The transition was exactly as jarring as before. One moment I saw a hero who had spent the last hour or more protecting me die, the next bright sunlight. I stood stock still for a long moment, in shock and questioning whether I had really seen what I had seen. Was Browbeat really dead?
I was pulled out of my head by a sharp impact on my shoulder. It was Shadow Stalker - she had hit me. "Hey, listen! I was talking to you!" she said, sounding irritated.
"Sorry, I must have spaced off," I responded, "what?"
"We need to carry this guy off the path. I've called for help, but we can't let him bleed out in the middle of the park, here. Help me move him."
I looked down. At my feet was the guy who had gone before me. In the clear daylight, the blood across his sweatshirt looked worse than it had before, and his breathing was ragged and uneven. I looked back at Shadow Stalker. We were in a park, now that I was aware enough to notice. It wasn't one I recognized, but it was bright and there were bushes off to our right. We had been deposited on the sidewalk, just in front of a payphone that was hanging off its cradle.
I stooped down to help her lift the guy and followed her lead dumbly as she pulled us over to one of the bushes.
"The PRT are on the way, they're going to want to bring us in for debriefing" she said as we settled him just out of sight of the sidewalk. "They know the very basics of what's going on with Psyren, but you've gotta know: you can't tell them anything." Her mask was focused on me, as if she was looking me straight in the eyes. "Not 'cause I don't want you to - you
can't. I heard there was a thinker in Boston who had a heart attack and died when he tried to say too much. The PRT know we're involved with Psyren and that we can't tell them anything. If they ask you anything and you get a bad feeling or feel any pain when you try to respond, just let them know you can't say. I don't know why the fuck you kept the card instead of taking the money, but you're stuck with us. Bombast should be back any second now -"
As she spoke, a flicker of movement grabbed my attention. Matsuri had appeared in front of the payphone, the black leather of her costume torn in three places but otherwise looking completely unharmed. She was staring at her clenched fist, and started a little when she heard Shadow Stalker speak.
"I've called the PRT," the Ward told her.
The older woman walked over to the two of us and nodded. "I'll duck out, then." She sounded more somber than before, and her helmet moved to face me. "You know that park on Captain's Hill? This Saturday, four thirty in the afternoon. I'll explain what the spooks can't. Stalker, the PRT knows to watch her while she recovers?" Shadow Stalker nodded. "Good. See you both then."
Then she turned around and jumped, the single motion carrying her up and up over the rooftop of one of the nearby buildings and out of sight.
Shadow Stalker glanced over at me before sitting down and leaning back against one of the trees. I joined her, waiting quietly for the PRT to come as I processed what I had just seen.
***********
I wasn't sure how long it took for the van to arrive. We sat on the ground in the park, next to a guy who may have been bleeding to death for what could have been anything between five minutes and an hour. I could feel bugs again, and I was trying to concentrate on what they were doing instead of focusing on the way my hands were shaking, or the unsteady breaths of the guy in the bushes. My headache hadn't gotten any better since returning to the familiarity of Brockton Bay, if anything it had gotten worse, and I was too afraid to even move lest I jostle my skull around and send a lance of blinding pain into my awareness.
The flashing lights of the ambulance that appeared didn't do me any good, and by the time someone had come over to Shadow Stalker and I, I barely felt aware enough to comprehend what was going on around me. I was too busy focusing on the little lights of awareness around me instead of the vision of someone dying barely five paces away from me.
It was probably a woman wearing a brightly patriotic scarf who came over and talked to us. Shadow Stalker, at least, seemed to recognize her, and actually stood to talk with the older woman. It was pretty clear she was explaining what had happened, from her tone and gestures, though the odd words that I actually managed to catch were incredibly vague. Things like "got a call again," and "new face, needs a mask."
At some point, one of the less-clear figures in my awareness came over to me, offering a hand to pull me up, and when I didn't take it, helping to haul me up to my feet. I didn't precisely want to go - my thoughts weren't clear at all and it seemed like I was seeing the world from the bottom of a deep well. Even the bugs - my insects were sluggish to respond. There were fewer than before, though I didn't remember specifically ordering any to leave my range. Was something eating them? Or -
I started a little as the van jerked into motion, only belatedly realizing I didn't remember getting onto the van. The Ward and the other woman were still talking, though this time in hushed tones that made me suspect it was about me. I was fading in and out, and the dark metal walls of the response van paired with my own state of mind made it hard to tell reality from nightmare. It wasn't like I hadn't had one like this before: trapped in a small metal space with a cruel voice whispering about me. It alternated with scenes of the cold green world and blood erupting from wounds through chest and head.
***********
I must have passed out entirely on the van ride, because at some point in my blurry awareness, I was no longer sitting in the benches on a moving vehicle, I was laying down in a bed in a light-colored room with no transition between the two scenes. I wasn't alone; there were two familiar figures standing over my bed, talking in a more conversational tone. I was not at all lucid, still fading in and out, but I managed to catch a single coherent string of exchanges..
"She said we're in a 'recruitment' stretch," the more familiar voice said. "'S'why we're getting so many missing people. Fuck, now I'm the only person left of my - ah,
class."
The taller figure muttered something that sounded comforting.
The smaller figure didn't seem mollified. If anything, she seemed angrier. "If they couldn't fucking take it why did they bother to keep the card?" Her fist slammed into something nearby. "Shouldn't've even tried if they were going to bitch out."
"It's okay to be angry," the older voice consoled.
Whatever her partner said in response, it didn't seem like it worked, as she continued to jitter about in violent, forceful moves. Or perhaps it was only me that was seeing that,which might make sense given I saw them disappear and reappear from the room multiple times.
Wherever I was, it was extraordinarily clean. There were few bugs in the area, and the number continued to dwindle, matching the pain in my head and the steadily increasing distance I felt from the world around me. The lost time was catching up to me, growing more and more frequent for longer periods, until eventually, inevitably, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***********
I was entirely alert when I awoke. The room around me was bright and sterile. So recently after my recovery from the locker incident, I was able to peg my location as a hospital room almost immediately.
My mind spun through the last few hours of memories, trying to catch what had been real and what hadn't. So much had felt like a nightmare, too outside my own experience to properly slot into place. That flooded wasteland, surely that had just been a dream, hadn't it?
I was laid out on a bed just like the four others in the room with me, all empty. I had to revise my earlier conclusion - obviously, this wasn't a hospital room, as I couldn't imagine being left alone to recover in a four bed room in any hospital in the city. There was quiet noise in the background,the shuffling of feet and the sound of some news program speculating fruitlessly on the whereabouts of Butcher XV. Below all of it, as if transmitted more through the floor than the air, was a steady hum of energy.
I glanced around a little more. While I was in the hospital last month, there had always been a button to call the nurse, but looking over at the sides of the bed and the side table, I wasn't able to see anything like that. The motion did, however, make me aware that there was something on my face.
I reached up to touch it with my hands. It was stiff paper, conformed loosely to the shape of my cheekbones and brow. A domino mask. I could feel my heartrate pick up as I understood a little bit more. I recalled the PRT van arriving to pick that Ward up. Had I gone with them? I hadn't been changed out of my clothes and there wasn't an IV in my arm, so I couldn't imagine it was any longer than just the night. Where even was I? I had meant to go home - I needed to go home, my dad would be worried sick, especially if I had been missing for a whole night.
"Hello?" I called, hoping there was someone around who could answer my questions. I sat up in the bed, the cheap sheets bunching up around my waist.
I didn't hear any immediate response, and I nearly swung my legs over the side to get out of bed entirely before someone called back. "I'll be right there," from just outside the room.
I heard a chair slide across tile floor and the radio or television the news was coming from shut off abruptly. Footsteps approached and a broad man in scrubs appeared in the doorway.
"You're awake," he said, his expression pleasantly neutral, his tone only a hint surprised. "They didn't tell me what was going on, just that you were sleeping off a non-contagious fever for the night. I've called one of the Protectorate on duty to come talk with you, if that's alright. Did you need anything?"
"Where am I?" I asked. Another glance around the room told me nothing I hadn't been able to spot the first time.
"Oh! Of course, I heard you weren't lucid when you came in. We're in the Protectorate headquarters. You were clearly suffering from some sort of reaction after an incident one of the Wards called in. Do you remember that much?"
I gave a slow nod, still somewhat uncertain. Did that whole flooded nightmare world count as an incident? It seemed like kind of an understatement, but then who was I to say how serious that was on the scale of what the PRT generally dealt with.
"Well, when the response team arrived on site, you already had the beginning stages of the fever. I have a note here," he gestured at a clipboard tied to the foot of the bed, "that the symptoms are expected and part of the effect of a classified matter. Does that sound about right?"
The PRT already knew? I had trouble fitting my head around that. Obviously, one of their Wards had been transported as well, and it hadn't seemed like it had been their first time. "I guess so?" It was more of a question than a statement.
"Well, I have notified the Protectorate cape on duty, so they should be coming down to talk with you about this. Anything I can get you while we wait?"
I thought about it. I felt a lot like I had just woken up from a very long night's sleep, and my throat had that dry, almost sticky quality to it. "Could I get a glass of water?"
"Sure, just give me a moment. You lay back down until that hero comes to talk with you, alright?"
He didn't stick around to hear myr response before he had stepped away and I was alone again. I was very self-conscious of my hands and skin for some reason, the sheets and my sweatshirt and partially-dried jeans feeling coarse and irritating. I flopped back onto my pillow. Not even twenty-four hours into my cape life and I had gotten the attention of some weird cult and had blown my identity to the PRT. This was going great so far.
A moment later the man was back with a paper cup that looked almost comically small in his hand. He had barely stepped past the doorway when I became abruptly
aware of him in a way I hadn't been before. I managed to keep my head from snapping in his direction in surprise, but he made it nearly to my bedside before I had fully comprehended what had happened.
He had entered my range. A
human had
entered my range.
It was only in the light of this new revelation that I realized that I wasn't feeling my insects. I had been putting them out of my mind when I could, just a low buzzing at the edge of my awareness, but it was only successful to a degree, and I was always somewhat conscious of my swarm. But now there was just
nothing, a big blank emptiness where my mind was quiet. Even the man that I was suddenly aware of wasn't
mine exactly. He was within my range without being part of my swarm, but I knew that if I wanted to, I could reach out and do...something. Would I take control of him like I did my bugs? Would I just alter his feelings somehow? Or was it something else entirely?
I had done a little bit of research, after realizing that I had powers, and everything I had read had subtly implied that powers didn't really change that much over time. What you started with was what you got, plus or minus some experimentation and improvement in personal skill. There were a few rare stories of people like the Guild's Narwal who abruptly had their power get different, but even that wasn't something on quite this magnitude. And if my power really had gotten stronger, why had he only crossed my range when he got within a few meters of me?
"Hey, are you alright?" a voice said, pulling me out of my sudden alarm. It was the nurse, already at my bedside and setting the glass on the table next to me. He seemed concerned and had leaned slightly in as if to check on how I was feeling. He had moved of his own accord while in my range, talked and acted exactly as though he hadn't noticed anything at all.
I noticed. I could feel him there, but not like my bugs were, or had been. There was more to my power, more subtlety at the very least. I nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, just spacing out."
He looked a little doubtful as he backed away slightly, but he didn't have time to question me further before someone else swept in through the doorway to the medical bay.
It was a woman in fatigues and tactical gear. She moved quickly across the room, entering my range almost immediately. I recognized her by the star-spangled scarf she wore around the lower half of her face. This was the Protectorate hero who had come to speak with me. Miss Militia.
In the sense my power gave me, she was different than the nurse. Her light was brighter, and gave off a slight hum of power. I didn't have any time to process this new revelation.
"I need to speak to the patient alone, please," she told the nurse, not unkindly. It made my stomach flip over with the thought that she must know about my powers and who I was.
The nurse was quick to comply, giving me a simple nod of acknowledgement before hurrying away out of my range and my sight. Miss Militia watched the doorway even after he had left, as if to confirm he really was giving them some privacy.
"Hello," she began, her tone clipped but her eyes concerned and caring. "I'm sure this is very confusing, but I need to explain a few things right off the bat."
I nodded in response, though I probably didn't need to. Maybe I was a little starstruck that one of the local heroes was talking to me directly.
"You are a victim of the supervillain or organization known as Nemesis, as part of the Psyren incidents. You do not need to respond," she hurried to explain, probably because I had opened my mouth to explain what I had seen. "In fact, do not try to say anything until I have said what I need to, please. The PRT has some records of Psyren victims, and I'm sure you saw in the park that one of our Wards is affected too. Needless to say, there is an investigation ongoing, but previous incidents have made it clear that you won't be able to tell us anything about what you experienced while you were gone. If you try to do so, or if you attempt to talk about any secret about Nemesis or what you have experienced in Psyren, you will experience a sharp pain in your chest, which will increase in severity the more you try to say something. If you do not stop, eventually you will go into cardiac arrest, and there is one recorded case of someone dying as a result."
I was frozen, my mouth open as I had been about to speak. I wasn't sure what I had been meaning to say, as I had forgotten it in response to the lurch of horror at her words. Had I known that? It sounded like something I had been told recently, but I couldn't recall exactly.
"Confirmed triggers of the effect include attempting to show someone your Psyren card, attempting to describe what happened during your disappearance, naming other people targeted by Psyren, or attempting to describe additional rules that we have been unable to learn." The cape's expression softened somewhat. It was a surprise how expressive she could be with only half her face visible. "I am so sorry you have gotten caught up in this. Keeping what I just said in mind, do you have any questions?"
I closed my mouth. There was an intense emotional whiplash going on in my chest as the giddy excitement of being directly addressed by one of my heroes warred with the dread her actual words were inspiring. "Is Shadow Stalker and - " I mentally missed a step as I recalled that I didn't know any of the names of the non-capes I had met in Psyren. " - the guy. Are they alright?"
Miss Militia was making direct eye contact and it was sort of uncomfortable, so I glanced away. "Shadow Stalker is just fine, though she will have to be examined for injuries before her debriefing, such as it is for these events, tomorrow. The boy that was found with you was quite injured but he will likely make a full recovery." I got the impression she was studying me, and I couldn't help but imagine how I must look to her. My clothes were still damp, despite sleeping for however long I had been out, and I had little tears at my hoodie and likely my hair.
"New capes are rarely in a good place, but you have a particularly hard road ahead of you," the heroine said. "The PRT categorizes Psyren victims as Case 76. Whether or not you had powers before your disappearance yesterday morning, you will have them by the time twenty-four hours have passed since you appeared in the park. If you did have powers before this event, you will notice they have changed, though the mechanics and reasoning for this change are unknown. The PRT testing facilities are available to you, though you should know there are additional limits imposed by the master effect to what you are allowed to show us about the power change. Any questions yet?"
I shook my head, but then immediately changed my mind. "If you know so much about it…"
"Why don't we say anything?" she finished. "If we let anyone know that confirmed Psyren victims always got powers, it would cause people to seek out the cards, and capes with analysis powers have confirmed that the ratio of people who get pulled into Psyren and never come back is already too high. Psyren may just have a way to target people who are capable of developing powers."
It made sense, thinking about it, and a thought struck me about what she had said. "That's how I got the card before -"
I choked. A piercing pain ran down my throat and wrenched at my chest like iron bands around my heart. The edges of my vision greyed out and I couldn't tell if it was caused by whatever was creating the pain or the panic I was feeling in response. Then, just as abruptly as the sensation had appeared, it stopped, leaving me gasping.
Miss Militia stood closer to me, concern visible in the set of her shoulders and furrowed brow. "Don't try to say anything, it will be alright. The effect is extremely unpleasant, but is unlikely to kill you unless you attempt to intentionally pass information on, so slips like that sometimes happen when you aren't thinking about it. That is not encouragement to try to slip anything past it, though," she warned. "Do you need any water? Do you have any other questions yet?"
I shook my head at the first question, my hand rubbing around my collarbone as I tried to think of any questions. Any thoughts I might have had had been thoroughly derailed by the unexpected sensation a moment ago, and I had to put real thought into remembering where we had been in the conversation.
"Then let me finish what I was saying," Miss Militia said when no further questions were forthcoming. "Powers come to people in...moments of intense emotion. Whatever you just went through, whether or not you had powers before, was clearly traumatic, and it is in the aftermath of times like these that looking after ourselves is the most critical. The Protectorate has resources and information available for new capes in exactly the situation you are in now, so know that you can reach out to us if you need anything."
For all that they seemed practiced, Miss Militia really seemed to mean the words, and a jaded, anxious part of me was happy to see that my childhood heroes lived up to their image.
The woman leaned back on her heels slightly, resettling her weight as she reached into one of the pockets on her vest. She seemed more relaxed now that I wasn't in immediate pain. She pulled out a plain white card with a stars and stripes motif on one side and contact information. "Let me give you my contact information - you can call this number at any time and someone will be available to talk or pass a message on if you need it. If you are having ongoing issues, don't be afraid to reach out." The last part was said with more emphasis, as if she thought I wouldn't take her seriously otherwise.
I took the card from her, cupping it in my hand for a moment and just looking at it, before slipping it into the pocket of my hoodie.
"Have you been having any problems at home?" the heroine asked.
I shook my head. Then, when that didn't seem vigorous enough of a denial, I replied, "no."
Miss Militia smiled under her mask, and I was impressed that she managed to make it visible despite her mouth being covered. It was something to do with the way the skin near her cheekbones changed. "You're getting enough to eat? Sleeping alright?"
I nodded.
She relaxed a little at that. "Good. We will be providing you with a cell phone - you don't have to keep it with you, but something about your situation is tied to phone lines, so it would be a good idea to have one on hand. It's not something that you are allowed to explain to us, but enough cases that we have observed have let things slip to know that keeping one with you is important somehow." She reached into a different pocket and pulled out an unmarked black cell phone, the edges rounded and the overall design rugged and sturdy."If nothing else, you can use it to call a parent or guardian to pick you up."
I didn't reach to take the device. "My dad doesn't know about…" I trailed off, not sure where to start with that. It was clear enough for Miss Militia to have a reaction to my words, but I couldn't tell what she was reading into them.
"That's alright," she said. "We have protocol in place for this sort of thing. You are documented as an anonymous witness by Shadow Stalker for questioning on a recent cape attack. It is standard practice to give these blank masks to bystanders we talk to, to help avoid reprisals. Your father can come by the headquarters, or you can meet him nearby. Nothing has to be explained.
I thought about it, then took the phone from her hand and examined it. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, it wasn't like I would be able to see listening or tracking devices anywhere.
"Alright, I will leave you your privacy." Miss Militia said, already stepping back away from my bedside. "Just remember, you can call if you ever need help. We will be available if you reach out. And - " she stopped, as though she was reconsidering her words, before starting again. "If it's something you cannot come to one of us about, please reach out to Shadow Stalker. She can be...somewhat jaded, but you know better than I what she is going through, and she has the PRT's support." Then she left, dropping out of my range a step before the door, leaving me alone looking at my new phone.
I had never had a phone, never even held one before. It felt a little like a betrayal of my dad that I had one now. But I was a cape, and if the last day or however long it had been had left me something, it was with the realization that the cape world was dangerous. I had - I had seen two people die, and had been looking the other direction for another. I had seen a cape killed. That I had survived that place at all, it was a miracle, and the work of the other capes, one of whom had given his life to help me.
And, I finished the thought, I couldn't keep beating around the bush. If I wanted to do the hero thing, I had to do it, didn't I? And that would mean being willing to take the tools I needed, even when it made me uncomfortable.
I steeled myself and made the call.
***********
Look at this! Less than a full year!