David was first on the scene, and an ambulance wasn’t far behind him. David was able to get the sticky sealant patches on my back where I couldn’t reach them, and on my front to get my chest sealed up. Which was good, because breathing had been getting sorta hard. Other first aid followed, and I was loaded up on a stretcher and carted off to the hospital at breakneck speeds. The paramedics got IVs stuck in me and looked over the work that had been done so far. Seemed about like what they would have done, so they left it alone for doctors at the hospital to take care of. The drugs were good. A comfortable numbness took the edge off most of the pain, and I got a little foggy-headed.

  I closed my eyes in the ambulance and felt my power at work. I hadn’t sprouted tentacles or had my hands twist up with hooks and claws, and for that, I was thankful. Maybe my control was improving through use. Things were crawling around inside, moving furiously around the bullet wounds, but between the painkillers making me a bit loopy and numbing the sensations down, I really couldn’t give much of a shit at the moment.

  One of the paramedics had been talking to me. My helmet was off for the ride, and I had an oxygen mask on. It was hard to keep track of what he was saying. They’d ask me something, I’d answer, and then it’d be right out of my head.

  “I totally kicked Oni Lee’s ass tonight,” I blurted to the paramedic with the sandy hair and aviators on.

  “Oh, really? Wow, nice work.”

  I nodded my head, which made everything spin a little, and I grinned. My lower abdomen throbbed and burned enough that I felt it through the haze of trauma painkillers, and I felt a pressure building and pressing against the gauze that was over the wound. “I uhm. I have to take this off,” I said, picking at the tape that was holding the covering down.

  “No, no, leave that alone, you need to keep that on until we get to the hospital,” Sunglasses said to me.

  “No, uhhhh, my power? It’s doing power things, I need to get it off.”

  Sunglasses looked over at the other paramedic, an older lady with gray hair pulled tight into a bun. She shrugged at Sunglasses.

  “Okay, but be careful not to tear the wound,” Sunglasses said, turning to me. He gave me a hand peeling the tape back and taking the gauze off, then jerked his hand back and pressed against the side of the ambulance like a pit viper was about to strike him.

  “FUCK!” He shouted.

  I looked down. A long, weird-looking cylindrical plug of bloody something was pressing out of the wound, some blood welling up around it. It squeezed out to a length of about the width of my hand, then fell over and rolled over my side onto the stretcher. Red tendrils that looked like coarse hairs were sticking up a couple of inches out of the bullet hole. They waved around a bit, then seemed to pull back into my body some, laying down over the wound, crossing over one another, and then pulling taut. Skin started to grow over the top, but it was blue? In fact, after the skin grew back, the blue seemed to spread outside the area to cover more of the space than the bullet hole had occupied. It reminded me of a cornflower or something.

  “Wooow. I got a flower tattoo!” I said with a dumb grin plastered on my face.

  I could feel similar activity elsewhere on the various slashes and bullet wounds.

  “Y-yeah, uh, great, good job.” Sunglasses said.

  “Can you help me with that other one, over here? Please?” I touched the other hole I’d treated on my lower abdomen. He nodded rapidly and helped me peel the tape back–using forceps this time. The same process as before played out, and soon I had another blue tattoo matching my right side. Well, it was a different shape and size, but close enough.

  “Do you normally heal fast?” The lady paramedic asked me.

  I nodded a little, then clarified: “Yea. Well. Maybe not this fast, this is so cool, hehe. But a lot faster. I feel a lot better already. Do you think I can go home after we get to the hospital? I have school tomorrow.”

  The lady glanced at my vitals monitor and shrugged, holding her hands out to her sides. “I’m just a paramedic. I don’t make decisions like that, or really ever deal with people like you.”

  “Aw, man, we’re just people too, you know. You don’t gotta put it that way.” I tried to huff, but it came out as a juicy-sounding wheeze.

  “Sure, kid. You just lie back, we’re almost back to the hospital.”

  Bitch.

  We got to the hospital, and there was a whole team of people waiting for me. They were moving around my bed as they wheeled me through the building at a rapid pace. I couldn’t keep track of everything they were saying to one another. We got into a room, and they transferred me to another bed, lifting the sheets I was on and sliding me over. From there, I was poked, prodded, touched, listened to, flashed with lights, and questioned. They cut my costume off despite my protests and put a gown on me. I was declared sufficiently stable for other doctors to come in and take a deeper look, and with that, they were gone. I rested my head back on the pillow. It was comfy.

  I think I might have nodded off at some point because the next thing I knew, my mom had my head buried in her chest, and I heard my dad and my sister talking. My mouth was dry and I felt pretty tired.

  “Mm. Hey mom. Dad. Mels.”

  Mom let me go, and she wiped at her eyes, letting out a stressed laugh. Melody had my hand in hers, and Dad reached over and squeezed my shoulder. They all looked tired. I was in a hospital room with the blinds closed and the lights turned way down, and it was very quiet.

  I smacked my lips and looked around for something to drink. “Is there anything to drink? What time is it?”

  Dad answered first. “It’s late. Or no, early. Early Monday morning.” Melody got me one of those annoyingly small hospital cups and poured some ice water into it from a small pitcher by my bed before handing it to me. I promptly gulped it down and asked for another.

  “Doctors said you’re doing remarkably well. You’ve been healing very quickly and should be out of here and back home in no time. They want to keep an eye on you for a bit longer until you can get released,” Mom told me, before covering her mouth and yawning.

  Her yawning drove me straight into one of my own, and my eyes watered. “Buh. Good, I don’t really want to miss school; it’s a pain to catch up. Or work. I don’t want to miss work.”

  A fourth voice spoke up, a woman whom I recognized. I hadn’t noticed her in the room. “Don’t worry about work. They’re going to be going over what you got tonight for the next couple of days, at least.”

  “Ha-” I started, my foggy head tripping me up, but I still caught myself. “Miss Militia? What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be staying up for me…”

  “I don’t sleep, and I wanted to keep an eye on you to make sure you were doing alright,” she responded. I peered around Melody and saw her leaning against the doorway in her costume, an American flag bandanna covering the lower half of her face. She was toying with a combat knife in her hands, the handle flickering and glowing with a green energy.

  Oh, right, she doesn’t sleep at all, she’s a Noctis cape. That’s got to kind of suck, although I guess you get lots more free time.

  I looked back at my family. “You all should get back home and get some rest. I’ve got Miss Militia here to keep me company, and besides, I’m still really tired, so I’m probably going to fall back asleep soon.”

  Dad and Mom shared a look, and Melody protested a bit. Dad spoke first: “Let’s head on out now that we know she’s alright, hmm? I can take you into school tomorrow, er, today, so you can sleep in later.” I leaned up and hugged each of them tightly in turn, careful not to dislodge or irritate the IVs jammed in my arm in the process.

  “Love you, Mom and Dad. Love you, Melody. See you later? Tomorrow? Whenever. Soon.”

  They smiled, waved, filed their way out, and headed home. I scrubbed at my eyes and drank my second tiny cup of water. Miss Militia pushed off the wall and stuffed her knife, which had become a pistol at some point, into a holster at her hip and took a seat in the chair next to the head of my bed.

  “How are you feeling?” She asked me.

  I stopped to consider for a moment. “I feel pretty good? Sore, but like after a really hard workout, or a marathon, or something. And uhm.” I looked up at the ceiling tiles and took stock of my thoughts of the evening. I went to talk, then looked around to see if there were any obvious recording devices.

  “You can talk here without worrying about it. This is one of the rooms reserved for the Protectorate and PRT.”

  I nodded. “I feel good about tonight, too, I think. We got the evidence that we were after, right? I feel sorta bad for getting put in the hospital, but I think I did alright?”

  She tapped one thumb over the other, her hands together on her lap. “We did. Armsmaster is going over it back at HQ. He's trying to document everything and make the best case we can for Washington. He wanted to come over here, but figured the time would be better spent digging through the data so it’d be ready in the morning.”

  That made sense. I had sorta mixed feelings about Armsmaster. He was a bit brisk and maintained distance more than some of the other members of the Protectorate in the bay, but I didn’t think he was a bad guy, just sort of… frosty. It wasn’t a secret that he was very career-motivated and looking to press any advantages he could get internally. I respected his dedication to his career, but I hoped that if I ever wound up in his position, I would be a bit closer with my team and those under me.

  Miss Militia interrupted my thoughts: “As for being put in the hospital, don’t sweat it. It happens, it’s part of the job. Considering you were heavily outnumbered and operating solo, you did quite well in my estimation. We also had a gift left for us at the warehouse. Who we think shot you, and the gun. Both his legs were broken.”

  I blinked my eyes. “Why?”

  Hannah shifted in the seat and shrugged slightly before saying, “Hard to say. Possibly, it was Lung making a demonstration to keep his other crew in line. It could have been an apology of sorts, or an attempt to buy off the heat for gunning down a Ward. Some mix of everything. He’s hard to read, and often fairly unpredictable.”

  Her tone was pretty neutral, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I liked that. Like she’d said about Lung, though, she, too, was often hard to get a read on. Played her cards close to her chest, as Officer Collins would say.

  “...Am I in trouble?” I asked, trepidation creeping into my voice.

  Hannah took a deep breath and sighed quietly, then made eye contact with me and tugged her bandana down to expose her face. “In my book, I think you did everything you could have at the moment, given the situation. I also think that our operations team failed to keep track of Lung and Lee’s movements. If they were there, you should have known in advance. There’s always a risk doing what we do, but I don’t think you made any bad calls.”

  She gave me an intense look, holding eye contact with me: “Morgan, you did a good job. And you do good work elsewhere. But you know as well as I do that we only lend our voices and opinions to the PRT, and the civilian side makes the decisions. Do I think they will punish you? Unlikely. I know Director Piggot pretty well, and I would say we’re often of a similar mindset on things. The big thing they care about with the Wards is following orders, learning the chain of command and procedures, and not putting the public at risk or causing a ton of property damage.”

  I felt like a little weight had come off my chest, and my own doubts over my performance were alleviated for the time being.

  “I hate trying to fight Movers,” I admitted.

  She chuckled and agreed: “Yeah. They can be annoying and hard to deal with. That’s why I use grenade launchers against them.”

  We chatted for about another thirty minutes, some storytelling on her part, and a little bit of just casual stuff in general. My eyelids started getting heavy, and I told Hannah I was going to rest my eyes for a few minutes. I was out as soon as my eyes closed.

  I woke up later, the blinds were open, and it looked like a pretty early morning. The room was empty, but there was a bag left sitting on the seat of the chair next to my bed. I felt fairly well rested. I needed to use the restroom, so I used the call button, waited a few minutes for a nurse to come and help me to the bathroom with my IV stand, and relieved myself. When I was done and had finished washing my hands, I pulled up my gown to look in the mirror. I was clean, having been washed at some point during the night, with the exception of my hair. On my lower abdomen, left hip, and over my left breast were vivid blue patches of skin that looked like a mix of a weirdly-colored birthmark and a tattoo, with some winding and branching tree roots surrounding them.

  Tucking the gown under my chin, I got closer to the mirror and hesitantly touched the skin where the serious injuries had been. I drew my finger back after touching it. There was a disconnect in my brain where my skin felt my finger like normal, but my finger felt something that didn’t feel like my skin. I ran the pad of my finger over the spot on my lower left abdomen. It was oddly textured: a little bumpy and incredibly slick. I pressed a little, and it deformed like skin; it was soft, but I noticed that it didn’t seem as elastic. Finding the edge, I tried to pick at it with my fingernail to see if it was a coating or something. It was weird, my nail slid over my normal skin as I’d expected, and I didn’t feel any seam or edge, just the transition where it suddenly seemed like there was very little friction. I didn’t know what to make of it.

  I lifted the back of my gown and turned around to look over my shoulder. I had similar markings on my back in the same places. One on my upper left back, one on my lower left back, and one on my lower right back. There was a long, narrow strip of it on my left hip where I’d been grazed, too, with little branches extending upwards and roots extending downwards from the thick horizontal line. I had some similar spots where I’d been slashed on my upper arms and shoulder, and on my right thigh, where the knife had stabbed straight through me.

  A thought occurred to me, and I dropped my gown and turned back around, then slowly spun in front of the mirror. The gown basically covered all of the spots. There were a few fine lines that stuck out under the baggy sleeve of the gown, but that was it. I thought back to last night. There was a good chance that my family hadn’t seen any of it, or might have thought it was a surgical cleaner or something. I’d try to keep it that way. There was a knock on the bathroom door, and I started with a jerk.

  “Miss Rivera? Your doctor is here to see you.” A soft-spoken male's voice called through the door.

  “Oh, uh, thanks, be out in just a minute!” I grabbed my IV stand and stepped out of the bathroom. A nurse in scrubs saw me, smiled, then said something to the doctor and left, closing the door behind himself. My doctor was a middle-aged Hispanic man with dark brown eyes and short, dark, curly hair. He was wearing a lab coat and a lanyard with a stack of badges over some scrubs.

  “So, you gave radiology quite the headache imaging you last evening, young lady!” He said with a smile, and pumped some sanitizer from a dispenser on the wall into his hands and scrubbed them.

  “I um. I did?” I asked, slightly confused.

  “Sure did! X-ray and CT scans had artifacts and shadows absolutely everywhere around your puncture wounds. We had to crank them to get any sort of image we could meaningfully use for diagnostic purposes.” He waved his hands back and forth at his sides to dry them, and the smell of alcohol and perfume became potent in the room.

  I thought about asking if that was a bad thing, but he interrupted me before I could put the thought together enough to voice it. “Are you comfortable with me examining you with my hands? I’ll have gloves on, but you’ll be exposed, so I can look at the front and back sides of your torso. If not, I can go get a female doctor for you, no problem at all, it just might take a few extra minutes.”

  I really didn’t like being in hospitals. Too many bad memories of the last time I was in one of these beds. I didn’t want to be here longer than I had to. And I trusted him to be professional like my doctor. Blushing just a little, I nodded my head and told him, “It’s fine, you can do it, I have other male doctors.”

  He pulled on a pair of gloves, grabbed a penlight from his pocket, and gestured at the bed. “First up, I’d like you to have a seat, and lift the front of your gown up to the middle of your rib cage for me. Tell me if anything is uncomfortable, either moving into position or when touched, okay?”

  I took a seat as asked, rearranging the IVs so they weren’t in the way, and did as he asked. My thighs were pressed together, as I was nude under the gown. I felt my cheeks warming. The doctor told me, “Tell me if you have any pain or are uncomfortable.”

  I nodded. He touched my right thigh, but it was a firm, steady grip as he poked and prodded where the knife had penetrated. He felt around the edges of the area and asked, “Any pain?”

  I shook my head. He touched directly over the spot and prodded a bit, watching my face and reaction. I shook my head once more. He pressed deeper then, into the underlying muscles. It was sore, but not painful. I told him as such. He smiled and said, “That’s fantastic! And no difficulty walking?”

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  “No, just sorta sore, but I can move fine.”

  We repeated the process for the spots on my abdomen, and when we got to the one on my upper chest, he had me lie back and untied the gown, but only lowered it enough that the upper slope of my boob was visible. I felt fairly comfortable with things. When that was done, I rolled on my side, and he checked over all my back spots.

  Taking up a clipboard attached to my bed, he started to scribble notes and leaf through sheets of paper, marking things down while speaking: “Well, Ms. Rivera, I am happy to say that we’re going to clear you for release. Your vitals are great, no symptoms of any infections, and imaging, despite being a mess, doesn’t show any bullets or fragments. I would say you’re very lucky, but really, I think your status as a parahuman is largely responsible, not luck. A nurse will be by shortly to get your lines taken out. Any questions before I go?”

  Only about a million, but one stands out above the rest.

  Clearing my throat, I asked: “What about my skin?”

  He looked up from his clipboard and asked: “What about it?”

  I am so confused right now.

  “Well, it wasn’t slippery, bumpy, or blue over those areas before I was hurt yesterday.”

  He blinked a few times, then clicked his pen and stuck it back into the breast pocket of his lab coat. “Well, I had assumed that was normal for you. Many parahumans have anatomical differences in some form or fashion. From what I can tell, it appears to be healthy tissue. No pain, soreness, or signs of inflammation in surrounding tissue. I would suggest taking any questions you have to your medical professionals in the PRT. They are far more educated on parahuman matters than I am, and I wouldn’t want to give you bad information.”

  I digested that a moment.

  “Things to be on the lookout for: Feeling sick like you have a cold or flu, or excessive fatigue. Hot or cold chills, pain, or bleeding in wound areas. Any other questions?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to get out of here. HQ might have more answers for me.

  “Stock up on sleep, get some food, and take it easy for a few days. Good luck, Ms. Rivera!” With a wave, he walked out, leaving me alone in the room. True to his word, a few minutes later, a nurse came by and pulled the tubes out of my arm and taped some swabs tightly over the spots. I dug around in the plastic bag on the chair, finding a change of clothing, my wallet, ID, PRT phone, and personal cellphone. I went ahead and got dressed. It was just some underwear from home, a pair of jeans, sneakers, a band tee, and a hoodie. I had the feeling Melody had picked it out. Checking the phones revealed they’d been charged at some point, and both battery cells were almost full.

  I texted my family and told them I was leaving the hospital with a clean bill of health and was heading over to PRT HQ to handle some paperwork and to talk with some people, and that I’d be home after. My mom made me promise to not do ‘crime stuff,’ and I assured her I was only doing follow-up work. I didn’t mention I was going to get checked out by the medical staff there. None of my cape stuff was in the bag at all, just my ‘civilian’ PRT ID. I assumed that Miss Militia had probably collected everything from the ER last night.

  Leaving the hospital, I called a cab and got a ride to a drop-off a block away from where the parking lots for the Protectorate headquarters out in the bay were located. There were plenty of shops and eateries in the area. A short cab ride later, and entirely way too much money for the time it took, and I was checking in at the gated facility on this side of the bridge that connected the city to the former oil rig. The security here was incredibly tight, but they knew me. I still had to scan my cover ID, get a retinal scan, and speak my name into a voice analyzer to get the green light. There was an ever-present risk of people with Stranger classification powers–those that modified or inhibited perception–trying to sneak into our facilities. One of the guards at the gatehouse gave me a ride across the bridge on an electric golf cart, which was nice. The bridge was made of a solid hologram, which was both cool and freaky, as it was partially transparent.

  I texted Miss Militia and Armsmaster with my PRT phone that I was onsite and visiting the medical facilities, but would be available for debriefing after if desired. The inside of the rig was practically a labyrinth to navigate, and in the way things were arranged. Color-coded bars ran down the top and bottom of each hallway and doorframe in departments, and color-coded lines on the floor tiles guided you from department to department. The place was designed to be a secure facility and fortress against villain attacks, and not for ease of navigation.

  I was here to visit Dr. Calloway. He was my ‘parahuman’ medical doctor with the PRT. I sort of suspected he might be a parahuman himself, but I’d never wanted to actually ask him. He was young for a doctor, though. Either that or he was just one of those people who looked ten years younger than he was. I just hoped he was actually here today. I didn’t have an appointment or anything. I checked in with the receptionist at the small medical ‘wing’ and asked if he was in. I explained I didn’t have an appointment, but I’d been in a big scuffle yesterday and wanted a professional opinion after getting out of traditional medical services.

  Ten minutes later, Calloway came out to greet me. He was tall and lean without looking skinny and fit. He was quite handsome, with sandy blonde hair stylishly cut and combed over to one side with some product in it. He had bright green eyes that stood out with his hair.

  “Morgan!” He called out to me, smiling widely. “Come with! We’ll get you right in!”

  I walked back with him through the clinic. It was about what you’d expect, except more accessible with wide halls, tall doors, and ceilings, and lots of wickedly high-tech looking equipment. He brought me into an exam room, and I hopped up onto the table.

  “So, what’s going on? Not like you to swing by unannounced.”

  I gave him the short rundown of events last night: the gunshot, slice and stab wounds, using my power to try and heal myself, bouncing back in record time, and my new additions. He listened intently, twisting and tilting his head, and taking notes on a computer at an insane typing pace I was mildly envious of.

  “Well! I think your ER doctor has the long and short of it, but we’ll take a deeper look with some of our tools, huh? Mind taking your hoodie and shirt off for me so I can get a look and poke around a bit?" I was already expecting this request, and I had a bra on, so it wasn’t a huge deal. Besides, I knew Dr. Calloway. He’d done a lot of my testing after I’d triggered, which was extensive.

  I lay back on the padded table, and he pulled a surgical light on an articulated arm away from the wall, turned it on, and aimed it at my abdomen, then got some gloves, tools, and what I could only describe as mad scientist goggles. He gave me a goofy grin, held up a tongue depressor, and did his best mad tinker villain cackle. It was dumb, but it got me. I laughed and rolled my eyes. He rolled over on a stool and leaned in, and his goggles whirred and clicked, rotating through a bevy of lenses.

  He started off exactly as my other doctor had, touching, asking for feedback on sensations, and checking for pain. Things got a little weird from there. He poked at my bumpy skin with some sharp things, tapped tools against it, listening to the sound my skin made, and at one point asking me if he could try taking a sample. I felt a little nervous because it involved a scalpel, but he assured me that it wouldn’t be painful. I took a deep breath and exhaled, then nodded.

  He stretched the skin flat with his thumb and forefinger and attempted to cut at an extremely shallow angle, nearly parallel. I felt it sliding around on my skin, but it didn’t feel sharp or hurt at all. He grinned, looking quite mad with his goggles, and went: “Aha! Want to see something really cool?”

  Just a bit nervously, I replied: “Is it going to hurt? And um, sure.”

  “Nope, sit up on your elbows so you can see.”

  I did.

  “Hold still for me, and watch this!”

  He slid his grip down the scalpel much farther back than it should be, then flicked his wrist and whacked the blade in the center of one of the big hand-sized spots. I jerked a little. The blade went “Cling!” and didn’t leave a mark, and Calloway pulled the blade up to peer at it with his goggles.

  “Hah! Chipped the blade, how cool is that?” Rolling back, he unfastened the blade from the handle of the scalpel and tossed it into a sharps bin, then pushed his goggles up on his forehead. He had red rings around his eyes where they’d been strapped tightly to his face.

  “So uhh…what is it?” I asked.

  Grinning at me, he said: “Hell if I know! But I know someone who might. Mind if we get a second opinion in here to take a look?”

  “Uhm. Sure.” I didn’t want to feel like a lab rat, but I suppose that having someone else who might be an expert in a different field might help. And I did want some answers.

  “Toss your hoodie on for a moment, I gotta go make a phone call and get some equipment. Be right back, okay?” I nodded and pulled on the soft sweatshirt. A few minutes passed, then there was a knock at the door and Calloway’s voice, saying, “Coming in!”

  He came back in, and some sort of medical robot rolled in behind him. It honestly looked stupid, like a mix of a photocopier, one of those rolling vitals monitors from a hospital, and a set of pretty advanced-looking robotic arms all blended in one bulky, boxy package. I was reminded of what portrayals of old robots in movies looked like. At least it didn’t have random flashing and blinking lights or floppy tube arms. And it rolled around on a set of wheels instead of waddling.

  “Phoenix Strike, would you like to say hello to Dragon?” Calloway asked me with a very mischievous, almost boyish grin plastered on his face.

  I don’t often get starstruck or stage fright. I worked my mouth and frowned. I got out an extremely eloquent “Hi,” on my third try.

  Dragon was one of the best tinkers in the world, and while she wasn’t a member of the Protectorate, as she was Canadian, she did work extremely closely with the Protectorate and PRT. I think she was technically considered a consultant. She was the mastermind behind The Dragonflight, a set of flying robots that responded to A-Class and S-Class threats around the world. She was also notoriously reclusive, having never been seen in person, and using a digital avatar and telepresence to communicate with people. It was widely speculated that she had a severe deformity or was disabled. Either that or she was just really, extremely serious about her privacy and identity. Which was true for most of us, especially the higher-ups, like her.

  A flatscreen display switched over from a diagnostic readout to a 3D animated woman’s face. She smiled and said, “Hello, Doctor Calloway gave me a call and told me he had a lovely young woman with some really neat skin visiting, and asked if I might take a look and lend my opinion!” She had a strange accent that was hard to place. It sounded vaguely Irish, but clearly wasn't. Maybe she had immigrated in the past?

  I felt really self-conscious all of a sudden at the attention. “I’m just a nobody Ward, don’t… Aren’t you like, busy saving the world for someone, or fighting a supervillain?”

  She glanced down and moved her head back and forth, and I could hear pages of a notebook flipping. “Hmm. Seems like I’ve got Saving the World penned down for 2 PM in my schedule.” She looked back up at me with a grin.

  I let out a little groan.

  “Besides, you know there’s a lot we do that isn’t running from fight to fight. I like helping people when and where I can! Doctor Calloway provided his notes, and I have copies of your medical file. Do you want to get started with some questions, and then we can try a few tests?”

  “Yeah, sure. That’s fine with me.” Calloway's phone vibrated, and he pulled it out and looked at it.

  “You two good if I step out for a bit? I have something else I need to attend to,” he asked.

  “I don’t mind,” I said, and Dragon replied, “We’re all good here!” He stuffed his phone back in his lab coat pocket and stepped out, closing the door behind himself.

  “So your PRT records have you down as having a Changer-type power and a Brute rating. Does that sound right to you?”

  I played with my fingertips and nodded. My anxiety around talking about my power, or really dealing with it, tightened my chest a little, but not too badly.

  “And that you don’t often like to use your Changer power, and more prefer to use your Brute power?”

  I nodded without saying anything and fidgeted with my fingertips.

  “Is it always on? Are you using it right now?”

  “I don’t know if it’s like an on or off thing, but it’s calm right now, so I’d say it’s off. I’m not using it at all.”

  “I see,” Dragon said before continuing with a follow-up: “And you didn’t try to change your skin when you were last using it… last night? And you’ve never had this happen before?”

  I shook my head. “No to both. I’ve had other weird things. Like growing tentacles or teeth, claws. Um. Eyes where they shouldn’t be.” My breath caught in my throat, and I covered my mouth.

  Deep breath in. Hold. Let it out slowly. Calm. I can talk about this.

  “I’m very sorry if I upset you. Can I call you Morgan?” Dragon’s tone was soft.

  I cleared my throat and swallowed the knot that had formed there. “Yeah. And you didn’t upset me. I get into my head thinking about it sometimes, but that wasn’t your fault. I’ve been- it’s been getting easier lately. I’ve been using it more, easing into it, trying to get better control.” I glanced up at the display, and Dragon smiled warmly. Well, as warmly as a 3D render can. It was really good, though. I thought she must use face-tracking software; it was in real-time, and not just going from one static expression to another.

  “Morgan, can I ask you something personal? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to; this isn’t related to your exam.” I dropped my eyes back to my lap, then bobbed my head.

  “Talking about things can really help. I know you are seeing someone, but do you have anyone on your team, or any friends you can talk to about it?”

  “No- I… I’m really self-conscious when it comes to talking about that part of my power with my team. I don’t want them to think less of me. And I don’t have a ton of friends who aren’t parahumans that I’d feel comfortable talking to about that. It’s… maybe you know, but it’s hard to talk to people about parahuman stuff who don’t know what it’s like themselves.”

  “Would you like me to contact you so you have my information? We can talk about it, or anything else. I have good availability, but might be delayed responding if things are busy. But I will contact you back.” My vision got blurry, and I wiped at my eyes.

  “I don’t want to be a bother-” Dragon cleared her throat and interrupted me, saying: “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to, and it’s not a bother, not at all. We’re in this strange world of heroes and villains together, and I know very well what it can be like to need to have someone who you can simply talk to without worrying about team or power dynamics.”

  I considered. Maybe she does, at that. Especially if she’s disabled or can’t really get around on her own.

  “Okay. I’d like that, I think.” I’d no more than finished saying it, and both my phones vibrated in my jeans pockets.

  “Want to get back to testing now?” I looked up to see an amused expression and nodded firmly. The arms of the bot came up, and some trays slid out on the front of the chest below the display. Tools and implements of all manner stood in special holding racks, and the fingers on the hands of the bots plugged into the tools, loading up half a dozen different bits and bobs. I pulled my hoodie off and sat on the table next to me, and Dragon instructed me: “Lie back with your arms or hands under your head and try to relax for me. I’ll tell you what I’m doing before each test, so you know fully what to expect. You can watch, if you’d like!”

  I propped my head up on my arms to be able to get a look at what she was doing.

  “These tools might look scary, but I’m not going to hurt you, promise.”

  “Okay.”

  “First up is some tapping!” She exclaimed in a cheerful voice.

  “That’s… really easy?” I asked, slightly confused.

  “Yep!”

  A finger with a selection of rounded tips of varying materials on a wheel centered precisely over one of my spots, and then came down with a rapid poke. Poke, click, poke, click. She cycled through tips and poked my lower belly in rapid sequence.

  “You have very nice muscle tone and definition. You must work out quite often!”

  I chuckled a little and agreed: “I do, yeah. Usually five days a week.”

  This continued for a good ten minutes, as I was poked, prodded, and pinched on three spots on my front and three spots on my back. There were a few scary moments, like when she poked me with a few different types of needles super slowly, a camera on an arm watching from just a few inches away. Another with a scalpel with a handful of blades, like Calloway had done, but more thorough. Finally, she asked me to close my eyes and cover them with my hands, and there were a few snaps as she photographed me with something.

  “All done! You can go ahead and put your shirt and sweater on! That wasn’t so bad, right?”

  It really hadn’t been. Downright pedestrian compared to the kind of testing I went through when I first triggered. That involved getting really poked and prodded, as they treated me like a pincushion while taking what felt like a thousand blood samples.

  “No, that was easy. Thanks, Dragon. What uh, do you know what’s going on? Why is my skin like that?”

  She looked at me while operating the bot, storing the tooltips, disposing of blades and needles, and sanitizing everything while she talked. “So! I have some answers for you, and I hope they’re helpful or reassuring for you, at least. That blue skin of yours is both blue and skin. Sort of.”

  I frowned at her and went to say something, but she grinned and chuckled at me. “Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood! So, for context, Doctor Calloway called me in as a subject matter expert for materials science. He wasn’t entirely sure if your patches were organic.”

  I tilted my head, more than a little confused, and she continued: “They are! Structurally, they function as skin, but they share more similarities with certain marine life and reptiles than human tissue.”

  “Aren’t those like…” I thought back to AP biology class. “Wait, but aren’t those totally different groups? Class? Phylum, Order?”

  “Good! Put simply, yes. There are some very interesting things going on with your skin based on the tests I’m able to do here and now, and I’m not sure there is an exact one-to-one match with any known species. But let’s talk practicalities if you’d like.”

  “Okay…” I wasn’t sure where this was going.

  “These patches of skin: You can think of them like an extremely advanced type of dermal armor. Way beyond anything we can make outside specialized tinkertech. You might have noticed it feels a bit strange, very different than the rest of your skin?”

  “I, yes. It’s a very slick feeling, and it sounds like it’s hard, but feels soft to the touch.”

  “Right on all counts! It is extremely low-friction, and the surface layer is truly hard, in fact, you’d struggle to find anything to cut it. Based on what I can gather, the subsurface layers have an organic mesh providing tensile strength, which is why it’s not as stretchy. That, combined with the surface hardness, would make it quite resistant to piercing and cutting, provided whatever it was didn’t slide off and penetrate your human skin tissue.”

  I took several long moments to digest that, reaching under my shirt and feeling over the spots on my belly. It didn’t feel terrible, and the thought of having body armor skin was a little exciting, but I didn’t want to look like I’d spilled craft paint all over myself. It would out me as a parahuman if I didn't act cautiously, and I didn’t want that. There were also the strange pattern shapes.

  “Do you know why it’s shaped the way it is? Like roots and branches, or thorny vines?” I paused a moment, then voiced a worry that crept into my head as I was saying that: “It’s not human?”

  “Now this is just my best guess, so take it with a grain of salt, please. I can tell you definitively that it is not human tissue; it bears almost no semblance or structure to it. I would hypothesize that the patterning is due to the nature of the way the tissue grew and formed. It’s also advantageous to have fractal patterns like that in terms of the strength of the bond where it connects to your human tissue.”

  I swallowed. My skin wasn’t just covered, it was replaced. The thought sat heavy in my gut like a brick suddenly settling in place. “It’s not human, does that mean…” I hesitated, almost fearing the answer that might come. “Is it going to grow, to spread?”

  Dragon pursed her lips, observing me with a slightly concerned look on her face. “That's a possibility, Morgan. I can understand your concern, but try to take a step back and think about other heroes out there, even some of the ones on your team. Changers who can shift their anatomy and biology like yourself. Breakers who can enter states where they’re not even solid matter, let alone human, like turning into living flame, or a gaseous cloud like Shadow Stalker. This would have been scary for them as well, and maybe still is. Try to think of this as you starting to use aspects of your power you haven’t used before, so you’re discovering new things about yourself, and your abilities.”

  She was right, and I sighed and attempted to calm my nerves. Jessica had said very similar things in the past. It was a good, valid point.

  “Would it help to hear that the more coverage you had, the more protected you’ll be? If it spreads, you’d be virtually bulletproof.”

  “What, really?!”

  “Yes, really. This is honestly very fascinating stuff. It behaves like an advanced metamaterial, harder than steel, but flexible. It might have other qualities you haven’t discovered yet as well. A more detailed study of your skin could potentially lead to some major breakthroughs in personal protection technologies.” She paused a moment before adding, “One last thing before I have to disconnect, Morgan.”

  She’s got such positive energy. I wish I could replicate more of that myself.

  “Yeah?” I asked her, my mind rolling through all the information I’d learned in the past fifteen minutes. The potential upsides and downsides, and the broader implications.

  Being bulletproof and cutproof like Alexandria would be amazing. I don’t know if I want to be blue. I wonder if foundation or concealer would stick to it? It seems like it might not. I need to look up what a metamaterial is.

  “Just a gentle reminder, something to think about and experiment with. While you’re most used to using the Brute classification portions of your abilities, you are also a Changer. It’s possible you could learn to spread that, or maybe retract it at will. Take your time, be careful, and see what your power can do. Approach it like an experiment, and you might surprise yourself with what you discover.”

  I smiled at her, and really meant it. It was a good thought. “Thank you, Dragon. I’ll try and contact you later, maybe, with what I find out.”

  “Good luck, and I hope to hear from you soon,” she said, before her face disappeared from the screen, and the informational readouts of the machine returned. The robot resumed what I assumed was its default or resting pose and rolled to the door, which unlatched and whirred open, then out into the hallway before disappearing. The door stayed open, and I saw Dr. Calloway writing on a standing desk outside.

  I got up and walked out, and we chatted some. I told him a little about what we’d discussed, but didn’t go into any detail. He told me that he would get a report on it all later to review and update my records. He didn’t have anything else for me, and I felt like I had most of my questions answered, so I shook his hand and headed out. I’d gotten to the elevators and was about to try and track down Miss Militia and Armsmaster, when the overhead chimed and a synthesized voice announced: “M. Rivera, please report to the administrative offices lobby.”

  Guess that’s my call.