The towering windows of City Hall cast long shadows across the polished oak table as Mayor Eric L. Adams leaned forward, his hands clasped together. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Across from him sat NYPD Commissioner Patrick O’Donnell, several high-ranking officers, and key city officials. The topic on the agenda was unlike anything they had ever faced before.

  Superhumans.

  “I want straight answers,” Adams said, his voice firm. “How bad is it?”

  Commissioner O’Donnell exhaled sharply. “Worse than we expected. We have reports coming in daily. Supers are showing up in every borough. Some are small-time—people with minor abilities. But others… others are real threats.”

  Deputy Mayor Linda Vasquez tapped her tablet, scrolling through images taken from news reports and social media. “We’ve identified at least twenty known supers engaging in criminal activities. In the Bronx and Brooklyn, supers have started taking over as gang enforcers—some as full-blown warlords.” She slid the tablet across the table, and Adams picked it up.

  The first image was of a man wreathed in flame, walking through a ruined street. Another showed a masked figure lifting an ATM out of a bank wall with one hand. A third displayed a man with glowing red eyes, standing over a gang leader’s corpse.

  Adams set the tablet down. “Jesus.”

  “It gets worse,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve got vigilantes popping up, too. Some are trying to help, but they’re untrained, unregulated, and causing as much damage as the criminals they’re fighting.”

  Adams rubbed his temples. “Tell me about property damage.”

  A stern-faced official from the Office of Emergency Management, Deborah Lin, spoke up. “In the last month alone, we’ve documented over two hundred instances of structural damage caused by superhuman activity. That includes everything from destroyed buildings to cracked roads, blown-out power grids, and wrecked vehicles.”

  “How much are we talking?” Adams asked.

  Lin sighed. “Tens of millions of dollars. At least.”

  The room fell into an uneasy silence.

  A City on Edge

  “The public is divided,” Vasquez continued. “Some people are terrified. Others see supers as the next step in human evolution. And some—well, they just want answers. How did this happen? Why now?”

  “The eclipse,” muttered O’Donnell. “Everything started after that damn eclipse in March.”

  “Do we have any scientific explanation?” Adams asked.

  Lin shook her head. “We’ve had experts from NYU, Columbia, and even the CDC looking into it, but no concrete answers yet. All we know is that after the eclipse, people started developing abilities. It didn’t happen instantly—it took weeks for some to notice the changes. And there’s no clear pattern. Young, old, rich, poor—no one is immune or guaranteed to be affected.”

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  Adams leaned back. “So we have no idea how many supers are out there?”

  O’Donnell grimaced. “Hundreds. And that’s just in New York. Other major cities are reporting the same thing.”

  A long silence followed.

  Law and Order vs. Superhuman Power

  “So what do we do?” Adams finally asked.

  O’Donnell folded his hands. “We need a task force. We’re already overwhelmed as it is, and our officers aren’t trained to deal with people who can punch through concrete or throw fireballs. We need specialized units, new tactics, and better equipment.”

  Adams frowned. “And what about oversight? Regulations? Are we talking registration? Licenses?”

  Vasquez shook her head. “That’s a legal minefield. Civil rights groups are already pushing back against any idea of mandatory registration. But at the same time, people are demanding accountability. If a super kills someone, how do we prosecute? How do we hold them responsible if a normal prison can’t contain them?”

  O’Donnell cleared his throat. “We’ve already had a case of that.”

  “What?” Adams asked sharply.

  “Two weeks ago. A guy with enhanced strength was arrested for armed robbery in Queens. The moment we put him in holding, he bent the bars open and walked out. We had to hit him with three squad cars just to slow him down.”

  “Christ,” Adams muttered.

  The Ethical Dilemma

  Lin spoke up again. “There’s also the question of morality. Some of these people didn’t ask for this. They woke up one day with powers and no idea how to control them. Are they criminals just for existing? And what about those trying to help?”

  “The vigilantes?” Adams asked.

  “Yes,” Lin nodded. “We’ve got people dressing up, running into burning buildings, stopping muggers. They mean well, but they’re not trained. They don’t understand procedure, and they’re making situations worse. What happens when one of them kills someone by accident?”

  Adams sighed. “We can’t condone vigilantism. But we also can’t ignore the fact that they’re stepping in where we can’t.”

  O’Donnell cleared his throat. “If we don’t find a way to bring them under control—legally or otherwise—we’re going to end up with a city full of reckless superpowered civilians making up their own laws.”

  Possible Solutions

  Vasquez tapped her pen against the table. “So let’s talk options. What can we realistically do?”

  O’Donnell raised a hand. “First, we need a dedicated response unit within the NYPD. Officers trained to handle supers—both hostile and cooperative.”

  “Agreed,” Adams said. “What else?”

  “Public outreach,” Vasquez added. “We need to establish some sort of communication channel with the supers who want to follow the law. If we push them all into hiding, we’ll lose what little control we have.”

  “We also need to lobby Albany and D.C. for emergency funding,” Lin said. “We’re going to need new infrastructure, new equipment, and possibly new laws. That takes money.”

  Adams nodded. “I’ll make the calls.”

  O’Donnell hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What?” Adams asked.

  The commissioner leaned forward. “We need to consider federal involvement.”

  The room went silent.

  Adams’s jaw tightened. “I don’t want the feds coming in and turning this into a military occupation.”

  “I understand,” O’Donnell said. “But the reality is, if we don’t get ahead of this, they will come in—whether we invite them or not.”

  The Final Word

  Adams sat quietly for a moment, thinking. This wasn’t just a local crisis—it was a national one. Maybe even global. The city was changing faster than they could keep up, and they needed to act now.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Adams said, looking around the room. “We set up the task force immediately. We start recruiting officers who can handle these cases. We reach out to the supers who want to help and bring them into the fold legally. And we work on getting the funding we need.”

  He exhaled. “But we keep the feds out of this for as long as possible. New York handles its own.”

  The officials nodded. The plan was far from perfect, but it was a start.

  As the meeting ended and the officials filed out, Adams remained seated, staring out the window at the city skyline.

  New York had faced many crises before.

  But this? This was something new. Something dangerous.

  And it was only the beginning.