Joyce Nadeau’s life changed completely when she was hit by a solar flare on a climbing trip to the top of Mount Peters. The bizarre stellar event left her with a full body sunburn that put her in the local hospital for a month. The extended stay wasn’t lonely though as one of her three sisters was always around when her parents weren’t. Then it was back home to the small town of Westcontan, where her mother runs a metal workshop and her father is the librarian. Westcontan and its countryside are farming country that are suffering badly from rising costs, leaving talent, and climate change. Leaving was what Joyce was planning on, as soon as she could find a big city job that would take her rural qualifications.
Then she started glowing. Then moving really fast. Then the glow became a full body energy beam. Thankfully, her family was able to keep this all secret – none of them wanted the attention of Joyce being known as a super hero before they were ready. The super community is riven with politics and personal drama, things Joyce wants none of in her desire to help people. So the Nadeau family kept it all secret and all worked together out in their orchard to train Joyce. Her youngest sister Annette in particular became her girl in the chair and technical support. Only when she was ready did Joyce reveal herself to the world, taking the super hero name Sunbeam.
The last three years have been very different from what Joyce had planned and filled with learning. It’s certainly been more exciting than picking pears, but it’s not a life for those looking for a low stress environment. First there was the learning how to pick which emergencies Sunbeam would respond to, as Annette and Joyce quickly realised the hard way that despite Sunbeam’s extraordinary speed, she can’t be everywhere at once. Working with the local government, a deal was made that Sunbeam would be the local state supported hero for her county and the wider rural community around it. The government has provided a small budget to get her professional training. So her second set of learning has been formal first responder training – Sunbeam is a fully licensed paramedic and is half way through her firefighter training. Both of these have pushed Joyce academically more than she ever has been before and she’s been pulling all nighters with her father to catch up on her studies. The role of superheroes in law enforcement is legally murky at best, so the arrangement is that Sunbeam only helps with civil safety. Joyce has stayed out of the international super community and has not joined any of the hero unions. She’ll help with global emergencies, but then returns to her home.
There are perks from helping out though. Last summer’s dimensional invasion is how she got her new uniform, a marked improvement over what she had been wearing. When she first started out, Annette and her put together something robust using running gear and motorcycle leathers. Some of the money from Westcontan was spent on some high quality custom overalls which Joyce liked for their simplicity and rural style. Sunbeam’s role in repelling the invasion needed her to run faster and longer than she’d ever gone before, so Fateweaver went to work. They crafted Joyce a new outfit from solar fibres with neutronium inserts. The fibres in the weave capture additional sunlight and the boots have a kinetic energy recovery layer for the tight turns and rapid stops. It’s tougher, more flexible, and highly fashionable. Joyce’s mother keeps trying to get her to wear a sash with it, saying the top of the leggings dips far too much.
Sunbeam has to manage her energy levels, which depend on how much sunlight she’s been able to absorb. When she first started training, Joyce and Annette found that extended speeding and overuse of her solar rays would leave Joyce exhausted beyond what food, drink, and sleep could quench. The Nadeaus have tried all sorts of artificial light, but only sunlight recharges Sunbeam’s powers. Though she was never an early riser, Joyce has gotten to love the quiet and beauty of the dawn as she sits on the roof soaking up the sunrise’s first rays.
Image Credit – Sunbeam by Joe M Davis – CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0