and it's like you're an Olympic athlete and a movie makeover all in one."  I liked my looks pretty well, but I don't have to focus on my macros the way I used to.  Probably should.

He treads water and bops the ball back toward her when it comes his way.

"How dangerous is backlash?"

"Knew a guy whose backlash was tiredness.  Sounds like nothing, right?  But you fall asleep in a dungeon, you're gone.  He almost died in Hell Week.  Went out on a hiking trip and fell asleep.  They hadn't found him, he'd've never woken up.  Even the dumb ones are bad."

She misses the bounce, because she's playing lefty-only.  Sets it and serves it back to Lucky.

He boops it back sadly.  He isn't sure whether he's allowed to talk about this.

She abruptly realizes that she's talking to a preteen.  "So, you know.  You wanna be careful.  You always get guiding.  Eventually it turns into what they call 'chronic' backlash, which is just you feel like sh-garbage.  And that makes everything feel bad.  You just gotta keep on top of it and you'll be okay.  Hasn't gotten me yet, so it can't be that bad, right?"  She racks up a tiny bit of backlash to see how the ball's going to go, then surges out of the water to intercept it and return serve with a finger-flick.

(Is this an objectively stupid use of backlash?  Yes.  Does she feel guilty for bumming out a kid and want to cheer him up by showing off esper athleticism with a bit of precognition?  Also yes.)

...okay yeah that was pretty cool.  He misses the return.

He giggles.  "My sister's lookin' for a partner."

"Same.  You hear about compatibility?"

"I know some espers can guide each other and some can't."

"So, we don't really get it.  It's kinda related to what your backlash is, sort of.  Someone gets hypothermia, they can guide someone who gets a fever, 90% of the time.  10% of the time it doesn't work and nobody knows why.  You want a backlash that's the opposite of yours, they cancel out...for some reason.  Guy who gets tired, you want someone who has a mania backlash, probably, that kinda thing.  Except for when it doesn't work."

"Huh," he huhs.  "Did the guy with the tiredness backlash match with yours?"

"... yeah."  She pauses, weighing her words.  "Backlashes are - kinda private, usually.  Personal.  His is public, but it's kinda rude to ask directly.  It's like asking someone about a phobia, kinda."

" - oh, I'm sorry," he says.  

"You're good, you didn't do nothin'.  Just warning you before you touch the third rail, right?  Mine's annoyance.  It's pretty annoying."  Don't make a big deal of it don't make a big deal of it - 

Smile.  Bop.  "So how hard is it to find a compatible partner?"

Oh thank fuck he didn't make a big deal out of it.  "You gotta be kinda lucky, but it happens eventually."  She foreheads the ball back toward Lucky.  "Any esper can guide any other at least a little.  But you gotta be able to stand each other for three or four hours a day.  More if you run dungeons together, or you do some civilian shhhhtuff together.  It's kinda like dating, but it's sort of not?  Especially if you've got a professional guide, where you're paying them to snuggle.  Sometimes it gets weird."

(Hmm can he get away with trying to get this grownup to chill out about swearing in front of him.  He is not sure yet.)  He giggles at the foreheadbop.  "I never heard of professional partners."

"Some people just have a lousy power, but they can still guide.  I think, uh, you ever hear of Flay?"

"She fights swarms, right?  And sometimes really big dungeon boss monsters?"

"Yeah.  She's, like, bullshit strong.  And her husband's power is so bad they wouldn't even classify it.  But she's only able to do so many dungeons because he's got her back.  Behind every strong esper is, uh, another esper."  She pauses for a moment.  "...that sounded better in my head."

Snort.  "I know what you meant."

"Is guiding always, like, romantic?"

He's not sure if he should be asking this, and really it's Parry's business and not his, but - he has a feeling for hard-to-articulate reasons that a yes would be kind of bad news.

"Usually.  Not always.  I, uh, guide with a lot of people, I travel a lot, and we mostly just cuddle with a laptop or a tablet each.  But it's pretty common for, uh, romance to, uh.  Happen.  Not for me, though!"  Not like that.  Not again.

.......gosh, maybe a yes would be bad news for this lady too.

"...you okay?"

"Oh, yeah.  Right as rain.  Just a long night stopping cars last night."

If it hadn't been such a long night I wouldn't be fucking billboarding my emotions all over the place right now.  Fucking Carnapper.

"My sister rescued somebody from a car this morning," he says conversationally.

"Good on her.  That's the real problem with the cars.  I could stop 'em, but stopping 'em without hurting the passengers is tricky."  She's not thinking about Counterfactual Carol who may or may not have died last night.  That would be counterproductive.  That thought's going in the box.  "... guess I oughta shake her hand sometime, huh?"

"She could use a partner," Lucky says, who is somewhat but not completely aware of how worrying a combination that makes with she chased a car down the street this morning.  "Or do you just mean to say thank you."

"Why not both?  It's good to say 'thank you'.  I try to do it after every dungeon, if I work with someone."  Gotta get ahead of the bad PR somehow.

Is she being for real or is that the Type Of Edifying Shit You Say To Little Kids.  "Well, if you wanna see if you're compatible with her, she's the grumpy-looking lady with the dark-green hair who can't stop walking."

She really does make a point of it!  She's got a major reaction penalty she has to compensate for.  "If you see me while you're hanging with her, introduce us?  But if I see her first, I'll check for sure.  What's her power like, aside from 'she flies fast as a car'?"  Gotta do my research.

"Well, I've never seen her do it," he says.  "But I don't think there's really much else to say about it than that?"

Bop.  "Well, I guess."  Kid's like, ten, you can't expect him to be an expert in this shit.  "Not like I've seen it, either."  Odd he hasn't mentioned any other family.  Hope they're alive.

Bop.  Hmm.  "What's your name, by the way?"

... I'd feel like an idiot using my codename on a literal child.  But a literal child is more likely to blurt it out...  "Sinkhole.  How about yourself?"

Predictably, she does feel a little silly.

"Lucky," he says.  "Is that your esper name?"

No, my dad had terminal lead poisoning and named me before Ma could stop him.  "Yeah, lotta espers have 'em.  It's a whole thing where papparazi do stupid crrud."  She shrugs.

"I don't think anyone's gonna have a conniption if you say crap in front of me," he says.  "I'm practically a teenager, you know."

"Crap, crap, crap."  She sticks her tongue out at him.  This definitely isn't a coping mechanism for feeling silly about telling a preteen to call her 'Sinkhole'!

He giggles helplessly and misses the return bop.

She makes a big show of looking around.  "Oh, good, I'm not about to be arrested for that.  Whew."

Snickersnort.  "People are so weird about kids and swearing."

"Daddy always says it's a rite of passage thing.  I dunno.  When you hit thirteen, you're allowed to say 'damn' and 'crap'.  When you hit fifteen, you can say 'shit', so on and so forth.  I dunno.  Maybe it's like, training wheels for language, so kids learn how to not swear all the time."

"Grownups are no good at learning not to swear all the time on their own?" he asks archly.

"Well, imagine how bad we'd be if we hadn't had all that practice as kids."  She's mostly got a straight face.  There's a hint of a giggle.

"It must be hard, having lost so much mental plasticity," Lucky says with exaggerated solemnity.

"That's right.  We go around, doing the same thing every day.  Just going through the motions.  Savor it while it lasts, Lucky."

"But on the other hand, property rights."

“And no prison time with brainwashing.  You win some, you lose some.”

Snicker.  "You're pretty cool."

"Eh, I do my best.  You're cool, too.  And you have good taste in sisters.  Not every sister out there goes around saving people from rogue cars."

"She's a really good sister," Lucky says loyally.  "She's basically like my mom."

"And your actual factual mom?"  I'm not gonna like the answer, am I.

...Xavier the DRT guy kinda freaked out when he started talking too frankly about his and Parry's situation.  He's gonna maybe clam up.

She'll be patient.  And a little sad.  Bop!

"...you're not gonna try to get in touch with 'em, are you?  Our parents."

"Even if I wanted to, I don't even know your last name.  Lucky probably isn't your wallet name, either."  I knew I wasn't gonna like the answer.  Goddammit.

Man, nobody can just say, no, I won't sell you out.  They always gotta be wink wink nudge nudge I couldn't if I wanted to about it.  "My sister's eighteen and she's lookin' after me," he says firmly.

Carol's read on it is that the kid has literally zero reason to trust Carol, and you can trust inability more than you can trust unwillingness.  "Good.  That's a lotta work, especially with being an esper.  'Course, being an esper, even if you work a day or two a week, you're still probably all set."

Would that Lucky could debate the point openly.

"...how rich are espers, anyway?"

"I pull in medium six figures, but I solo almost all my dungeons these days."  Or I was about to before I blew up my partnership.  Might still salvage it if the confluence is kind to me.  Well.  'Kind'.  "You get a security esper or be a pilot or something, I think you hit a bit over a hundred thou a year?  It depends on your workload, really.  And if your power is amazing sometimes you just turn into a money printer."

"Amazing like how?"

"Well, uh, there's Flay, right?  And Min Woo-young, the teleport guy.  Or Vera Ablinger, the US teleporter, her power's not that great but she won the lottery with her marbles.  Or Uisa, she can heal pretty much anything as long as you have a pulse going in."  Or Tim.

So probably not Parry.  "But even someone like - Nitro - could live on one day of work a week?  How do you get away with that?"

"Whoof.  I'd have to get my agent on the line for the details, but it's not like you're the IRS, right?  I get about three to five grand per dungeon I clear.  Most of mine are pretty nasty, and I run most of 'em solo.  I do one or two dungeons a day, I work four days a week.  I could do easier dungeons and do more of them, but it's kind of a waste?  I'd walk through 'em like a kid stomping through mud puddles."  Okay, maybe I work more than four days a week, but I don't wanna be a bad role model.

He frowns and does some mental math.  "Doesn't that come to way more than a hundred thousand dollars a year?"

"Well, yeah, but I got expenses."  And legal fees.  "Insurance, equipment, travel if I'm doing it on my own, I eat a lot of takeout and you gotta live somewhere, right?"

...sad nod.

Awww, shit.  "... has she done, like.  Literally any work as an esper?"

"...not counting today..."

Aw, fuckin' shitballs.  Well, God knows I don't do this fuckin' job just for the money.  "Okay.  Uh, so some espers take out 'bridge loans', where you borrow ten or thirty grand and pay it back after a few months, get you access to guiding and training and equipment and shit.  I knew a guy who - I won't say he got bit by 'em, but he took out a bigger one than was comfy.  You wanna get out of the pool and wait for me for a few minutes?"

"Uh, okay," he says.  Taking out a thirty thousand dollar loan sounds like a really bad idea to him.  He swims for the stairs out of the pool for Serious Talk.

She hurls herself out of the pool, strides over to her seat and towels off.  She dons her flip-flops and stalks into the hotel.  She's a little annoyed how there's supposed to be systems for taking care of kids who are in a bad spot.  But instead of an actual professional taking care of the problem, she's patching the problem esper-style.  Fucking useless...

When she comes back she's got a small manila envelope in hand, courtesy of the front desk.  She passes it over to Lucky.  "Here.  You maybe wanna take that up to your room, before it gets lost.  Give it to your sister."

 - oh okay he will wait for her he guesses?

He towels off too, and takes the folder when she gets back.  "Will do.  What is it?"

"Just a little something to tide you over 'til you two get your feet underneath you.  Little 'welcome to the club' gift."

If he looks, it's a stack of fifty twenty-dollar bills and ten hundreds, fresh from the lobby ATM.

Of course he loHOLY FUCKING SHIT

" - thank you???"

"You're welcome.  Just don't lose it, okay?"

"I won't!" he promises.  "Thank you!!"  He is going to hurry back up to his hotel room holding the envelope very tightly to his chest.

Being an esper is a lot of bullshit.  You lose a lot of your normal social circle, you wind up halfway over the world to kill amorphous semi-unkillable mud golems in Italy, you have fucking backlash.

But you also have the ability to just - take someone's life and make it easier.  Sometimes, that's by taking them out of a dungeon.  Sometimes, it means giving up half a day's pay to make someone's first month as an esper easier.