#doctor rosaline hutch

[infamoussparks]

Chapter 8: Reunions & Relationships

Approx. 4700 words; 30 minute read

He recalled the conversation and found it to be strange, especially paired with Lucky giving him this paper. Benji suddenly had the realization that this could be one of Celia’s doves and he swallowed his worry that Lucky was working with Celia. Her name hadn’t come up in the conversation between Makayla and the others in the office, but this dove couldn’t simply be a coincidence, right?

“... the hell, Umbra? I told you a full blackout!”

“Fetch, I did exactly that. But you heard her! She was having a panic attack. I couldn’t just leave her like that.”

“I don’t care if she was having a baby, you need to follow instructions.”

Makayla groaned softly as the arguing voices started to come in clear within the small room. Both of the voices immediately halted and Makayla struggled to open her eyes. Once fluttered open, the bright lights within the sterile white room were grating on her nerves. She didn’t even try to move her limbs, just turned her head to the side to take in both Fetch and Benji standing over her bed.

“... Hey, losers.” Makayla smirked and then winced. Pain flared at her core. Fetch frowned unimpressed and Benji looked Makayla over before clearing his throat.

 “Makayla?” Benji spoke cautiously as though afraid to cause her more pain with his voice alone.

Makayla forced a single laugh, “I’m not gonna break.”

“She’s fine. Clearly.” Fetch rolled her eyes, shifting her weight to her opposite hip and crossing her arms over her chest. She looked absolutely pissed.

Makayla was tickled pink internally. Good. Let the neon punk be annoyed by her. She enjoyed knowing she was under Fetch’s skin. Makayla went to move her arms and realized she was cuffed to the side of the medical bed.

“You think these will hold me?”

Benji sighed, “No one is holding you here, we just have some questions for you.”

“I’m holding her here. I’ll be honest,” Fetch barked.

“Fetch.” A fourth voice cautioned. Delsin entered the already cramped space. Fetch rolled her eyes and pouted. Makayla felt herself mimic the same expression herself. Delsin turned his focus to the bed, “So… Makayla Grayson, correct?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s me. What else did Benji tell you?”

Benji interjected, “Nothing, just your name, honest. I haven’t seen you in years.”

Makayla sighed, “Yeah, well you dropped out. So did I. College wasn’t working for me.”

Delsin glanced between the two, “You went to college together?”

“Had one class together, but we were in different years.” Benji confirmed.

“Interesting,” Delsin seemed as though that was something newsworthy. “Makayla, you’re working for Celia?”

Makayla laughed, “Not for her, just with her. I liked the promise she offered.”

“... Which is?” Delsin prodded.

“Freedom.”

“Same ol’ song and dance from Doves. Let’s lock her up and figure out next steps.” Fetch sounded impatient.

Delsin gave her that look. Oh, boy. Fetch was in trouble and Makayla loved to see it. She smiled to herself. “Fetch, meet me in the office.”

“Fine. I’m bored of babysitting anyway.” Fetch flipped Makayla off as she turned to leave the room. Makayla returned the gesture with a loud clanking of handcuffs against metal.

“Makayla, listen,” Delsin sighed and spoke a little softer, a little kinder, “We need as much information as you can give us on Celia and her plans. I don’t want to hold you here and I’ll let Benji uncuff you. But if you can help us, I’d appreciate it.”

“Why?” Makayla insisted, “Why should I help you?”

“Because we can give you freedom, too. The right way. You’d have safety here and a place to train and you clearly have friends here already. Just… think it over, yeah?”

Makayla looked from Delsin to Benji and back to the beanie-wearing man before offering a small nod. Maybe Celia’s version of freedom was a bit skewed to being more like a personal vendetta than an actual, attainable goal.

“How long do I have? To think it over?”

“A few days. Benji, here,” Delsin tossed a set of keys to Benji and he caught them easily with his left hand. “Let her free in a minute. I gotta make sure Fetch is in the office.” Then Delsin left.

Makayla was alone with Benji and while she didn’t consider them “friends” she knew Benji had vouched for her and tried to help her, even if the darkness was his fault.

“How long?” His voice pulled her from her thoughts.

“For what?”

“Since you’ve been a conduit? One of us?”

“Oh,” Makayla turned her attention to the ceiling, “Four years.”

“So, you knew while we were in school?”

“Yeah. But you can’t fault me. You never said anything about your powers, either.” Makayla snapped back. Benji looked hurt but he approached her side and started unlocking the cuffs as promised.

“We’re good here. I mean, I think you’d like it here. No one forces you to use your powers if you don’t want to. And I’ve really learned about a deeper level of control,” Benji spoke softly, a kindness mixed with his words, “Not that you don’t have control, just that… it’s an option.”

Makayla rubbed her newly freed wrists and sat up carefully, already feeling a lot better. She checked her stomach and saw only a smudge of scar tissue that was already fading.

“You didn’t have to save me back there, you know.”

“I couldn’t stop myself. You were–I was so worried about you.” Makayla could see the honesty in his eyes and for a moment they reminded her of Cassidy’s eyes. Her best friend. Her ride-or-die. Her would-be girlfriend, if the accident hadn’t happened. She pulled her attention back to her hands and blinked away the tears that seemed to suddenly be tugging at her eyes.

“I don’t know what they want from me here. At least with Celia I just do what I’m told and even then I’m pretty shitty at that, too. But here? Fetch wants me dead and Delsin doesn’t seem too keen about allowing me to stay…” Makayla took a breath and looked at Benji again, “I have no place to go if I don’t go back to Celia. And I’m not sure what will happen if I do. I failed.”

“Then just stay here. I promise they’ll come around.”

“And if they don’t? Then I’m back out on the streets. Alone.”

Benji gave her a quizzical look, “Listen to me, Mak. Pleas—“

Makayla snapped, “You don’t get to call me that! Ever! There's only one person who can call me that and it isn’t you.”

“I’m sorry. Makayla, please listen to me. I’m not your enemy here.”

“You’re not my remedy, either.”

Benji took a step back and composed himself in silence. Makayla sighed loudly, the rush of air messing up her fringe in a gust before the black and neon green strands fell back into place over her forehead.

She started again, “I’m sorry, that was… Listen, I’m just nervous. I only know you here and you can’t vouch for me forever. Plus, I dunno if you know this about me but I’m kinda on everyone’s hit list here.”

Benji laughed, the sound breaking the awkward nerves in the room, “No shit, really?”

Makayla twisted and threw her pillow at him. Benji caught it an inch from his face.

“Listen, I don’t need saving but I’ll help as much as I can. Celia is acting really weird lately and assigning what should be my missions to Orion. It’s not fair and something is up.”

“Let’s get you settled in and then I’ll tag along when you go to talk to Delsin and Fetch about everything, deal?”

“Deal.” Makayla smiled and suddenly felt relieved, like she had been holding her breath and finally surfaced. It was a weird feeling for her, but something told her she could relax here. Maybe she could even trust someone other than herself for once.

“Remember to breathe, Dr. Hutch.”

The lessons were hard but Rosaline was pushing herself anyway. For Caly, she reminded herself. For Caly.

Originally Eugene had tried running a few simulations with her using his power to project holograms, but these didn’t seem to work with Rosaline’s magnification abilities. It was hard to unlock a more mental-focused power with something that demanded a more physical approach. But after a few more tries, Eugene had an idea and phoned a friend. It took a bit for them to arrive but when they entered the training arena Rosaline instantly felt a wave of calm and encouragement from them and now they were sitting cross-legged on the floor facing one another.

“Please, call me Rosaline,” Rosaline concentrated on her breathing as instructed, “Like in yoga class… I’m finding my center.”

Her teacher reached out and touched her hand, “Stop that. This isn’t yoga. I want you to focus on connecting yourself to your power, not your center.”

Rosaline took a deep breath and pulled her long, red hair into a messy bun atop her head, which nearly matched the size of the pink bun her teacher had atop theirs. They spoke like they’d taught people how to really connect to their powers all their lives, but something creeped into the back of her mind, like that was a lie or a façade somehow. Like maybe this was just how they taught themselves. And maybe that was enough. Rosaline didn’t need to see transcripts or a list of names of successful students, she just needed to make this work. For herself. For Caly.

“Okay, Garrett. Let me try it again.”

Eugene sent an email. Another call for help. At first it bothered him to have to rely on others for help when he was a powerful conduit with connections, to boot. But it was these connections that were a boone to his power, not a fault of it. So now Eugene reached out unabashedly and continued to work while waiting on responses.

This response came at lighting speed. As expected. Childe was one with the Internet, after all.

They seemed happy to help and Eugene toasted his half-empty cup of coffee to them from his side of the computer screen.

“I just need to attack this from both sides. If we can crack this database wide open we’ll be saving a lot of conduits. I have a feeling Stratego may have additional facilities that we simply don’t know about yet.” SEND.

The reply came quickly. {I’m on it. I’ll be in touch.}

“I’ll drink a coffee for you, Childe. Thanks so much.” SEND.

{LOL! Thank you.}

With this being worked on, Eugene finally felt like he was making big strides instead of banging his head against the wall. Amazing what a small breakthrough, some powerful conduits and a few cups of coffee could accomplish.

The meeting between Makayla and the Heroes went better than Benji was expecting. Fetch had seemed annoyed at first, but as she was taking in what Makayla offered, she started asking more questions and by the end of the meeting seemed to be a little more amicable toward the toxin user. Benji was pleased.

Now, Benji was alone in his dorm which felt odd after spending so much time with Caly in here. He was sort of at a loss on what to do with the silence… video games? Art? Homework? Nah, not homework. But his eyes landed on his desk anyway and zoned into the folded paper he had left there. The one from Lucky.

He picked it up from his desk and turned it over in his hands. It was an origami dove and he wondered if maybe Lucky needed help afterall. 

“Are you okay? Do you need help?”

“I’m better now, thanks. Take care of Caly. Good luck, Benji.”

He recalled the conversation and found it to be strange, especially paired with Lucky giving him this paper. Benji suddenly had the realization that this could be one of Celia’s doves and he swallowed his worry that Lucky was working with Celia. Her name hadn’t come up in the conversation between Makayla and the others in the office, but this dove couldn’t simply be a coincidence, right?

Benji was flicking at the folds of the paper when something told him to unfold the dove and he pulled it apart carefully. Inside on the paper was the following message:

Grasp your FREEDOM, now Consider this your invite Accept your calling

“Oh,” Benji whispered to himself after reading the note, “I need Makayla to tell me where to go… I need to warn Lucky about Celia.” And he started tossing things into an old backpack. This was his hero’s calling, he could feel it in his bones.

“Benji? What are you doing here?” Lucky spun around running to Benji with a look of concern on her face. She grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him back into the shadows away from the entrance of the abandoned train yard. Benji thought she’d be happy to see him but her actions spoke louder than words.

“Are you safe? I unfolded the origami you gave me and I came as soon as I knew where to find you.”

Lucky gave him a puzzled look and moved her hand from his wrist to interlacing her fingers with his. Benji felt his cheeks warm and was thankful for the shadows for once in his life.

“Are you okay? Is Caly?”

“Yeah, Caly is fine. I’m fine,” Benji was trying to read her. Something seemed off but he couldn’t figure it out yet. It didn’t help that her hand felt warm in his and it was throwing his senses off. No one ever held his hand. This was new to him and it was really nice.

Benji shook himself to pull himself together, “Listen, Lucky. You may be in danger. That origami dove you gave me? It was one of Celia's, right?”

Lucky furrowed her brow, “Yeah, how did you kn–”

“Celia is using you for some self-important job. She’s going to hurt you once she no longer needs you,” Benji cut in, “You need to get out. Now.”

Lucky’s eyes searched his face. Benji wasn’t sure if she was finding what she needed or not. He just hoped she believed him.

“It may be too late for that. But you shouldn’t be here. If she sees you here…” Lucky’s voice drifted off and she quickly glanced over her shoulder as if she heard something he missed. “Good luck, Benji. You need to leave.”

Benji felt a rush of… something. Like a splash of water in his face. It was a strange sensation and he realized he had felt this once before with Lucky. She went to drop his hand and he grabbed her hand back quickly, holding it between both of his hands now. He was searching her face now and she looked slightly terrified.

“I’m not leaving you here. Come back with me,” His voice was a hushed whisper. He was begging her.

Lucky seemed to hesitate for a moment. It gave Benji a surge of hope. But then she glanced at their hands and she gently pulled hers away again, “I wish I could. I have to stay. For now.”

“Is she hurting you?”

Lucky seemed caught off guard by that assumption, “What? No. I mean, I can leave soon. I’ll find you again, I promise.”

Benji shook his head. He was not accepting this weird flow of words from Lucky. Something was clearly wrong and he decided to stay. What did Fetch tell him? Sometimes you gotta trust your instincts and choose the lesser evil. Let’s hope she wasn’t wrong.

“I’m staying with you, then. I want to see what Celia has planned for myself.”

“Benji I don’t think that’s a good idea…” Lucky started but noticed Benji seemed to have made up his mind. She sighed, “Keep your power hidden but ready. Something is changing and I’m getting nervous.”

Benji nodded as Lucky took his hand again and led him into the tunnel that held their small cohort of a team and Celia’s hidden base for Operation Freedom.

The knocking was loud. Then louder still.

“C’mon, Benji! Open up! I know you’re skipping class,” Fetch’s voice was muffled beyond the dorm door. “I’m letting myself in on the count of three.”

Fetch counted as she found the key she needed and then she unlocked the door to Benji’s room. She was hoping the conduit was just asleep since he was now off babysitting duty and had just used a massive amount of power at her behest. So, when Fetch opened the door and found the room all but empty, she was very, very confused.

And then she noticed something on Benji’s empty desk. A piece of paper that had familiar folded lines which had been smoothed out.

Fetch entered the room and picked up the paper, reading the message inside before fisting it with anger that all but set her neon ablaze. She left his dorm room, closing the door behind her but leaving it unlocked and headed not back to the office, but to another dorm down an opposite hall.

Another loud knocking on a closed door but this one was quickly answered.

“Yeah, yeah, what do you wa–oh, Fetch.” Makayla raised a single eyebrow while standing in her doorway.

“We have a problem that I think you can help with,” Fetch held up the scrunched paper in her fist and Makayla looked from it to Fetch’s face before nodding quietly. “Meet me in the office, now.”

Delsin and Eugene were already in the office planning lessons for the upcoming semester when Fetch crashed that party with Makayla in tow. She stormed to the desk and slapped the paper down on the wood.

“We have a big problem. Benji is gone.”

“Gone?” Delsin read the paper and then looked to Fetch and passed the paper to Eugene to read over as well.

Makayla sat carefully on the armrest of the couch, as though she may need to bolt from the room at a second’s notice, “He’s with Celia. I know where her base is.”

“We are not going to her base. It would be like walking into a trap,” Delsin strategized.

“Smart. I see why people call you the ‘Hero of Seattle’,” Makayla seemed to relax a bit on her perch.

Delsin nodded and then leaned into her bubble, “That’s why you’re going instead.”

Sweat beaded along her forehead as Lucky pushed her abilities and dodged an attack aimed at her head. She had been standing still with her eyes closed, tapping into her luck and relying upon it to guide her actions. It wasn’t a perfect dance, not yet anyway. But Lucky was determined to fine-tune this new skill.

“Too slow!” Her brother’s voice shouted from someplace in front of her, a noise like a razor upon glass alerted her to a new barrage of his mirror shards flying her way. Lucky dove left but as predicted, she was a second too slow and one shard sliced into her calf.

Lucky cursed under her breath, rolling until she sat up and could check the damage. It wasn’t a deep cut but she still frowned at being cut at all.

Orion approached her and stood over her, hands resting on his hips. “I told you to just fight me normally. This whole pushing your luck is going nowhere.”

“Stop being such an ass about this, Orion. I really want to try this. I think I can make it work somehow,” Lucky reached up to him and Orion grabbed her wrist to pull her to her feet while rolling his eyes.

The pain was sharp and sudden. Lucky gasped and glanced down seeing a shard driven up and under her ribcage. She blanched and stumbled forward into Orion’s arms. He held her gently, whispering into her ear.

“You trust too easily, sister. You need to build your pain tolerance before you try new tricks.”

“... Orion… Why?” She inhaled and held her breath, her fingers finding the shard before she wrapped her hand around it and yanked it from her skin. The pain caused tears to escape from the corners of her eyes and she pressed her bloodied palm to the wound as the shard fell to the grass at her feet.

Orion pushed her away from his embrace and ran his index finger under her chin, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. “Anger looks good on you, Lucky. Ready to fight me now?”

Lucky narrowed her eyes, forcing celestial light into her hands. The one over her wound flared with pain as she focused on cauterizing the wound with the heat. She flicked her free hand upward to latch around Orion’s wrist, the burn registering as pain flashed across his features. Lucky smirked internally knowing she had bested her brother for a moment.

Orion yanked his arm from her grasp and immediately summoned more mirror shards to his aid with a flash of golden crescents flickering in his eyes. The shards flew like arrows loosed from an invisible bow and Lucky dodged them all gracefully.

While Orion pulled more shards from thin air, Lucky forced celestial light in his direction. It flew like a thrown sparkler, sparks flying and her aim true. As it reached close enough to Orion, Lucky clapped her hands together and the sparks of light exploded in his face. She was quickly disappointed as the smoke cleared and her brother appeared from behind a mirror shield he crafted to protect his face.

Lucky scowled but then she was hit with sudden dizziness and her steps faltered. A glance down told her the stab wound was still bleeding and that this mini skirmish needed to quit while it was just between the siblings.

Benji caught her in his arms before she hit the ground.

“Lucky!” He was looking her over quickly and then his eyes started fading into this blue-gray color and Lucky reached up one hand and cradled his cheek. Her touch canceled his call to his power and he looked back down at her.

“I’m fine. Don’t hurt him.”

“But he hurt you.”

“And I’ll do it again if she wimps out with our next sparring session,” Orion cut in standing before them both. His arm was sporting a burn mark in the shape of her hand and his face looked marked by small dots of burns. So she had hurt him with her attack. Lucky smiled to herself. “I’m leaving. Let Celia know I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“What? Where are you going?” Benji shouted after him as Orion turned and started walking toward the city.

“To the bar. I’m hunting for trouble.”

“I hope it eats you alive, brother,” Lucky called after him and then she moved to sit in the grass, leaning back against her hands to relieve some pressure from her wound. Orion scoffed and waved but never looked back.

Benji dropped to sit next to Lucky, his eyes still darting from her face to her wound. He looked concerned for her and she gave him a soft smile.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“You aren’t healing?”

“Oh… Yeah. About that,” She shifted a bit and winced just a smidge, “My power is luck-based and that’s pretty rare to drain. So healing is a slower process for me. I will heal, it just takes a little longer than most other conduits.”

Benji frowned a little at that but then sighed softly, “What can I do to help?”

Lucky gave him her full attention and for a moment said nothing at all. No one had ever offered to help her before. No one had ever seemed to care. She searched Benji’s eyes but only found genuine kindness. Her heart fluttered for a moment in her chest.

“Stay with me?” He’ll get hurt if he stays, Lucky thought to herself, But he isn’t going to want to leave you, not like this.

Benji just nodded and scooted closer to her on the grass, “Yeah, sure. I’m here, Lucky.”

“Thanks, Benji.”

The bar was a loud, public place with a thin haze from cigarettes and cigars lingering in the air. By the time Orion pushed through the doorway and approached the bar his face was fully healed and the mark on his arm had faded to a shadow of color. He asked for something strong and smooth and let the bartender work their human magic on a drink that met his requirements. He took a long sip from it before taking a moment to look around him and start to narrow in on a target.

A lot of people were keeping to themselves at the bar, or enjoying the company of friends at the few tables scattered throughout. A few people seemed to be running on liquid courage, while alone with a potential partner for the evening. But as Orion took another long sip from his glass, ruckus laughter pulled his focus and he narrowed his eyes at a man with a slight build and blonde, spiky hair. The man was not alone and he demanded an audience. Orion felt his pulse rise with the thought of stealing that attention for himself.

“... tell us about your new boyfriend, Luca…”

Orion smirked and finished his drink, slamming the glass on the bar before leaving his spot and heading for the blonde, a single, overheard name whispered under his breath, “Luca.”

The goal was simple: Push. If this guy was a conduit, push harder. Orion was looking for a fight and starting one in this crowded bar would be easy for him. A necessary release of anger, energy and power. He wanted to feel something tonight and either Orion would get his ass handed to him, or he’d get what he wanted–it was simply up to the tipsy, laughing blonde that was in his sights.

The night would be a smashing success either way.

“What do you mean?” Benji asked Lucky curiously. The two had been up all night talking and the sunlight was beginning to creep into the space they were sharing within the abandoned train yard building. It had been easy to talk with Lucky about anything and Lucky seemed to enjoy his company, so he stayed. Benji was also sticking by in case her unpredictable brother came in and decided round two of fight club would start before Lucky was fully healed.

“I mean, I think something is going on between Celia and my brother. Orion has been really combative with me for a few days now and just the other day Celia gave him a ‘secret mission’.” Lucky put the words in air quotes, “I’m starting to suspect Celia has it out for me somehow.”

“You should come back with me. I’ll protect you,” Benji took Lucky’s hands in his own, “I mean, the warehouse will take you in. We have Makayla healing there now.”

Lucky gave him a quizzical look, her brows furrowed in a way that read as her trying to understand what he had just told her. “Makayla is staying at the warehouse?”

“Yeah,” Benji confirmed, “At least, I hope so. She seemed like she was done with Celia’s bullshit and now hearing a similar story from you… I think you may be in trouble if you stay here.”

Lucky held his gaze and Benji felt a strange pull toward her. The way the sunlight was playing off her light skin and catching on her dark eyelashes… He shook his head slightly to shake off whatever was washing over him at the moment.

“Okay.” Lucky gave him a curt nod.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there. As soon as I know my brother is back here safely, I’ll sneak out and find you.”

Benji tilted his head slightly and gave her a slight frown, “Why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not,” Lucky quickly answered, “I’m protecting you. You need time to get back to the warehouse and let them know that something big is coming and it’s going to get bad. If I’m right, Celia is priming Orion to fight by her side and knowing him as well as I do, well, he’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants out of this.”

“What does he want?”

“Control and power.” Lucky answered. “All of it.”

[infamoussparks]

If you love Dr Rosaline Hutch and amazing stories in the inFAMOUS universe, then please go check out inFAMOUS Erosion by my dear friend, @rogueshadeaux. It's a novel and a very good one with some really interesting twists and turns. This latest chapter needed a second opinion from a professional doctor and my lovely Rosa was in from the jump. I'm looking forward to crafting more tales within Erosion with Rogue as things continue to evolve for Jean.

Chapter Thirty-Eight — Prognosis

I think those were the worst parts of it all; the waiting. That silence that left way too much time for the thoughts to get louder. Sitting on the stiff examination bed in a hospital gown felt more suffocating than a noose, the center of a horrible sort of attention.

4.5 k words | 15-20 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Hospital, procedures, medical events

⚠️AUTHOR'S NOTE: Another chapter, another friend! How could I not let the world's best doctor be a part of this tale, especially when the RowlandRoweWhatever family needs someone with a special set of skills they can't get at just any ol' hospital? Thank you @infamoussparks for letting me steal your girl and show off her brilliant skillset, the inaugural first outreach towards the people who make this fandom fantastic.

I sat up as the patient couch pulled out of the scan machine, pulling the earplugs out of my ears and opening my jaws to force a pop. 

Dad had nearly blown a gasket when Dr. Sims explained what they wanted to do on Monday—or, moreso, how they wanted to do the imaging for it. A dose of diluted raythium with a dye in it for tracing the conducrine and every protein it produced in the time I was in there. “You want to put that stuff in my daughter?” Dad demanded, “A day after we just figured out how dangerous this shit is?”

Dr. Sims did his best to try and placate Dad’s worry, telling him it wasn’t the same. “It’s at least not gonna cause anything bad,” he assured him, “But it’s the only way to activate the proteins in her to observe them,” 

Dad eventually relented, letting Dr. Sims whisk me away as he stayed back with Brent; he wasn’t allowed in the radiology department while I was getting an MRI just in case the magnet became too attracted to his steel. 

“You did great, Jean,” Aunt Sia assured me with a low voice as I slipped off of the patient couch, Dr. Sims wheeling in a wheelchair. They wouldn’t let me walk, and I hated it—I wasn’t crippled, just broken. 

Didn’t matter—either way, I was pushed through the hall like some spectacle. 

Dad pushed off from his place leaned against the wall when the door to the exam room opened, rushing to meet me as Aunt Sia wheeled me in. He glanced down at me, smile stressed and forced, before looking up at Dr. Sims. “Get what you need?” he asked.

Dr. Sims nodded, taking the chair back from Aunt Sia. “Yeah. I’ll be back with the specialist in a bit.”

And there we were, caught in another waiting lull. 

I think those were the worst parts of it all; the waiting. That silence that left way too much time for the thoughts to get louder. Sitting on the stiff examination bed in a hospital gown felt more suffocating than a noose, the center of a horrible sort of attention. It didn’t help that they all had quickly shifted back to treating me like broken glass; Brent was silent and blankly watching me, seeming to examine every move, Dad was still acting as if I’d drop dead any second, and Aunt Sia insisted on coming. Said she wanted to support me. And I mean, sure, I was thankful that they cared…but it was suffocating. Demeaning. Even if that’s not how they meant it, it’s how it felt. 

There was a swift knock on the door, and Dad didn’t even finish saying something about coming in before the door opened—and the sharp click of heels against the hickory floor. 

The person that walked in most definitely wasn’t Dr. Sims. Her red hair was more natural auburn than Aunt Sia’s bright red, shoved away in a messy bun that somehow looked like it took twenty minutes to set. There was one fancy silver pen sticking out of it and that somehow looked deliberate too. If someone asked me to picture a ‘confident scholar,’ it’d probably be someone like her; white blouse, black pants, eyeliner that looked sharp enough to prick my finger for a blood sample. The lab coat swayed behind her as she walked confidently into the room, Dr. Sims closing the door. 

But her smile was warm and welcoming as she looked over the room, greeting, “Hello!” She regarded me first, smiling, “I’m Dr. Hutch—you must be Jean.” 

I smiled back sheepishly as Dr. Hutch’s eyes moved to Dad, something in them registering. “You must be Mr…Rowland? Rowe?” 

Dad chuffed, “I’m not even sure, at this rate,” 

Dr. Hutch accepted his admittance with grace, offering a hand to shake. Dr. Sims turned just as Dad stood, eyes widening when he moved to share the doctor’s hand—and with a shimmering sound and a flash of blue, he was across the room in an instant, gripping Dad’s wrist and yanking it upwards away from Dr. Hutch.

“You don’t wanna do that, D,” Dr. Sims warned, looking at Dad knowingly. The realization struck me almost immediately. 

She was a Conduit. 

Brent seemed to come to the same conclusion, eyebrows shooting up as he glanced at me. “Right, sorry.” Dad said, letting his hand fall. 

Dr. Hutch smiled, “I’ll go with Rowe, then,” she said simply, her own going to rest on her hip. She looked between Dad and I, getting right down to business. “I’m a certified genetic counselor, and I’m here to run one last diagnostic on Jean before we go over your test results—and what I found out from what you sent me,” she added, looking over her shoulder at Dr. Sims. 

I looked her over; nice outfit, a lab coat, and…quite literally nothing else. She made no move to pull anything out of the pockets on her coat, either. Hadn’t we established there was nothing wrong with my DNA? Why was there a genetic counselor here? Dad seemed to think the same, because he asked, “What sort of diagnostic?”

“I want to observe her health on the cellular level,” Dr. Hutch informed him. “It would give us a better idea of what could possibly be the problem here.”

“Do you—” I hesitated, not even sure how to ask what I wanted to ask. “Do you have to draw blood?”

Yeah, that’d have to do.

Dr. Hutch smiled gently, shaking her head once. “No. I’d just need about ten seconds of your time, and your hands.” 

My brow furrowed; my hands? How was she going to examine me with those? Was she gonna palm read her way to my diagnosis? I glanced over at Dad, who looked intrigued more than confused. “Alright,” he said simply, giving consent for whatever procedure she had in mind. 

Dr. Hutch nodded, beginning to roll up her sleeves before asking, “May I see your hands please, Jean?” I hesitated, looking at the cast on my right arm, and Dr. Hutch seemed to understand my concern, placating it with, “Don’t worry—just your fingers are fine.”

She brought her own hands out in a gentle show of faith, a soft coax of her fingers convincing me to lay mine in hers. Her manicured nails clicked gently against my cast as her hands closed over mine, and I could just barely hear her hum to herself as the seconds ticked by. 

Dr. Hutch spent the first few of those ten seconds looking down at where our hands met, but once she passed five, she looked up, eyes trailing along my body as she began to look for something. It was there that I saw it; her eyes were this rich green with golden flecks around her pupil, but the longer the time passed, the brighter that yellow got. 

She was using her power on me. 

Her brow furrowed further as she went from looking at me to around me, like she was searching for something in the air. Her counting progressed further, past seven, and she began to stare at specific spots like she was deciphering hieroglyphics, trying to understand something more than any of us could fathom. 

“...ten.” She breathed. She glanced over at Dr. Sims and shook her head before letting go of the hand in a cast to gently pat the back of my other one before setting it in my lap, moving away to stand by Dr. Sims once more. 

Dr. Sims crossed his arms, looking down at the floor for a moment before saying, “Thank you, Dr. Hutch.” 

Neither of them seemed happy. 

I think everyone else caught on to the sudden shift in tone in the room as well; Aunt Sia moved a bit closer, and her hand came to my back, rubbing it gently. Dad moved two steps to close the gap between us to put his hand on my knee, and Brent’s brow furrowed as he watched them both move. 

Dr. Hutch sighed hard before looking up at Dad. “I’d like to clarify, before we begin, that my power is magnification,” Dr. Hutch began. “I can essentially narrow in on the gene structure of any person and pick apart their DNA sequence just by ten seconds of contact, much like how an electron microscope functions when examining a blood sample. I prefer hand holding as it’s comforting and easy to mask with extended handshakes for those I simply have a hunch about. As I build up to ten seconds I can see the DNA sequence clearer and with that I can determine if anything is out of place or exists when it maybe shouldn’t. I’ve yet to find an instance where I’ve been wrong.”

Jeez, with a power like that, I don’t understand why we didn’t come here to begin with.

“So you’re sure you know what’s wrong with Jean?” Brent asked, looking at Dr. Hutch. 

“We had results before bringing in Dr. Hutch, however, she’s the best second opinion you could ask for. I wanted to make sure.” Dr. Sims said. He inhaled deep, looking like he was biting down on his cheek so roughly he was going to chew a hole straight through it. He looked between Dad and I, cutting right to the chase: “I’m diagnosing Jean with conducrinopathy.”

Dad’s grip on my knee tightened and his jaw tensed, and I swear to god he looked like he was about to start breaking down walls. “What’s…” I glanced at Dad before looking back at Dr. Sims. “What’s condu…that?”

Dr. Hutch took over the explanation, beginning with, “Well, your conducrine—between your shoulder blades, right about where she’s touching right now—is what gives you power. It produces rayacitins, the proteins that change this energy into your elemental conduvergence.”

Conduvergence—that was what they called the powers, right? Using a power was conduvergence. “Okay,” I hummed, nodding. But I didn’t understand; what did this have to do with what was wrong with me?

“A typical Conduit has a set amount of rayacitin proteins in their body, and when they’re running low, that causes that pain you feel in your shoulders.” Dr. Hutch continued, trying her best to dumb this down for me. “They’re also what influences other cells to heal faster. Less proteins, less power, slower healing. More, the opposite.”

Oh, okay. “So is my condushine—”

“Conducrine.” Dr. Sims interrupted. 

“Conducrine,” I corrected, looking back at Dr. Hutch. “Is it just not making enough proteins?”

She looked to Dr. Sims, who sat on my question for a moment. “Sort of.” he agreed hesitantly, head bouncing side to side gently like he was considering which way to go with his explanation. “Conducrinopathy is when the conducrine itself begins to dysfunction. Its protein output wanes, you’re correct. That’s probably the cause of your pain, currently. But it…I suppose the best way to understand exactly what happens is to consider it…a sort of organ failure.”

All my breath left in one huff, and it felt impossible to breathe in more. “What?” I whispered. 

“Your conducrine is in a manageable state right now,” Dr. Hutch interrupted. “But as the disease progresses, it will begin to produce corrupted proteins. Your power will…will turn on you.”

“Wait, like the old forced Conduits?” Brent cut in. He looked furious, but his anger wasn’t aimed at Dr. Hutch and Dr. Sims with his question. 

Dr. Sims nodded. “That’s the main instance we’ve seen conducrinopathy, yes. The conducrine is due to turn on a Conduit if it is forced to copy artificial proteins. It’s like using the wrong blood type in a transfusion. But it has happened to two Prime Conduits. A patient here, and—”

“Mom.” I looked at Dad. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? When she started looking gray a-and sick in the pictures. Her power was killing her.”

“We can’t assume that it was killing her,” Dr. Sims interrupted as Dad’s eyes fell and he stared at the floor, face void of any emotion. “But if we had to compare how she was to the data we have now, then…yes, she more than likely had the same condition.”

My fingers went to mess with my cast, and I couldn’t think of anything to ask. What the hell was I supposed to say? Cool, doc, thanks for the Conduit cancer diagnosis! I felt on the verge of a panic attack. 

Aunt Sia rubbed my shoulder like she was trying to ease the tension out of it, and that was enough to get me to regurgitate one of the thousands of thoughts running through my mind. “Can you cure it?” I asked, looking back at Dr. Sims and his partner with pleading eyes. 

Dr. Hutch looked down at the ground as Dr. Sims appeared to try and swallow back bile. “We…there’s no known cure yet, though in your situation, this has only happened to one other prime whose progression of illness could be followed. There are noted differences between the symptoms in primes versus forced Conduits, but we’re…these are uncharted waters. We don’t know what to expect.”

“What are the differences?” Dad finally asked, voice robotic. “What can we expect?”

Dr. Sims looked like he wanted to do anything but answer Dad’s questions. Like he hated being the bearer of bad news. “The pain and tenderness between the shoulderblades is common. That will probably be the most persistent symptom. However the amount of healthy rayacitin proteins in her body will…they won’t be replaced by healthy ones. The damaged cells will spread further instead, and it’ll…her powers will start getting weaker. Maybe disappear entirely. The healing is usually the first to go.”

Dr. Sims looked at the ground and scuffed his shoe on the wood before adding, “We don’t know how her power will turn on her, either. That will change the status of her condition from manageable to severe more than anything else. And…between Fetch, and the other prime Conduit we’ve observed, decline is…faster in prime Conduits. The way a forced Conduit is already stunted in power is enough to delay it significantly more than a prime, especially when considering how much weaker they are.”

“And you’re sure it’s this?” He asked, looking between the doctors. His eyes settled on Dr. Hutch. “How can you be positive?”

Dr. Hutch was trying her best to keep her face neutral. “When using my powers, I can see this aural ring around people. I can tell if they have the gene, if they’re activated—your daughter has both signs. But there is also something wrong with the aura on her. It’s turning black. The only other times I’ve seen that is when I’ve run diagnostics for Dr. Sims upon his request.”

Dr. Sims shook off the discomfort of the moment, moving a step closer. “Delsin, I’m gonna be here every step of the way in case something happens,” he looked at me, “We’re going to make sure you’re, at minimum, comfortable.”

I hated how he phrased that. Comfortable? It didn’t sound like he was offering to just help me with pain, it sounded like there was more to the statement. A promise for there to be a comfortable end.

And I wasn’t a fool, I knew how this was going for all the old DUP agents; they were either all ill as could be, or slowly succumbing to their illness. His words sounded like he was offering me management if it came to that, too. 

Fuck. Fuck. Tears immediately began to pool in my eyes and it was hard to keep them away. No cure, no help, no idea what was going to happen. But I needed to know one thing: “Am I gonna die?” 

That was the wrong set of words to use; Brent immediately threw his hand back to hammer the side of it against the wall, the hit so hard plaster immediately caved under his fist. He pushed off and stalked away, brushing past Dr. Sims to the door and throwing it open, disappearing into the hall. 

Dad sighed, head falling. “Sia, can you—”

“‘Course,” she said, patting my shoulder gently before leaving the room, heeled combat boots echoing loudly as she jogged to catch up to him. 

The silence in the room truly was deafening, the air thick as the remaining four of us grappled with what just happened. Everything felt like it was slipping away; the color in the blue hospital gown I had on, the noise of the cars on the street outside. This was it. I really was broken. 

And there was no way to fix it. 

Dad squeezed my knee three times, and suddenly I was shot back to when I was a little girl trying to sit through the scariest moment of her life: vaccine day at the doctors. Me sitting at the end of an uncomfortable bed just like this, gripping the edge for dear life as Dad sat across from me, a hand on my knee. Three reassuring squeezes. I love you. 

Took me far too long to realize he’d do it when the needle went in and I’d miss the scariest part of the whole event. 

Now he was trying to reassure me yet again, forcing a deep breath into his chest as he lifted his head, looking at Dr. Sims. “This didn’t start happening to Jean till that fight with Augustine,” he began. “Conducrinopathy doesn’t happen to just anyone. Something caused this.” 

Dr. Sims sighed. “Delsin, her powers just manifested. We truly don’t know if this can be an inheritable condition or not.” 

“Well,” Dr. Hutch held up a finger. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that yet, either.” 

Both Dad and Dr. Sims shot her a confused look. Dr. Hutch didn’t bother waiting for one of them to interrogate her, instead digging into the pocket of her lab coat and pulling out three blood collection tubes full of anything but blood. “I analyzed the two samples you sent, Eugene. And your friend downstairs passed a third to me earlier this morning.” 

Dad immediately bristled. “We don’t have another friend here,” he said, guarded. 

Dr. Hutch cocked her head to the side, concern on her face. “You don’t?” 

“What did they look like?” Dr. Sims interrupted. Dad’s hand tensed on my knee. 

“Short, wide set. Wore sunglasses inside for some reason which I’m…” she drew off. “Now I’m worried was to disguise himself.” 

I knew someone that matched that description exactly, but it wasn’t someone with a hidden agenda. “That’s Zeke,” I forced myself to murmur. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It didn’t even feel like I was talking. Was this what dissociation felt like? Feeling like I was witnessing the room from outside the window to the right? 

Dad scowled…but something in his expression shifted. “He brought you something to analyze?” He asked Dr. Hutch, surprised Zeke even cared. 

“He did,” she confirmed, holding up a collection vial that had black liquid in it that turned iridescent with a deep green where light hit it. I knew that liquid—that’s what Zeke took from the First Sons’ base in New Marais. “Said he hoped it would help me find answers for Jean.” 

Dr. Sims looked at Dad, who almost looked remorseful in a way before blinking a few times, inhaling. “And what did you find?” he asked. 

“Well, from what I understand, these two samples were acquired in New Marais,” Dr. Hutch said, shifting the samples in her hands so she could hold a pair up to the light. “I examined their properties and their aural signatures, and they’re certainly interesting. To save you the technical terms, these two samples almost replicate poison in a way. This one—” she pointed to the black and dark green liquid, “—the poison itself while this contained the cells it was affecting. However instead of killing the cells, they seemed to mutate them. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Dad went on to tell Dr. Hutch what we saw when underground, and how we found files that suggested the creepy crawlies in the First Sons’ basement were Conduits turned creatures. She reacted with horror in the right parts of the tale, but her eyes were alight with a curiosity that she couldn’t hide well at all. “I didn’t know that was possible,” she said. “I knew there were instances of monsters in New Marais but never really followed up on why.” 

“We were worried, with it corrupting Conduits, that it could be what happened to Jean,” Dad finished. 

Dr. Hutch shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the case. Where these two are similar, the one from Salmon Bay is completely different.” She stored away the two vials in her lab coat and held the one full of tar to Dr. Sims, who took it without hesitation. “It matches the signature of every case of conducrinopathy I’ve seen—including Jean’s. It has the same…darkness to it, but at a strength that made it nearly impossible to read without feeling ill after.” She glanced between Dad and I. “It’s like it’s emitting something far more dangerous than a regular Conduit can handle.”

Dad stood, hand leaving my knee to step forward and take the vial from Dr. Sims’ outstretched hand. “So this tar is what caused Jean’s sickness?”

“She was injected with it, correct?” Dr. Hutch asked. 

Dad motioned to my leg hanging over the edge of the bed. “Augustine’s concrete had this tar on it when she managed to pierce Jean’s leg,” he informed her.

The scarring and spider veins on my left leg hadn’t faded at all in the last week. The raised scars were still an angry red and brown, the veins alight like they were lightning with how bright the blue was against my legs. Dr. Sims took a few steps forward, motioning for me to bring my leg up and hooking his hand behind my calf so he could examine it closer. “I need to get this and the break checked on, next,” I could hear him mutter to himself like he was making a checklist. 

Dr. Hutch joined Dr. Sims, looking at my injury from over his shoulder. “It looks like it attempted healing,” she observed. 

“If you’re right, and that tar caused her sickness, could this be when the conducrinopathy started happening?” Dad asked, pointing to my scars. “They’re healed wrong because it was running out of time?” 

Dr. Sims’ brow furrowed. “The results did come back abnormal,” he muttered. He turned my shin lightly and then looked up. “Knowing the tar is practically the same as the illness, I wouldn’t be surprised if so.”

Dad stared at my scarring for a long time, long enough for Dr. Hutch to clear her throat awkwardly and say, “I’m sorry for bringing bad news. If there’s anything I can do to help…”

Dr. Sims sighed. “We’ll be visiting palliative care later today for the patient, if you’d be willing to meet us there.”

“Of course.” 

Dr. Hutch gave me a nod before turning on her heels and leaving the room, the sound of the door as it latched shut behind her feeling like a gavel strike of a death sentence. Dad, still staring at my leg, shook his head and brought a hand up to rub against his face. “Someone did this.” He said. 

“Del—”

“If that tar matches what’s wrong with Jean, then Augustine caused this. I don’t know if it’s because she got a new power, or somehow fucked with her old one—”

“Delsin—”

“But her power caused organ failure.” Dad finished with a stressed voice, and I wasn’t sure if it was to talk over Dr. Sims or simply because he was stressed. “We need to find out how she got the ability.” 

Dr. Sims shifted on his feet, thinking. “We can’t be sure that it’s not something that Augustine simply developed,” he warned. 

Dad shook his head. “I don’t believe that. Archangel helped Augustine. They tried finishing what she couldn’t do! She had to have gotten this power from somewhere.”

“I understand that, but you have to realize—this is the first time we’ve seen a situation like this with its cause. The forced Conduits develop conducrinopathy naturally, and we don’t know how the other two instances of this happened in primes—“ 

“But we know it’s not normal.” Dad retorted. “What happened to Abbs? What’s happening to Jean? Shouldn’t be a thing.” 

There were three sharp raps on the door and Aunt Sia returned, looking between Dad and Dr. Sims as the latter refused to let his gaze wander. “Archangel did something to make this happen, it was probably the plan the entire time—just for me. But this is some sort of power, right?”

“I’m not sure—“ Dr. Sims tried saying as Dad rambled on.

“—so we just need the power to fix it. Only way it’s coming out is the same way it went in.” 

“Delsin, this isn’t like then. We don’t know where the power came from or if it’s something new at all.” Dr. Sims finally put enough power into his voice to interrupt. “This is the only time it’s happened like this. For all we know, with the old DUP soldiers? It could simply be because Augustine was involved.” 

Dad opened his mouth to say something else when Aunt Sia cleared her throat loudly and pointedly, looking at Dad. “Delsin, I think you should go talk to Brent.” 

Dad blinked. “But—“ 

“Just a small talk, then we’ll finish what we came here for.” Aunt Sia turned to Dr. Sims. “Is there anything else we need to do for Jean? She still has some stitches, do they need to be removed?”

Dr. Sims looked confused and yet thankful for the topic change. “Yeah I-I want to get a general check up on her, but we’d need a more qualified doctor.” 

“Alright, then why don’t you go see who you can find while Delsin talks to Brent?” Aunt Sia asked the men, looking at them expectantly. 

They muttered some sort of agreement as Aunt Sia herded around their attention, the two eventually leaving me alone in the room with her. She stepped up to the edge of the exam table I was sitting on, right between my legs, and moved to cup my face, her expression solemn. “Oh Jean,” she murmured, “I’m sorry.” 

She pulled me into a hug and it was like everything snapped back to my center like a rubber band ball; I was no longer witnessing this from the outside, but fully trapped within the body betraying me, the ache in my back reminding me of the diagnosis. “I’m scared,” I admitted to her, voice cracking. 

“I know,” she replied almost immediately. “This has to be so scary for you. But you heard how quick your father was to begin trying to think of solutions,” she pulled away to look at me. She was right: Dad was always the problem solver. I wasn’t sure if this was something he could fix, though. “We’ll take this a day at a time, but you won’t be alone.”

Want more of Dr. Hutch? Check out Feth’s inFAMOUS: Sparks!

Set 7 years after the good karma ending of inFAMOUS: Second Son, join friends new and old as they navigate what it really means to be a part of the Second Age.

A perfect blend of OC and OG, Feth knows all things inFAMOUS like the back of her hand—for good reason ;). I’m a sucker for a good after story, for the butterfly effect of every choice made in canon to change something in their future, and Feth captures that perfect (and realistic) after. Rosa is one of many amazing new friends the original trio make as they take on foes old and new.

[infamoussparks]

Falling with Grace, pixel art Your first look at the InFAMOUS Sparks main OCs. I hope you are looking forward to meeting all of them soon.

[infamoussparks]

Chapter 3: Missing Pieces

Approx. 5,050 words; 30 minute read. Thanks to @rogueshadeaux for the new line spacer! TRIGGER WARNING: Miscarriage, missing persons/kidnapping, death.

A silence fell between the three conduits as they digested the information and started trying to comprehend what this all meant for them. It felt heavy, nothing like the fast and furious nature of the past when taking down Augustine and exposing the D.U.P.. This felt like something else entirely. Delsin started to pace the room, Eugene sat back in the desk chair and closed his eyes, Fetch went to the window and leaned her forehead against the cool glass panes. This was simply a lot.

“So, you don’t have telepathy?” Eugene was perched against the edge of the desk, his question one of true curiosity and intrigue, directed at Doctor Rosaline Hutch who was now sharing the couch with Caly. Caly was soundly sleeping and stretched out across two cushions.

Delsin, Fetch and Eugene had all taken turns being in the office and hearing various parts of the story from Rosaline and Fetch. The school was still in session and classes still had to be taught, so the self-proclaimed Heroes rotated out and in as the day moved along.

Rosaline’s phone rang before she could respond to Eugene and she answered after signaling to him to hold that thought, “Rosaline speaking… oh, hi Dianne. … No, it was just a strange lockdown situation, I’m not sure what happened to trigger it. … Yes, I’m fine. The hospital is fine, just dealing with a handful of reporters as you know. … Of course, see you on Saturday.” She hung up and blew out a soft breath before turning her attention back to Eugene.

“That was just a friend I met in yoga class. And no, my power is not telepathy, I just have expanded my power to be able to act as such. My power is magnification on a cellular level. It’s how I can identify diseases and gene defects in humans. You mentioned that you read my paper?”

Eugene blinked in surprise, “Yes, actually. Magnification… what an unusual ability. But that leads itself well to identifying conduit genes, so now your paper makes even more sense.”

“It’s my secret. We can find markers in DNA but of course it takes a lot of time and money–resources most hospitals and patients do not have. So, I take it upon myself to… speed that up, if you will.” Rosaline glances over at Caly before returning her gaze to Eugene. He nods quietly in contemplation.

“Then… your telepathy is just a magnification of, what?”

<My own thoughts, directed at a target. If anyone touches you right now, they could hear me as well.> Rosaline stayed nearly motionless and her eyes seemed to become a brighter hazel in color as her voice echoed within Eugenes’ mind. He raised his eyebrows over the rim of his glasses, looking impressed.

Rosaline shook her head slightly as if answering a silent question, “I can’t hear your thoughts, at least not yet. I haven’t had time to really focus on expanding my repertoire with my line of work.”

“Ah, I see. Well, I’m sure Delsin and Fetch would welcome you here anytime and could help you to really push your limits, if you’d like.” As if on cue, Fetch and Delsin entered the office together, looking equally strained as if walking on glass with one another.

Fetch peeked over the couch, “Caly is still asleep?” 

“Yes. She was really exhausted when I found her, too. I think she must have been on the run for a while before finding herself in the hospital.” Rosaline reached out and gently ran her fingers through Caly’s platinum blonde curls. The girl hardly moved.

Delsin cleared his throat, “What did you say the uniforms were looking for? Experiments?”

“Projects 41 and 42. Which the more I think about it could be code for her mother and Caly herself. 42 is the ‘Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything��, right? And I know Caly is a conduit.”

Delsin choked on his abrupt laughter, “A conduit? She’s 4-years–”

Rosaline immediately cut him off, “She has an active gene, Mr. Rowe. I can confirm that much. She’s the youngest active conduit I have ever seen.”

“Okay, okay,” Delsin raised his hands in apology and shrugged before dropping into the chair behind the desk, “What is our plan now?”

“I’ll research what I can on this group of soldiers with the owl logo, and see if I can’t crack whatever Project 41 and 42 is code for.” Eugene spun the laptop his way and immediately started typing.

Fetch was studying Caly’s face while she slept, “Who’s watching the kid?”

“I was hoping you would do it. I can’t take her back to the hospital with me… it’s far too dangerous right now. And if she is who those soldiers are looking for, once they find out she is at the hospital they may not return as pacifists.” Rosaline glanced between Fetch and Delsin. Fetch looked up at Delsin and they shared a silent moment.

“We have a school to run, but I can think of two of our students who could make for excellent babysitters… if you’re okay with that, Rosaline?” Fetch asked the doctor quietly while Delsin checked his phone briefly.

Rosaline weighed her options in silence and then nodded, “If you trust them, I’d be okay with that. Caly is bound to be safer here than with just me for right now. Could I meet them before I leave and head back to work?”

“Check the dorms. Break time for both of them.” Delsin stated before dropping his phone onto the desk.

“On it. Back in a neon flash!” Fetch smiled at Rosaline and then left the office in a bright streak of fuchsia that faded slowly as she disappeared down the hall.

With Fetch out of the room, Eugene spoke without looking away from the computer screen before him, “Talk to her privately when you can. I’m not asking.”

Delsin sighed exasperatedly and ran his hands down his face, “Yeah, yeah. I will.” He shook off the momentary frustration and turned his attention back to their guest, “Rosaline, do you need anything from us? Extra protection?”

“That would bring too much attention, I think. I’ll be fine on my own. I know how to reach you.”

“You do… here. Please take this. I know you know it’s our emblem, but it’s also an automatic in for our doors on the building. They’ll unlock if you get close enough and have this with you.” Delsin pulled an emblem pin from a drawer and tossed it toward Rosaline. Rosaline caught it carefully and examined it before dropping it into her doctor coat pocket.

Fetch returned, sans neon, “Hey, so Luke was out working his shift at Latte Owl, but I found Benji. Come on in,” Fetch motioned inside the office and Benji walked in slowly as though he was in trouble with the principles. He was somewhere between Fetch and Delsin in height with dark skin and freckles splattered across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He was dressed in dark jeans with no rips in sight and a prussian blue hoodie.

Fetch ran introductions, “Doctor Hutch, meet Benji Duncan. Benji, meet Doctor Rosaline Hutch,” Benji’s brown eyes scanned the faces in the room before him quickly, then he seemed to relax a bit.

“Uh… hi everyone.” Benji had a voice that was soft and soothing and Rosaline stood up to greet him over the back of the couch. She reached out to shake his hand and he obliged.

“Benji, nice to meet you. Please call me Rosaline. And this…” She motioned to him to lean over the couch, “... is Caly. Please take good care of her until I can return from work later tonight.”

Benji seemed surprised at the sight of Caly, but he simply nodded and straightened up a bit before looking at Rosaline, “Mission accepted, Rosaline.”

“I can already tell you’ll do great with her.” Rosaline dropped Benji’s handshake and seemed satisfied at the yellow aura only she could see. She turned to the room and checked her pockets for her phone, badge and borrowed emblem, “Thank you, all of you. I’ll be in touch.”

After Rosaline left, Benji asked what he should do with Caly and Fetch suggested keeping her in his room for now. He wasn’t too sure about that but with a little encouragement, he decided that was best–he could play video games until she woke up. Fetch gently scooped Caly off the couch and carried her to Benji’s room, the motion giving Delsin pause as he watched her carry the child out of the office. 

“Delsin…” Eugene hummed.

“Fff–I know, man. I’ll talk to her. I promise. I just need to figure out what to say.”

“The truth. You’ve got to be honest with Fetch.”

“Okay, yeah I know. I will be,” Delsin stood and stretched, looking out the window behind the desk as the sun was sliding lower in the sky. Shadows below stretched more and more with each passing minute. Sometimes it felt like he was an elastic band being slowly stretched out until he’d meet his breaking point.

Eugene suddenly closed the laptop and unplugged the power cable, wrapping it around itself into a loose coil, “I’ll take this work and go downstairs. Good luck.” And he was gone before Delsin could stop him.

The office felt suddenly heavy with silence and Delsin closed his eyes trying to piece together what he should and shouldn’t say when Fetch walked through that door. His mind was useless at times like these–he couldn’t plan any words because he was sure Fetch would shift the conversation in ways he wasn’t predicting. Frustrated with himself, he grumbled under his breath just as Fetch entered the office and closed the door behind her. No more time for wondering, now it was time for conversation.

“I think Rosaline will be ok for now. But in the future she may need backup. Who do you think is suited for that?” Fetch plopped down on the couch, flinging her legs over the armrest and leaning into the corner.

Delsin blinked at her, already thrown off his guard, “I… I don’t know yet? Listen, Fetch. We need to talk.”

Those words set the hairs at the back of her neck alight and Fetch immediately tensed up, pulling her attention to her fingernails instead of leaving them on Delsin. Anywhere seemed better than looking at him right now, “Look, I already apologized for going in without waiting on backup. What else do you want?”

“It’s not that…” Delsin sighed, fighting to find the words and finding it hard to look at Fetch directly, “I just… when you were with Caly you looked…” Delsin paused, grasping for the right words, “You were glowing. You’d make an amazing mother.”

Fetch immediately shifted to be sitting forward, elbows leaning heavily on her knees, eyes on the floor. Her voice was quiet, “I don’t want to be a mother, okay?”

Delsin risked a glance at her now, walking cautiously from behind the desk to stand before her, “We could try again. We’re both older now and more stable and we could give a kid a really good life.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think that thought doesn’t cross my mind every day?” Fetch glared up at him, standing suddenly with her hands in fists at her sides.

“Then why don’t we try again?”

“Because, Delsin, I’m terrified of losing another one!”

They say the truth hurts, but they never say how badly. To Delsin, this outburst of words felt like he was being gutted alive, drained of everything that made him Delsin Rowe. This unspeakable truth felt like a landmine. Buried deep and forgotten until it was triggered by some twist of fate. It was a thing they dared not speak about—not to others and not to each other–this tiny secret that felt heavier than the entire world all at once and suddenly it was crashing down at his feet. Delsin was at a loss for words, his mouth hung open slightly.

Fetch puffed a breath up at her fringe, the pink hair shifting away from her eyes for a moment before she found her voice and broke the silence with words barely above a whisper, “I’m going to the training room to blow off some steam. Don’t interrupt me.”

Delsin instinctively reached out and took hold of one of Fetch’s hands, “Abby… I’m sorry,” His voice was a soft whisper, his eyes searching Fetch’s face.

“Yeah,” Fetch met Delsin’s eyes and her expression looked drowned in sorrow, “Me too,” Then she pulled her hand from his and left him alone in the office with nothing more than the feeling of his own tears dripping off his chin.

When Fetch reached the empty training room, she stomped through to the women’s changing rooms at the back, leaving the lights off. She stepped into one of the showers and turned on the water, not bothering to remove any of her clothes. Then she placed her back against the tile wall, slid to the floor and sobbed.

Benji was sitting on his beanbag, which was braced against the side of his bed. In his hands was a controller and a video game played quietly on his small television screen across the narrow dorm room. Behind him, asleep in his bed, was Caly. After an hour, she stirred enough to wake and sat up, rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists. Hearing the blankets shift behind him, Benji turned around and gave the toddler a welcoming grin. He didn’t have any siblings, but he had always wanted one. Benji loved kids… they were some of the smartest people he knew.

“Good morning, Caly. Welcome to the best room in the warehouse–my dorm!” Benji motioned to the room behind him and Caly blinked, her gray eyes wide as she looked around to place her surroundings.

“Oh, my name’s Benji. Rosaline had to head back to work so I’m here to help take care of you until she comes back,” Benji’s face faltered for a moment as he thought over his words, “Huh. Guess that means I get a free pass from the rest of my classes today. Awesome.”

Caly suddenly looked frantically around and then sighed softly as she scooped up her pink blanket and held it against her face. She studied Benji’s face and tilted her head this way then that way before pointing to something behind him.

Benji looked quizzically at her before spinning around and laughing, “Oh, yeah. I’m just replaying Super Mario Odyssey. Want to play, too?”

He stood and grabbed his extra controller, then handed it to Caly. She took it but didn’t do anything with it other than just hold it in her free hand. Her expression was a bit perplexed. Benji frowned slightly and sunk back into his beanbag.

“Well… are you hungry? Need anything?”

Caly shook her head but her eyes fell to his door. She scooted herself to the edge of his bed before rolling onto her stomach and lowering herself backwards to the floor. She held her blanket tightly against her cheek and discarded the game controller on the bed. Benji watched as Caly’s tiny bare feet padded around his room and noted that she kept her hands to herself as she looked around. That seemed strange to Benji as most kids would touch everything if given half a second. But Benji didn’t interrupt Caly, he just watched her quietly tapping into her curiosity.

Benji stood and walked to his desk, reaching over to pull up the blinds there which allowed the setting sun to flood his room with yellows and oranges, the bright colors pulling Caly’s attention to him and the window.

“Wanna see my view? It’s not much, but I like it. I get a lot of sunlight.” He reached out toward Caly and she nodded and walked into his embrace. He lifted her to stand carefully on his desk and she pressed her free hand against the glass of his window, her tiny face suddenly smooshed against the pane as she took in the view. The grass was so green, students crossed back and forth chatting or playing. And the sky, alight with the fire of the dying sun, shining in purples, pinks, oranges, and blues.

Benji again said nothing to disturb Caly from her curiosity, but he took silent notes on her behaviors. Something just seemed… strange to him. This wasn’t typical toddler behavior, but maybe Caly wasn’t a typical toddler. Rosaline hadn’t said much about her and Fetch had offered nothing more than gratitude for Benji agreeing to help babysit. 

“Do you want to watch the sunset? Like, outside?” Benji asked quietly and Caly snapped her attention to him and quickly nodded as though this was her mission in life. He smiled and opened his arms to her and carefully held her, if a bit awkwardly, and then left his dorm and walked to the front of the building. Upon exiting the warehouse, Caly immediately buried her face against Benji’s neck, seeming to be slightly overwhelmed at the noises, colors and people. Benji had an idea and quietly hummed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in an attempt to soothe her and this seemed to calm Caly enough for her to find her confidence as she pulled away from Benji just enough to focus on the sky above them. Benji waved to someone who called his name and continued walking, his steps slowing as he moved up a steep hill and then sat cross-legged on the grass. Caly stood in his lap, one arm around his neck as she took in the sky and the colors all around them.

Benji turned his face toward the sky as well, for a moment taking it in with as much reverie as Caly seemed to have, “It won’t stay like this for too long, but we can hang out here until it gets dark, deal?” Caly nodded in agreement, eyes never straying from the big wide sky above her head.

“You don’t speak much, do you, Caly? You hardly make any noises at all. Are you feeling ok?” Benji’s voice was quiet, but Caly didn’t answer as her eyes seemed glued to the show above them. This was when Benji noticed a piece of folded paper peeking out from the front pocket of Caly’s overalls. Curiosity got the better of him and he reached over, removing the paper without Caly so much as flinching. The two written words of “READ ME” on the fold commanded that it be read and Benji unfolded the paper, reading it quietly and sucking in a breath once he was done. He folded this paper back up and placed it in his own pocket.

Caly blinked and moved to sit in Benji’s lap more comfortably. Benji leaned back on his arms, Caly’s body following his movement and warm against his own as she lounged against him. He glanced up at the sky and noticed it was more purples and dark blues than light and he shivered slightly as the shadows grew around them.

“Let’s go back in now, okay? Want something to eat? The cafeteria has amazing food and if you want I can get you some dessert, too.” Caly glanced up at Benji’s face and her stomach loudly agreed that food was next on her agenda. Benji chuckled, “Alright, food it is.”

Caly moved off Benji’s lap and waited for her new friend to stand before offering her hand to him to hold. He took it politely but worried about her bare feet on the grass, so he picked her back up. The two walked back inside to the welcoming lights and delicious smells coming from the hall where the cafeteria was. Caly’s eyes bounced from each person before them, taking in the variety of people here. Benji shifted Caly so she was more balanced on his hip as he entered the cafeteria, immediately pointing to signs and pictures and asking Caly what food she’d like to eat. The choices were so many and everything smelled so good, but the one thing she started pointing madly toward was the ice cream.

“Ice cream? I think Rosaline would be pretty angry with me if I gave you that for dinner. But I’ll tell you what, eat some pizza with me and I’ll get you two scoops of ice cream for dessert. Think you can do that?” Caly nodded enthusiastically. Benji snagged four slices of cheese pizza, a Coca-Cola and a small chocolate milk, and found a table with two seats open. He sat Caly next to himself, taught her to blow on her pizza before biting into it and helped her open her milk. He was shocked at how quickly Caly devoured her slice and finished her chocolate milk, then she slipped off her seat and started tugging on Benji’s shirt to get her the promised ice cream. He laughed and finally gave in, returning to the table with a bowl of ice cream–one scoop of vanilla and one of chocolate–and a very excited and happy Caly. After dinner and dessert was done, Benji cleaned his section of the table and then took Caly’s hand and led her back to his dorm room.

Unsure of when Rosaline would be back, he offered Caly one of his clean t-shirts as a makeshift nightgown and helped her use the sink to brush her teeth. He waited nervously outside the stall as Caly used the toilet, in full big brother mode. Once she was done and her tiny hands were washed, he took her back to his dorm and tucked her and her pink blanket into his bed. Benji left a string of LED lights around the base of his room on. They glowed in a soft pink color.

“Just like your blanket, Caly. Just wake me if you need anything,” Benji had assured Caly the lights would keep her safe just like they kept him safe, too. Caly was back to sleep in moments. He moved an extra pillow and blanket to the floor for himself, but sleep never came easily to him at night. He scrolled his phone for a while before pulling the folded paper from his desk, where he placed it while getting ready for bed. After reading it once more, he opened an email to Delsin, Fetch and Eugene and attached a photo of the note.

“Found this in Caly’s pocket. Something strange is going on, isn’t it? - Benji”

Benji sent the email then turned off his phone and stared up at his ceiling, contemplating his strange day and how oddly chill Caly was for a four-year old.

Eugene took a big gulp of coffee, the large, iced cup nearly empty already. Delsin and Fetch stood behind their friend, peering over his shoulders at the laptop screen. Several articles were up, a map of downtown Seattle and an email in the background from Benji, sent the night prior. The fresh days’ sunlight streamed into the office and warmed the room despite the cooler air outside.

“Conduits? Are you sure?” Delsin was reading the screen as quickly as he could, the influx of information Eugene was able to pull together in such a short time period nothing short of a secret ability. 

“Definitely. Look at this article. Missing persons are only missing for so long before they are officially declared inactive cases. Families often pursue additional help to track loved ones down from that point forward.”

Fetch snorted quietly and Delsin cast a glance at her. They hadn’t spoken to one another since the emotional outburst the previous evening and Delsin felt that he owed her a deeper apology once the time was right.

Eugene pointed to the screen before him, “But, in cases of missing persons who have no loved ones looking for them, they often just disappear entirely. No cases. No follow up. And look at these missing persons…” He pointed to a webpage with photos and names and dates, “All of them are registered conduits.”

Fetch crossed her arms over her chest loosely, standing up straight after leaning toward the laptop screen, “Okay, so missing conduits with closed cases. What does that have to do with Caly? Or those jerks who stormed the Children’s Hospital?”

“I was able to use your sketch of the owl logo and traced it back to this article here from several years ago. Apparently, that group calls themselves the ‘Stratego’. And they worked as the scientific branch funded the D.U.P.”

Delsin hummed in thought, “But the D.U.P. has been disbanded for years. How is this ‘Stratego’ group still in operation?”

Fetch looked from Delsin to Eugene, clearly the same question on her lips. Eugene clicked through his tabs before answering, “It was a hidden branch. The D.U.P. may be dead and gone, but that doesn’t mean the Stratego were canceled at all. But I couldn’t find anything recent about them other than funding still being funneled their way.”

“Funding? From who?” Fetch was now pinching the bridge of her nose looking more and more stressed over these findings.

Delsin grumbled under his breath, then gave Eugene a pat on his shoulder, “I’ll look into it. What else did you find, Eugene?”

“This.” Eugene opened yet another tab and displayed a profile photo of a young girl who looked to be 16 or 17-years old and had a familiar face but an unfamiliar name. She was marked as missing with no family attached to her case.

“Who is she?” Delsin was reading the few details listed next to the photo, “She’s so young.”

Eugene’s voice dropped to a whisper, “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is Caly’s mom. And that she’s deceased.”

A choked sob sound came from Fetch, but she swallowed the noise as soon as it was made. Delsin quickly reached for her, but caught himself and dropped his hand to his side. Fetch didn’t look at him, eyes glued to the photo on the screen. The missing girl looked like Caly. Eugene was likely right.

“Seventeen? And she was just, what? On the run? And these Stratego assholes scooped her up for experiments?” Fetch’s words had a bite to them.

“I’m not sure, but it lines up with the timeline and the code names of Project 41 and Project 42, especially if Caly was an unexpected addition. And the note that Benji sent us a photo of… that seems to also confirm my suspicions.” Eugene pulled the screen to focus on Benji’s email and opened the attached image.

Delsin released a breath he didn’t know he was holding in, “Fuck.”

A silence fell between the three conduits as they digested the information and started trying to comprehend what this all meant for them. It felt heavy, nothing like the fast and furious nature of the past when taking down Augustine and exposing the D.U.P.. This felt like something else entirely. Delsin started to pace the room, Eugene sat back in the desk chair and closed his eyes, Fetch went to the window and leaned her forehead against the cool glass panes. This was simply a lot.

“We need to lock down the warehouse.” Delsin broke the silence.

“Lock down? And tell the students what, exactly? You think half of them won’t want to run out of here and use their powers to help save the world?” Fetch turned toward Delsin with daggers in her eyes.

Eugene glanced between the two and finished his coffee before breaking the tension, “No lock down necessary. I have a failsafe in place already.”

“... what?” Fetch and Delsin spoke in unison, curiosity and confusion on their faces now.

“The emblems work as security, right? They unlock the campus doors. But…” Eugene started typing something into the laptop, too quickly for either of the other two to follow as they neared the screen again. Suddenly a top-down view of the warehouse was on the screen and then it was littered with small, blue dots. The dots were moving, some in groups, some solo.

Fetch pulled her necklace emblem away from her neck, “Tracking devices? You programmed them to track everyone?”

“Everyone. If I pull the map back we can even see the students off-campus.” Eugene did this and a dot lit up within where Latte Owl was and a few dots even showed up in the local library, one at a bar and one at the Children’s Hospital.

Delsin raised an eyebrow examining the map, “Huh…” He stood up and ran one hand across the back of his neck in thought, “Great work. Now we can work on the Stratego thing in secret without stirring our students and also track them to make sure none go missing.”

Fetch silently nodded once in agreement, “But we should make some teams as a security. Group students so that they can handle things if anything goes down, on or off campus.”

“Good thinking, Fetch. I like that.” Delsin swallowed his pride for a moment to test the waters of this relationship between him and her. It looked like it may continue to float.

“I can get some lists together based on powers and strengths/weaknesses,” Fetch pulled out her phone, making a note to herself, “Have you told Rosaline anything yet?”

Eugene shook his head, “Not yet. I know we’ll have to loop her in just because of Caly, but I wanted to run all this by you both first.”

“... has anyone heard from Benji this morning? Is Caly still with him?” Fetch suddenly paused in her notetaking to glance between Delsin and Eugene. Both men shook their heads. She added that to her list, too.

“Looks like we have a plan. And a secret mission. Eugene–any new news about Stratego, let us know immediately. Fetch–I want to see those lists by dinner tonight. And I’ll work to get in contact with Rosaline and figure out the funding angle.” Delsin nodded to himself. His team was waking up and rising to action with an additional seven years of experience behind them in finding and taking down the so-called bad guys. 

This should be easy. Once they had all the information. And knew what they were up against. And could keep everyone safe along the way. Delsin chuckled once quietly to himself.

Nothing was ever easy anymore.

[infamoussparks]

Chapter 4: Skeleton Closets

Approx. 5,200 words; 40 minute read.

Everyone had secrets to keep, this was just a fact of life. You don’t rise to power, become labeled a “hero” and not have a lockbox hidden away. Delsin knew his secret had been safely buried, but now it felt as though he was going to have to reveal his hand. And he knew, beyond any doubt, that his secret was going to shatter any spark of trust he had built up. With everyone.

Delsin mused over his list, mentally checking boxes next to tasks that seemed to be finished enough for now. He had personally called Rosaline to inform her of Eugene’s findings and she didn’t sound surprised at the least. Rosaline did ask that the team continue to house Caly for the moment, only because the hospital was crawling with reporters even a full day after the incident and she didn’t feel it was a very safe environment for the 4-year old. Especially if Caly had suffered trauma, which seemed more and more likely given Caly’s reluctance to speak while seemingly retaining full comprehension of what was said to her. Rosaline would have Caly’s vision and hearing tested as soon as she could.

After speaking with his team, Delsin paid a visit to Benji who was more than happy to continue to spend time with Caly and be excused from classes. Benji was a good student, only faltering in training classes as he struggled to accept his power and outright refused to use it, even with Fetch’s reassurance that she would be there the whole time and could help him break control in seconds. Benji would just shrug and stop participating and Fetch didn’t push him. Delsin wasn’t concerned about Benji missing any additional classes for the time being.

Eugene hadn’t made much more progress on digging deeper into Stratego simply because they had a very innocuous website and no apparent backdoor into what the company really was. He was busy trying to crack the code in various ways between teaching his classes.

Fetch delivered on her lists of students. The lists were hand-written but grouped students by powers that worked best together to provide the most support for everyone, should they need to start getting defensive on campus. Delsin had kept the conversation strictly business, even though his heart ached to pull Fetch aside and just talk. He made another mental note on his list to get Fetch alone soon.

But Fetch did that first.

“Hey, Smokes… Got a second?” She had rapped her knuckles against the open office door and pulled Delsin suddenly from his head as it snapped toward the door while he straightened from leaning against the desk. Fetch offered a soft smile, “A little jumpy today?”

“Yeah, sorry. Lost in my thoughts. Come in,” Delsin motioned toward the couch and he moved toward the refrigerator, “Want anything to drink?”

Fetch closed the office door behind her and dropped onto the couch in one graceful motion, “Is it too early for a beer?”

Delsin chuckled as he grabbed two beers and joined Fetch on the couch, handing her one of the glass bottles. She quickly opened it and clinked it against Delsins’ before taking a long sip. She sat back against the couch and blew a puff of air up toward her bangs, the pink-dyed hair fluttering before settling against her forehead again.

Delsin leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees while his bottle hung loosely between his fingers. He didn’t say anything but he felt the tension in the room rising between the two conduits in the silence.

“Let’s try this again. You and me.”

Delsin felt his eyes go wide at the words but he only glanced to the side to check if Fetch was still there and this wasn’t some weird daydream. She was absolutely still seated beside him, head tilted slightly to her right as she gazed at him. He swallowed and cleared his throat.

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m not going to push things but I don’t want you to do this because you think I want it.”

“You do, though,” Fetch took another sip from her beer bottle, “And I do, too. I’m tired of chasing my shadows. Delsin, we’re 30. We need to stop messing around, you know?”

Delsin did know but this whole conversation was not at all what he was expecting. He slowly sat back against the couch and nursed his beer for a moment before responding. 

“What brought this on?”

“We’re about to face something crazy, I can feel it. I don’t know what Stratego means for us but I know it isn’t a good omen. And… Honestly, I just miss you.”

“Do you? You haven’t been very open to the idea of ‘us’ in years. And I know that’s my fault too, with the whole…” Delsin motioned by swirling his beer around. It was still too hard to name, “I’m tired of playing games.”

Fetch shifted her position and she leaned up against Delsin then, resting her head on his shoulder. Delsin didn’t move, just waited with learned patience. Fetch could be hard to read sometimes and this was one of those moments. But she was opening up and he didn’t want to accidentally close her off, so he sat with the silence caught on his tongue.

Fetch lowered her voice, her words sounding more sincere, “No more games. I promise. And you know I don’t break my promises.”

“You never have.”

Fetch moved her beer to her right hand, sliding her left one over to Delsin. He paused a second before offloading his beer to his left hand and taking her hand with his right one, their fingers lacing together. It was quiet in that space and Delsin realized he missed her touch. He missed any touch, really. It was incredibly hard to have physical touch with the power to drain other conduits. Even after all these years he still had no control over that first touch and it had resulted in a great deal of personal frustration.

But he didn’t have to worry about that with Fetch as he had taken Neon from her long ago and she never shied from his touch while they were together, on and off again. 

Maybe this time would be different.

“Fetch Walker, you know I can’t turn you down,” Delsin mused softly, giving a quick kiss to the top of her head. Fetch snickered in return.

“And I can’t give you up, Delsin Rowe.”

After an hour, the office had shifted into what looked like some sort of detective set. Papers with hand-written notes covered the desk, Eugene was sighing and growing more and more frustrated behind the laptop screen, Fetch was picking up papers and putting them down again in some sort of pile system that only she seemed to understand, while Delsin was pacing the room, a familiar scene as he was trying to put the pieces together in his head.

“... You two kiss and make up, or what? You both seem a lot more relaxed today.” Eugene sat back in the desk chair, pushing the laptop away from him and took his glasses off as he pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. Delsin and Fetch exchanged a look and Fetch smirked as Delsin winked at her.

“Something like that, Gameboy. When you gonna introduce us to your partner?” Fetch teased. Eugene suddenly flushed three shades of red and looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.

“You know I’m too busy here for that.”

“Oh? That’s not what I heard from our local barista…”

“Oh my Go–”

“OKAY, so.” Delsin cut Eugene off and pulled the conversation back to the topic at hand. Eugene gave him a grateful look and Fetch waved the distraction off, “Where are we on Stratego?”

Eugene sighed loudly, “Dead end. No backdoor, no hints in the code. I’ve tried everything I can think of but I can’t find anything that would connect them to the kidnappings or alleged experiments.”

“So that either means they aren’t behind it, or that they are absolutely behind it.” Fetch chimed in, her focus waning from her paper stacks.

Eugene sighed again, clearly on the brink of giving up, “Did you research the funding, Delsin?”

“Not yet. I was going to see what I could find after my visit today.” Delsin had stopped pacing and was now standing behind Fetch.

Fetch glanced up at him and furrowed her brows slightly, “Are you seeing Betty today for your weekly visit? Where does the time go?”

“Yeah, time is a mess lately, right? I’ll be back before you know it. You two got things under control while I’m offsite?”

Eugene and Fetch agreed in unison and Delsin gave Fetch a swift kiss on her forehead before leaving the office behind.

Everyone had secrets to keep, this was just a fact of life. You don’t rise to power, become labeled a “hero” and not have a lockbox hidden away. Delsin knew his secret had been safely buried, but now it felt as though he was going to have to reveal his hand. And he knew, beyond any doubt, that his secret was going to shatter any spark of trust he had built up. With everyone. 

Delsin loved his visits with Betty. They helped to keep him grounded when things were overwhelming with the start of the conduit school project. They helped to keep him fed when the warehouse took all his time and energy. They provided him with a place to express himself when things with Fetch took a turn for the worst, or when they worked out again. Betty was always welcoming and warm and loving, no matter what stuff Delsin seemed to be slogging through. She was his rock.

Which is why he visited her every week. Or so the story goes. He actually only saw her every other week. And this week was an off-week, so he wasn’t expected by Betty today. He was, however, expected by someone else entirely.

He drove his familiar blue pickup truck on the highway to avoid the main street traffic and took the same exit as the one he took to get to his reservation, but he didn’t drive far enough to even find himself in those familiar woods before home came into view. Today he turned nearly immediately off the access road and traveled along the street until he pulled into a parking lot. He parked and sighed, steeling his nerves before exiting his pickup truck and heading inside the large building.

“Welcome to Seattle Inpatient Psychiatric Cent–Oh! Hello, Mr. Rowe!” A cheery nurse waved as Delsin entered the building and approached the desk to sign in. She was always very helpful and Delsin had long ago picked up hints that maybe she was interested in him, but he didn’t want to pursue something with her with so much else going on in his life. And now he didn’t feel the need to anymore.

“Hey, Lissa. Always nice to see you,” Delsin finished signing in and he caught Elizabeth smiling with a fresh flush on her cheeks. Delsin was the only non-staff member she allowed to call her by that nickname.

Elizabeth stood and walked from behind the desk, using her badge to summon an elevator, “I’ll bring you up to the room. Please follow me.”

“Sure thing,” Delsin followed and once they were inside the elevator he was distracted by his own thoughts, “Any change? Talking? Movements?”

Elizabeth shook her head, “Sadly, none. The doctors are taking good care of her and following your instructions.”

Delsin sighed and ran a hand along the back of his neck as the doors opened to the floor that Elizabeth had requested. She walked out first and he followed her a few steps behind. She stopped outside a closed door marked with a single word and gave Delsin a brilliant smile.

“Here we are. Please just signal if you need anything. You have…” Elizabeth checked a clipboard hanging to the right of the door, “30 minutes with her. She has a call after you from her family.”

“Thank you, Lissa. I should be fine with her alone.” Delsin flashed a side smile and gave the nurse a quick wink. She flushed bright red and then nodded and quickly left back toward the elevator. Delsin watched her go and once he was mostly alone in the hallway he refocused on the door before him. And that one word written across the whiteboard attached to it–catatonic.

With a strong inhale through his nose, Delsin opened the door and went inside.

The room was airy and bright, the walls painted an off-white but not quite cream color. The bed was at the far left corner. A huge window was directly across from the door and a table with two chairs pushed in around it found to the far right. The room was mostly empty except for a lone wheelchair pushed before the window with a person seated within comfortably.

Delsin had always been a man of buried regret. He was known for doing the “right thing” but he’d learned quickly that the “right thing” always came at a cost. Maybe he was chasing that absent praise and reassurance that he would never receive from his lost family members, leaving him stranded in this odd in-between state of doing just enough to prove himself but never enough to find himself in it all. Regardless, after his win seven years ago against the D.U.P., sealing Brooke Augustine within concrete never sat right with him and he was soon at her aid to free her after all the interviews and photos and attention, only to find the damage had been done. Now, Augustine remained here at Seattle Inpatient Psychiatric Center in her catatonic state. Delsin donated a huge sum of money toward her care and protection. And to keep his visits a secret, off the public record.

“Beautiful day out there, Augustine,” Delsin approached the wheelchair with a bit of nervousness in his tone and mannerisms. Knowing he was partly at fault that Augustine was here at all weighed heavy on his conscience.

Augustine did not respond. Or even blink. Not a single movement or sound. She just stared out the window at the view, seemingly fixated on the Space Needle in the distance.

“The warehouse is doing well. We’re more full than ever these days. Helping all the… what did you call us? ‘Bio-terrorists’, right? Helping all of them to feel more connected and human than you ever did. Us conduits need to stick together.”

It was like a sort-of therapy to talk aloud to her every other week. No input, no laughter, only silence. It was like talking to himself but Delsin knew Augustine could hear him. Somewhere deep in her mind, she was there seething or crying or apologizing or planning. Delsin didn’t know which, but he never skipped a visit.

He may have been the only constant she had left.

“Listen, I didn’t come here to banter with you about the state of things, but I do have a question for you,” Delsin slowly made his way to stand directly in front of Augustine and then he kneeled so he could look into her eyes, “Who are the Stratego? This group the D.U.P. funded way back when it was still active? They are causing problems for us now. Does that name mean anything to you? Stratego?”

Augustine did nothing. Delsin huffed quietly.

Delsin tried again, “At least blink or something, dammit. I know you know something. Do you know who the Stratego are?”

Again, nothing. Not even a twitch.

With a grumble, Delsin rose from his spot before Augustine and looped around her chair once. He was clearly at a dead end here, but maybe it just meant that Augustine did know something. She may have tried to signal otherwise if she didn’t know anything at all. Maybe. It was still a possibility.

“Okay, fine. I’m going with my gut on this. We’re going to sort through this and dismantle whatever the Hell Stratego is, with or without your help,” Delsin gave Augustine’s face one more lookover before he turned his back and headed for the door. Not exactly a wasted trip but it didn’t feel very productive either.

Delsin reached the door and tossed out one last message, “If you think of anything, have the nurses contact me. I’ll see you in two weeks,” Then, the man with more than one power and more than one chip on his shoulder, left the room and the hospital behind.

The Stratego lab was bustling with people calling out news and updates and coordinates. The main room was full of several computers, monitors showing muted feeds of people within cells down the halls. A small team of three was in the main section of the room, surrounded by computers on each side. One woman stood with a clipboard, a pen wiggling between her fingers like a fidget toy. She barked orders after checking her watch for the third time.

“Anthony, ready on the transmission hacking?”

“Ready,” Anthony called, his eyes glued to the monitor before him, fingers posed over a keyboard.

“Thomas, call ready to connect?”

“Roger, Cindy,” Thomas gave a thumbs up and an enthusiastic grin. Cindy rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose which pushed her glasses up into her hair for a moment.

“Good. Connect the call. Anthony, begin the transmission interruption.”

Thomas pressed a button and a phone ring began in the earpiece in Cindy’s ear. Anthony immediately began typing away once she signaled that she heard the ringing.

“Hello and thank you for calling the Seattle Inpatient Psychiatric Center. How may we direct your call?” The kind voice who answered was accompanied by a soft beeping that signaled the call was being recorded.

“Yes, hello. This is Cindy Signet. I’m calling to speak to my Aunt, Brooke Austine.” Beep.

“Ah, Ms. Signet. Let me transfer you to Elizabeth and she’ll connect you. Please note that all calls are recorded.”

“Yes, thank you.” Beep. Cindy watched Anthony from a few feet away. He was typing and clicking and slowly solving an invisible puzzle.

The call was transferred and Cindy and Elizabeth made small talk before she connected the call to Augustine’s room then went to retrieve the phone and hook it to an apparatus so that she didn’t have to hold it the entire call.

“Cindy? Are you there?” Elizabeth confirmed before sliding the phone into the holder for Augustine.

“I’m here. Thank you so much Elizabeth,” Cindy checked her watch again, “How much time do I have?” Beep.

“Thirty minutes. I’ll be back at that time to disconnect the call.” Elizabeth sounded so pleasant on the other end of the call that Cindy almost felt bad for her.

“Perfect. Thank you again,” Beep. “Is she doing any better?”

“Still catatonic, I’m afraid. But she seems to have had a lovely day today.” Beep. “Here she is. Enjoy your call.”

The phone was placed into the apparatus and a soft clunk noise was heard as it was all adjusted into place. The silence that followed was abruptly interrupted by the familiar beep of the recorded call and then a strangle garbled noise, like a record scratch pitched down. Cindy focused her gaze on Anthony. He signaled that he had hacked the call and disconnected the recording device successfully as always. Cindy let out a quiet sigh of relief.

“Augustine, it’s Cindy. How are you, Director?”

Silence.

“Good to hear it. I’ll cut to the chase, I have good news and bad news for you.”

Dead air.

“Bad news–Project 41 escaped with Project 42. Good news–we found and neutralized Project 41. Unfortunately, we cannot locate Project 42 at this time.”

Deafening quiet.

“I have teams out but we have no traces of her yet. As soon as we find her, I’ll contact you.”

A soft noise. A swallow of breath.

“Of course we are keeping things as quiet as possible. No one will be suspicious.”

Another noise. A quiet click of lips parting.

“I understand, Director. I’m on it. Good-bye.” Cindy turned to Thomas and held up her hand, then created a fist. Thomas disconnected the call and Cindy let out a rush of air.

“She’s pissed.”

While things unfolded at the hospital in secret, at the warehouse the sun was brilliant and warm as late afternoon blossomed into early evening hours. The students at the warehouse were none the wiser to the chaos running through their teachers’ heads, but then again Delsin, Fetch and Eugene were very good at tucking these things away to not cause a mass panic with inexperienced power users. It had been a secret rule of theirs since the beginning in pulling together what they needed to make the warehouse a reality. In teaching others, panic needed to be almost non-existent. They all wanted to give everyone a chance at learning safely and not in a trial-by-fire situation that they all fell into once their powers had awakened.

Black platform boots swung through the air as a young woman sat perched on a branch within a tree just outside the warehouse’s main entrance. She was watching the students come and go like little ants marching to and from their colony. Her loud, rave-wear aesthetic was mostly concealed from behind the leaves of the tree, neon green, black, yellow and purple melting into the shadows and sun-kissed patches around her.

Finally, her amber eyes caught a student in her sights. One she had overheard the name of. One that seemed like fun to play with. That wasn’t her directive, but she loved rules simply because she loved breaking them. She dropped from the tree in a graceful plummet, landing as quietly as possible. She pulled a pair of gray-tinted goggles from her dyed black hair over her eyes taking care around her eyebrow piercings, then pulled up a black mask from around her neck being cautious around her piercings in her lower lip and in her nose as she covered the lower half of her face before stepping out behind the student.

She reached over, tapping them on the shoulder with one hand, her neon green fingernails matching the fishnet arm warmers she wore, “Sam?”

Sam turned around to see who needed their attention and clearly did not recognize this person at all. The woman smiled beneath the mask she wore and held out one hand, palm up as if expecting a gift.

“I forgot my little key-pass-thingy in my dorm. Could I borrow yours?”

Sam squinted their eyes trying to place this person as a friend and before they could ask how they knew each other, the woman sighed loudly and pulled her mask down revealing her face.

“Ugh, fine! I tried to give you an easy out, but whatever. Enjoy your headache,” Before Sam could react, the woman held her other hand to her face, opening her palm and blowing a kiss of green gas directly into Sam’s face. The student wobbled, then pitched forward completely unconscious and the woman caught them and dragged their body into the bushes behind her. She felt around Sam's hoodie and found the emblem the students wore and unpinned it for herself. She held it up to the sunlight and shrugged before attaching it to the strap of her revealing black shirt. Then she pulled a folded piece of paper from against her hip, held there by the band of her tulle skirt. She tucked the paper into the pocket of Sam’s hoodie.

“There ya go! A little gift from your new friend, Makayla. Sleep well!” Makayla giggled, then turned and literally skipped into the warehouse, allowed access by her ‘borrowed’ pinned emblem. Her toxic gas could do terrible things if she wanted it to. For now, Sam would stay passed out and trapped in a nightmare until someone found them in the bushes and woke them. They would likely have a migraine upon waking. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Makayla looked around within the main entrance of the warehouse, casually moving her goggles back up over her triangle-cut fringe, dyed black and neon green in two perfect sections. Her amber eyes widened as she looked around, taking everything in.

“Holy shit. This place is so epic.” Makayla started moving down the main hall slowly, running her fingers against the wall as she walked, etching a map within her mind. It was way bigger than she thought it would be and the place was full of people all doing their own thing, all different ages. It was even more amazing than she had been told.

A small child raced by to her right, giggling loudly as a student in a dark blue hoodie chased her. Makayla was drawn toward them for a moment before she heard a commotion behind her and she spun to look only to see another student dragging Sam inside.

Makayla cursed under her breath and did her best to squeeze between students who were coming over to investigate and attempt to help Sam, which left the hallway mostly empty. Someone called out a name that Makayla hadn’t heard in years and she watched as the Eugene Sims came out of a classroom to check on Sam’s pulse. She continued to back up slowly and suddenly felt herself collide with someone. She spun around quickly to face them.

“I’m sorry I was distra–Oh, shit.” Makayla’s purple-tinted lips hung open in disbelief as realization clicked in her mind. She had just walked into the Fetch Walker. And Fetch didn’t seem happy about it.

Fetch had been watching the commotion from the second floor balcony but Eugene had been closer and reached Sam before Fetch could. Fetch still headed over to investigate and see if she could calm the students and break up the ring that was growing as people were trying to see what was going on, when a student bumped into her who seemed to be suspiciously trying to flee the scene. And when this neon-wearing kid turned around to apologize Fetch saw guilt written all over her face.

“Wait. Who are you?” Fetch immediately had her hackles up, her defenses rising as she looked over this spry woman before her. 

Makayla was better under pressure than anyone ever gave her credit for as she countered, “You’re Fetch, right? I guess you could say I’m a big fan.”

Fetch glowered and gritted her teeth, “Liar.”

“Oh? You recognize one-for-one, huh? Love that for you.”

Fetch could feel her neon burning at her fingertips as her buttons were pushed, “Choose your next words carefully. What did you do to Sam?”

Makayla brought her green gas to her palms. The toxin swirled and collected as she stepped back into a more defensive pose, “A fan of my work too? How sweet. I’ll give ya a free sample on my way out.”

Fetch didn’t wait any longer and simply rushed this intruder in a bright pink arch of speed and agility. Makayla was faster than she looked and the neon green gas aided her in narrowly avoiding Fetch’s leap. Then green and pink streaked down one of the darker, empty hallways as Makayla led a chase through the warehouse that Fetch was destined to win simply because she knew the layout. Makayla realized this wasn’t a bright idea, so instead she baited Fetch with quick dodges and false steps, keeping the Neon user on her toes. But the end of the hallway quickly thwarted any hope Makayla had for winning this encounter and she stopped running, hands up in surrender. It was a dead end.

Fetch left her neon to glow around her fists as she stood tall and approached Makayla slowly, “Listen, I don’t want to hurt you. Just tell me what you did and why you’re here and we’ll talk it out.”

Makayla laughed in response, dropping her googles back into place and bringing her fists in front of her face as though she was cowering in fear, “You wouldn’t hurt me? Even though you’re glowing?”

Fetch snarled slightly and shook her hands free of neon, knowing her power was an instant pull if needed. She had to appear less aggressive if she was going to get this person to talk. She did her best to memorize the woman in front of her while showing her neon-less hands in a show of good faith, “I’m not going to hurt you. Would you hurt me?”

Makayla grinned and quickly opened her hands to reveal two full palms of green gas. In an instant, Makalya blew the toxic gas into Fetch’s face and watched the conduit drop to the ground. She tiptoed over to Fetch and toed her body for a moment with her boot. With no response, she dropped another folded piece of paper on top of Fetch’s stomach.

Makayla whispered her response, “Yes, I would. Sweet nightmares, Fetch. Pleasure to meet you and knock you out,” Makayla didn’t stick around and instead dashed without aided speed back down the hallway the way she had come and paused only long enough to assess the situation where Sam, Eugene and the crowd of students were, then she rushed into the cafeteria in the opposite direction.

The cafeteria was half full of students not bothered or unaware of the situation in the entranceway and Makayla marveled at the food choices here. Her stomach made a rallying cry on her behalf and she walked over to the burger station, grabbing a container of french fries and then walking casually out a side door that led back outside. 

Once outside, Makayla breathed in the fresh air deeply and adjusted her googles back on top of her head, “Freedom and french fries. Life doesn’t get better than this.”

“I’m baaaack~” Makayla’s voice a sing-song as she waltzed through the door, evening darkness covering her entrance. Hours had passed and Makayla made sure to take the scenic route home. The concrete room felt more like a prison than a hideout but it never bothered her. It was what her leader seemed comfortable with, so she didn’t give it a second thought.

“Makayla Grayson. We agreed on no powers.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got bored. Sue me later.” Makayla waved the accusation off and then stood on tiptoe, stretching her interlocked fingers up to the ceiling with a satisfied sound.

“... And?”

Makayla laughed as she skipped over to an empty desk hopping up to sit at the edge, swinging her legs freely, “And I got you a key. You were right, place was loaded with powered, but don’t worry none of ‘em tracked me back here.”

She unpinned the silver emblem from her shirt and placed it on her closed fist then flicked it toward her leader using her thumb. The small emblem caught the light as it flipped head over tails and the person standing across from Makayla caught it in a flash of white, then examined it carefully.

“That’s not all, boss. Guess what else I found?”

A head snapped up to stare at Makayla in great interest, “Tell me.”

“The supposed ‘Heroes of Seattle’ are running the place. All of ‘em. I took out Fetch easily enough. I bet the other two would be just as fun to test my powers on.” Makayla knew she hadn’t seen Delsin there, but if Eugene and Fetch were inside, he must not have been too far away. Besides, a little white lie never hurt anyone.

There was a pause of silence then a soft chuckle sounded from the one with the emblem in hand now, “Good work, Makayla. Go drain up. You’ll need it,” Makayla’s leader spoke quietly and remained beneath the single fluorescent light which cast her in an eerie glow.

“Aye, aye Celia! I left your calling card behind, too. Lemme know when you wanna grab dinner.” Makayla leapt from her spot and she quickly dashed out the door, leaving silence in her wake.

A rabbit mask tilted in thought as plans were forming in the mind behind it. Celia hummed to herself one single name.

“Delsin Rowe…”

[infamoussparks]

Chapter 9: Sparking Emotions

Approx. 8400 words; 50 minute read

Fetch leaped to the ground and stood beside Delsin with a snarl on her face, “They’re here.”

She kept her hazel eyes trained on the horizon and within seconds two figures appeared walking toward the warehouse with a confidence reserved for those who assumed they were in full control. Neither figure seemed to hesitate or falter in their steps despite the welcome party of five that awaited them.

It wasn’t a long way back to the warehouse but Benji felt an overwhelming need to use speed to his advantage, the weight of the news he was carrying was too important to be delivered even a second too late.

He decided to use his abilities and used a combination of parkour and shadow dashing to gain and hold speed as he left the train yard behind him. His internal monologue was racing with what he needed to say and what he would tell Lucky once she joined him back at the warehouse. He was very worried about her and could not shake the feeling that she was going to be in trouble once Orion showed back up. 

Maybe Delsin will let me come back to escort her, he thought as he lept over a dumpster and entered the city borders. And then he faltered in his steps, as his name pulled his attention and he nearly fell over trying to stop his own momentum.

“Benji! Over here!”

“Makayla?” Benji jogged over to the girl who was flagging him down from the next block over. He looked her over and she did the same to him in greeting.

“You’re okay! Thank goodness,” Makayla seemed relieved and she placed her neon green fishnet-gloved hands on her hips.

Benji gave her an apprehensive eyebrow raise, “Was I not supposed to be?”

“No, dummy. But Delsin sent me after you because he got your note. Or rather Fetch gave him the note you left in your dorm after she went looking for you this morning.”

“Oh, right, that,” Benji sighed, “I had to check on someone. I was worried. I’m still worried, but now I have to get back to the warehouse. We have an emergency.”

Makayla adjusted her goggles over her eyes and winked at him. “It was Lucky, wasn’t it?”

Benji felt his ears heat up and he cleared his throat, “It wasn’t Celia, that’s for sure. Is everyone okay at the warehouse?”

���Yeah,” Makayla confirmed, “Why? What’s the emergency?”

“Celia is declaring war and Orion is on his way at her side.”

Now Makayla brought her hands together before her chest, cracking her knuckles together. “Then let’s get back to the warehouse and prepare to win the war.”

Benji nodded, grateful to have Makayla on their side now. He wanted to say more about Lucky and his suspicion about her safety but he knew getting to the warehouse was the priority right now. He could tell the Heroes and maybe they could help get Lucky pulled from there as soon as possible. Maybe they’d send a recon team to the train yard under the direction of Benji.

Being a hero was both exciting and terrifying.

Orion returned to the train yard, looking a little worse for the wear with traces of cuts across his face and his shirt in shreds. He was constantly balling his hands into fists and then relaxing them again as he walked directly into the main meeting room.

“Celia!” His shout had the rabbit-mask wearing woman turn her attention to him. Orion summoned mirror shards to his hand and they hung in the air twisting above his palm, reflecting his face as they shifted toward him.

Celia said nothing, just crossed her arms over her chest.

“We need to move. Now.”

“Orion… what gives you that idea?” Celia tilted her head to one side, her mask giving a creepy stare as it tilted.

Orion grabbed his mirror pieces and threw them to the floor, the glass cutting into his palm. He didn’t flinch with the pain. “The longer we wait, the more prepared they’ll be. If you want the girl we need to move before they do.”

Celia nodded and started walking toward him slowly, “What did you do, Orion?”

Orion raised an eyebrow at his boss and shifted his weight between his feet. For a moment he thought about confessing to her–about what he suspected with Lucky, about their fight, about his bar fight after that–but then a new idea took place. Why confess when you can simply lie?

“Lucky warned them. She told them everything. You were right about her.” The words came so easily and he smiled, spitting them out of his mouth.

Celia nodded once in confirmation of the information, then rested her hand on his shoulder, standing on tiptoe to reach him easier. Her other hand touched her mask gently and it exploded into a mass of paper confetti that fluttered to the ground.

She narrowed her black eyes, her gaze locked on Orion’s eyes. “She’s a liability. She could throw the battle against us. You need to take care of her. Get her off the playing field, Orion Stella.”

Orion couldn’t remember if he had ever seen Celia without her mask on and he found himself thinking that she looked as delicate as the paper she wielded with all the sharpness of a knife. Celia’s command settled under his skin and he frowned slightly. He didn’t want to hurt Lucky, unnecessarily, but the more he thought about it the more he was giving himself permission to saddle her with the blame. Whatever she had coming to her was of her own doing.

Now it was his turn to nod solemnly at Celia, accepting her request.

“She won’t be a problem.”

The warehouse was a mess of people.

Students were everywhere, gathering belongings they deemed “important” and packing to leave for a while. The announcement was made via email that an emergency situation was underway and no students were to be left on campus past 3 PM. Rosaline had further assisted with the evacuation notice by mentally intruding on the students within range and filing their heads with urgency sans panic. Her threshold for her ability had been stretched further, thanks to her ongoing training, though her radius only covered the warehouse alone. Anyone off-campus would get the email and hopefully that would be enough.

“I could send everyone a text message, too,” Eugene offered. The office was just as chaotic as several people were inside the space making plans and back-up plans for every scenario they could imagine. Benji was eyeing everyone in the room and picking up on the tension and anxiety around him.

“Yeah, why don’t you do that, Eugene,” Delsin agreed and then turned his attention back to Makayla and Benji who were occupying the couch. “Okay, so we know Celia is coming for Caly. What can you tell us about… what was his name? Osiris?”

Makayla sighed, “Orion! Gosh, Delsin. Get good with names.”

Fetch snickered from beside Delsin and he shot her a disgruntled look. The neon-user just shrugged, “Hazards’ right. Get good,” She playfully hip checked Delsin and he rolled his eyes.

“Says the woman who has a zillion nicknames for everyone,” Delsin refocused and made a note on a piece of paper. “Okay, so what’s Orion’s power? Shape-shifting?”

“Mirrors,” Benji chimed in. He was mostly quiet for this meeting but was clearly paying attention. He noted that the only ones missing from this meeting were Rosaline and Caly. And Lucky.

“Mirrors… that makes sense,” Delsin wrote something else down and circled it, then he adjusted his beanie and seemed to be chewing at the inside of his cheek.

Fetch read over his shoulder and then perched against the desk, her arms crossed loosely over her chest, “That’s probably going to be more offensive. I’ll take him.”

“No one is taking anyone. We’re trying to figure out something without having to resort to an all-out war to protect Caly, remember?” Delsin stated.

“Fetch is right, Orion is more offensive. He’s an asshole, too,” Makayla retorted.

Fetch chuckled under her breath. Benji was glad to see that Fetch and Makayla had put their transgressions behind them for the moment. He cleared his throat, “What about Lucky?”

“The luck-user?” Eugene asked.

“Yeah,” Benji continued, “I mean, she’s not going to help them but we can’t just leave her there alone with Celia and Orion.”

Makayla elbowed Benji and he looked over at her and she winked at him. The heat rose in his ears and drifted over his cheeks.

“How do you know she won’t help them?” Fetch questioned. She had a good point and Benji didn’t know how to explain it without it sounding like a crush and a prayer.

Makayla answered for him, “Lucky doesn’t like hurting people. Did you even have any injuries when the siblings showed up on campus the other day?”

Fetch and Delsin exchanged a glance that Eugene joined in on. That was a solid argument. Benji made a mental note to thank Makayla later for the save.

“Good point,” Delsin sighed, “Okay, so we just need to focus on Celia–who seems to have some new tricks–and Orion. Both of them are going to be a problem together, so our main objective is to separate them if things go sideways.”

“We can’t plan for everything, Smokes. We’re going to have to just wing most of this.” Fetch pointed out.

Delsin paused for a moment and then looked over at Eugene. “Where are we at with evacuation?”

Eugene had the laptop all to himself and he typed and clicked around for a moment before he provided an answer. “It looks like 75% of students are safely off-campus at this point.”

“Excellent. Fetch? Call Juno and Kane in here.”

Fetch gave Delsin an odd look before she pulled her phone out of her pocket and did as she was asked without questioning it.

Benji pulled his phone out from his pocket, too. No new texts from anyone. No communication from Lucky. He was growing more nervous about the situation as every minute passed in silence between the two of them. He was also trying to figure out a way to bring the topic of Lucky back up without it sounding nagging. No one had really answered his question.

“Where are Dr. Hutch and Caly?” Benji changed the subject to occupy his mind with something else instead of missing Lucky and being so worried about her. She could take care of herself, right?

“Rosaline is with Caly in the training room. It was the safest place for them during the evacuation.”

“Wait, they aren’t leaving the school?” Makayla suddenly seemed nervous at hearing this information.

Delsin shook his head, “We thought if we moved them off-campus that Celia would bring the fight to them. Holding the two of them here helps us ensure the battle doesn’t leave the warehouse grounds and we can keep more people safe that way.” He paused and glanced at Fetch. “That is if a battle happens at all.”

“Oh, it’s gonna happen. Orion has always been hotheaded and I can see him acting out without Celia even saying anything at all,” Makayla interjected, “He’s fast, too.”

“Great update, Makayla. I’ll add that to the notes,” Delsin rolled his eyes and wrote something down on the paper plans he had been keeping throughout the conversation.

A knock sounded on the office door and five pairs of eyes turned to look as the door opened. A small, mousy woman with black and blue hair and a few striking tattoos entered beside a taller, thin man with hair about the same length as Delsin’s, only poofier. They both seemed nervous and excited to be in this coveted space, off-limits to anyone who wasn’t a “Hero of Seattle” or in trouble with them.

Delsin gave them both a warm smile and welcomed them in. “Juno! Kane! Welcome. Just the two I needed to see.”

“Uh… hey?” Kane gave a short wave while Juno seemed to be working on finding her words, a blush settling in her cheeks. Benji inhaled softly at knowing that feeling all too well.

“Alright, you two. First, thanks for sticking around during the evacuation,” Delsin began, “Second, I need you to both help make sure the campus is empty–fully empty–within the next hour.”

Juno checked her watch and gave Delsin a puzzled glance, “But it’s only twelve thirty in the afternoon. The text said to be off campus by three.”

Delsin nodded, ”That plan has changed.”

Celia had been acting strange all morning and now that Orion was back Celia was actively preparing for something. Lucky wasn’t sure what was happening but she knew it was something bad and that it was happening sooner than expected.

She had tried to talk to Celia, to get some information out of her that could help the warehouse team but it was useless. Celia seemed to be ignoring her, telling her only to stay put to guard the train yard and their meager space for a base. It was strange and Lucky did not like the feeling it gave her.

Plus, staying behind meant that she couldn’t join Benji, or worse give him more warning of what was coming.

So when Celia abruptly passed an origami dove to Orion and then left, Lucky knew something in the delicate balance of power at play had shifted. She quickly went back to her favorite train car to decide what to do next in the silence as she pushed down the rising panic in her chest.

Familiar footfalls entered the space behind her. As soon as she heard the sound of small silver charms gently striking against one another, Lucky closed her eyes. The air shifted before her and she knew she was in danger.

“Orion… quit playing around.”

“Playing? Who said I was playing?” Orion whispered in her ear, his breath warm against her neck. Lucky hid a shiver and squared her shoulders.

“Open your eyes, Lucky. Or are you scared of what you’ll see?” Footsteps paced behind her but Lucky found steady breaths and scrambled internally for something, anything to grasp hold of that could get her out of this situation.

“You don’t have to do this, Ry. You are smarter than this. Celia has been trying to separate us since we joined her and I–”

“You what, Lucky? You always have all the answers to the unasked questions. All the commands.” Orion cut her off, his voice low and angry. He was directly behind her, Lucky could feel his body heat against her back. “It’s my turn now, Lucky. I’m making the rules. Not you, not Celia. Me. And you will do as I say and not interfere.”

Lucky buckled down in her stance. Her hands were so tightly in fists, small crescents were forming from where her fingernails dug into her own skin. “No.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, no. Orion, stop this.”

He placed one hand against her back and Lucky swallowed hard.

“Open your eyes, Luckster. Open them now and tell me what you see.”

Lucky was terrified. She knew this move and she knew Orion was breaking his promise to never hurt her like this. She felt the end was coming, rushing toward her, yet she did as she was told and opened her eyes. She held her own gaze in the mirror before her, a mirror summoned by Orion’s ultimate use of his power. Her dark brown eyes were full of fear and anger and loss. She had seconds to decide how this would end. Time seemed to slow. Luck was on her side.

Orion laughed, a low gravelly noise beside her ear. It echoed around the empty train car and dared Lucky to break her stare. She did not.

“Your time’s up. No one is coming to save you now. Enjoy the Mirrorverse, sister.” Orion shoved Lucky forward–toward the mirror which now rippled and warped before her–and several things happened at once. Lucky deftly threw her right fist behind her, grabbing ahold of Orion’s wrist and then she lost contact with her reflection, her eyes moving to watch Orion’s reflected face and meeting his gaze. He was snarling, drunk on power as his eyes glowed with bright golden crescents. He looked terrifying. His power increased and the mirror all but sucked her inside of itself.

“Bad luck, brother.” Lucky’s last words rang around the train car, her eyes flashing with silver crescents before suddenly losing contact with everything and being alone in a dark space. The room was huge with a heavy fog weaving around her legs like a cat. There was nothing here, nothing beyond a gaping, empty place and a heavy feeling of loneliness. The Mirrorverse reflected her deepest insecurities back at her tenfold.

But she got a small glimmer of hope when Orion yelled out in frustration from someplace she could no longer see. Her sudden spell and power usage before being locked away beyond the glass had cast bad luck on Orion and the second half of his spell was canceled with her own. No duplicate of herself existed in the world. No reflection of Lucky for Orion to mold as he wished while she was restrained here, all alone.

Luck had been her greatest gift and sometimes her greatest curse, but here locked within a mirror that reflected her soul, luck was no place to be found. So Lucky closed her eyes and sank to her knees, praying to any God or Goddess who could hear her for strength while leaning heavily into the hope that someone would come to her rescue.

Fetch leaped to the ground and stood beside Delsin with a snarl on her face, “They’re here.”

She kept her hazel eyes trained on the horizon and within seconds two figures appeared walking toward the warehouse with a confidence reserved for those who assumed they were in full control. Neither figure seemed to hesitate or falter in their steps despite the welcome party of five that awaited them.

Once they were several feet apart, the pair stopped. Orion was clearly sizing everyone up and he gave Makayla the middle finger with a smirk. Makayla spit at him and flared toxic gasses into her hands. Fetch held one arm out in front of Makayla who grumbled under her breath and adjusted her stance, keeping her powers to herself.

“We meet again, Delsin Rowe,” Celia spoke, breaking the silence from behind her familiar rabbit mask. “I’m sure you know why we are here.”

“For the girl, right?” Delsin responded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“For her freedom. You have no idea what she can do, Delsin. Imagine a world where your emotions and actions are molded without your consent after hearing a single note. Imagine the chaos that could be caused in the wrong hands. Give her to us and no one will get hurt,” Celia spoke slowly, her words enunciated with care.

Makayla scoffed, “Not even the girl?”

Orion barked a laugh and Celia threw an origami dove at him. He fell silent again but Fetch noticed something seemed different in his eyes. Celia didn’t answer the question.

Delsin shook his head once, “Absolutely not, Celia. Your idea of freedom isn’t as freeing as you think it is. Freedom requires rules and boundaries, not endless cycles of battle royales. I certainly don’t trust you with ‘training’ Caly or her abilities and you are not a queen among conduits.”

Fetch saw Orion raise an eyebrow at this and then turn his focus to Celia. The paper-user balled her hands into fists at her side and she narrowed her stance.

“Your name may be more well-known than mine, but I assure you that I am the only one qualified enough for the role of queen.”

“I beg to differ,” Orion interjected. Celia snapped her mask toward him and he didn’t even flinch under her gaze. “If anyone is queen material, it would be Fetch.”

Fetch opened her mouth and then closed it again, narrowing her eyes at this man standing across from her. He was about Delsin’s height but clearly younger than she was. He cocked an eyebrow at her as their eyes met and Fetch suddenly felt like she was being studied. She didn’t appreciate his staring.

Benji, who had been quiet this whole time, cleared his throat and pulled Orion’s attention to him instead. “Where is Lucky?”

He was right. The other girl was missing from the lineup and that seemed odd to Fetch given what Benji and Makayla had said about her and her closeness to her brother. Something was off here.

“Her luck ran out,” Orion stated flatly. He narrowed his gaze at Benji and this caused Benji to take a half step backward.

“If we deny you access to the girl, what will your next move be, Celia?” Eugene asked very matter-of-factly. 

Celia tilted her mask in thought and brought her hands behind her back. Fetch watched her movements like a hawk spying a mouse in a wheat field.

“You already know, Eugene. I’m not leaving without her,” Celia responded, “Whether you give her to me yourselves or whether I take her from you by force makes little difference to me.”

“Two against five? Seems like we’ll win regardless. You should just leave.” Makayla teased.

A noise pulled Fetch’s attention to glance behind her. Running across the grass quickly was Caly, reaching out toward something with a grin across her face. Rosaline was chasing after the girl looking incredibly fearful and Fetch knew she wasn’t the only one who noticed her. Fetch cursed under her breath as a burst of paper flew by her face heading to intersect with Caly. She shot off neon missiles into the paper particles and true to form, did not miss her target. Celia reappeared and staggered a few steps, holding her side. 

Celia yelled over her shoulder, “Orion! GO!”

All chaos broke loose.

Every plan the Heroes of Seattle had devised, every scenario, was scrapped for a new plan as they simply nodded to one another and immediately split up. Fetch dashed forward toward Celia, her neon a good match for the speed of paper before her. She knew Eugene was going to try to stay on Orion to slow him down or distract him long enough to learn more about him and his attacks. Delsin was moving with drained smoke, dashing toward Caly to get her to safety, as long as Fetch could hold Celia’s attention. Benji and Makayla had each other’s backs and would be fine as long as neither of them tried anything too risky. It was the most basic of plans but it was the only one suited for the mess that was slowly rippling toward disaster.

Fetch reached Celia quickly and tackled her to the ground, the two conduits grappling on the grass among singed blades and paper particles. Fetch pushed her thoughts toward Delsin hoping he’d reach Caly and get her to safety.

<CALY!> Rosaline reached out with her mind and her hand, being too far from the small girl to grab her in time. Caly paused in mid-run and turned around to look for Rosaline having heard the shout in her mind. She was a deer frozen before oncoming traffic.

*   *   *   *   *

“What did you find, Caly?” Rosaline asked as she saw Caly squat before a messy corner of the training room. A bunch of props were haphazardly stored here, likely tossed from students using them during class. No one else was here now to straighten things out but something had caught Caly’s attention.

Rosaline didn’t see anything right away and she slowly dropped onto one knee at the behest of Caly pointing excitedly into the pile and then pinching her index finger and thumb together and sliding her hands away from her nose along her cheeks. It was the sign for ‘cat’. Rosaline squinted as she peered into the shadows of the props.

Lo and behold, a tiny kitten was staring back with large pupils and its ears swiveling cautiously. Rosaline tapped Caly on her shoulder and reached slowly toward the shadows, making a soft, soothing sound with her breath and rubbing the tips of her fingers across the floor in a quick flick of her wrist. Caly seemed to be watching both Rosaline and the kitten and then squealed happily once the kitten pounced at Rosaline’s hand.

Rosaline reached out her other hand slowly and gently petted the kitten. It was a small orange tabby and it stilled a moment beneath her touch before suddenly arching it’s back toward her hand for more. Rosaline reached for Caly’s hand and ran her small fingers across the kitten’s back. Caly immediately seemed to glow with joy as she pet the kitten again and again.

“This is just a kitten, Caly. I’m not sure how it got in here. I guess we can keep it occupied while we stay put,” Rosaline spoke quietly so as not to scare the kitten. It rubbed against Caly, walking around her and playing with a string that was dangling from her pants. Caly giggled loudly and the noise startled the kitten enough to have it temporarily skitter back into the pile of props.

Caly reached for it there and Rosaline stopped her before she was swiped at. Instead Rosaline taught Caly the faster movements along the floor and the kitten was quickly mesmerized and pounced at Caly’s hand playfully. Caly clapped for herself. Rosaline was able to get a better look at the kitten and determined it was a boy.

“Let’s call him Colby Jack since he’s the same color as the cheese, or CJ for short. His name starts with a ‘C’ like yours, Caly,” Rosaline signed the spelling of both names and emphasized the letter ‘C’. 

Caly nodded and signed, “CJ! C for cat. C for Caly. Caly’s cat, CJ!”

Rosaline laughed. Then a strange noise sounded from outside someplace and Rosaline felt tension rise in her body. She was running through the things she had been training with Garrett on to expand her abilities and was able to pick up on several strong emotions coming from outside. Now was the time to stay put and stay quiet.

So when CJ suddenly sprinted forward toward the door with Caly in tow, Rosaline felt a flare of her own fear and jolted after the young ones only to be too slow to catch up with them before they were both out the door and running though the grass.

*   *   *   *   *

Delsin all but tackled Caly, sweeping her into his arms with a trail of smoke wisping behind him. Caly had CJ tucked against her chest and the kitten’s face looked just as confused as Caly’s from where Rosaline stood. She sent a quick check around the area and counted bodies–a total of nine, ten with the kitten–and had only a moment to collect herself before Delsin was standing in front of her protectively, Caly sandwiched between the adults and standing at Rosaline’s feet.

“Can you protect her?” Delsin was already breathing heavily with his burst of power and Rosaline found herself wondering how long it had been since Delsin was forced to use his abilities in a life or death situation like this one.

She nodded, “Yes, I’ll try.”

Delsin tossed her a glance over his shoulder, “Do it. No trying. We may not get a second chance.” Then he dashed forward, leaving a puff of smoke to dissipate where he had stood. Rosaline knelt and spun Caly around to look her in the eyes. Caly looked worried and scared, a lot like how she looked the very first time Rosaline saw Caly in the hospital only a week ago. It was a strange wave of deja vu and Rosaline tucked it away into the depths of her mind.

“Caly,” Rosaline kept her voice steady and stern, offering contact by way of running her hands up and down Caly’s arms. Caly was holding CJ tightly but the kitten seemed to understand he was a source of comfort and didn’t struggle nor complain. “No one is taking you away from me. No one is taking CJ either. Stay close to me and do what I say, especially if you are the only one who can hear my voice. Do you understand?”

Caly nodded and relaxed her grip on CJ who shimmied into a more comfortable position within her arms.

“Good. Thank you, Caly,” Rosaline stood and stepped in front of the girl to gauge the battlefield before her.

Eugene swept his arms open and five hologram angels appeared at his aid. They flew quickly toward Orion and the man squatted down before leaping backwards with a smirk. Where he had stood five reflections of himself now stood, each an exact replica of the mirror-user and doing identical movements as Orion dodged and attacked the angels easily. Reflections met holograms and the two clashed, the casualties of the battle quickly shimmering into thin air and counting down to reveal the real Orion among the clones.

Eugene was making mental notes as quickly as he was dispatching his holograms. Orion didn’t seem very strong, though he was well-matched against this tiny army. He was smart, quick on his feet and he didn’t seem to have anything to lose, so his fighting style was brash and focused. Eugene noted that even though Orion was fighting here, he kept glancing over at Celia and tracking where Delsin and Fetch where. This was unnerving to Eugene as he wasn’t sure what Orion was thinking just yet.

A sharp pain snapped Eugene back to the battle at hand. Orion had shoved a mirror shard into Eugene’s shoulder, his final hologram a burst of pixels as the final mirror clone glittered into dust beside him.

“Focus on me, Sims,” Orion growled into his ear before he shoved Eugene quickly away from him and pulled more mirror shards into the space around his right hand.

Eugene gasped and left the mirror where it dug into his shoulder, quickly summoning more angels with a wave of his hand. They doubled now, ten standing before his form. With a final push of breath from his lips, a shield formed before him, the blue color tinting his view of Orion as the mirror shards were flung forward and sunk into the holograms, destroying the decoys in flashes.

The shield was heavily reinforced and the second wave of mirror shards only succeeded in piercing the remaining holograms before bouncing off the shield and clattering on top of one another in the grass. Suddenly, the pain in Eugene’s shoulder doubled and he realized Delsin was there beside him and had pulled the glass from his skin in one swift movement.

“Thanks, Del,” Eugene huffed out between wincing from the pain before conjuring angels into the sky and giving them the signal to rain spears down upon Orion. This caused the mirror-user to have to retreat a bit, buying Delsin just enough time to ask a few questions.

“No, I’ve got him for now. But he’s definitely waiting on something from Celia. See? He keeps looking over at her and Fetch,” Eugene summarized.

Delsin nodded and clapped Eugene on the back while utilizing the shield for himself as well. “Good work, Eugene. Rosaline has Caly in her protection and I’m sure Fetch has Celia struggling. Benji and Makayla look like they are ready to jump in as soon as you give the signal.”

Eugene nodded, already straining a little with pushing his powers in so many directions at one time. Orion seemed to have regrouped as well and a new wave of mirror clones were pushing the holograms backwards. Delsin dipped around the shield and unleashed Smoke bombs lobbed at the mirror clones. They not only successfully wiped out all the clones but one also exploded right in Orion’s face, causing him to cover his face with his hands and double-over. With Orion distracted for a moment, Eugene signaled and Benji and Makayla nodded with the tag-in.

“There!” Benji shouted.

“Finally! Let’s play!” Makayla chimed in and quickly adjusted her goggles into place over her eyes before running full speed toward Orion who seemed to be staggering in his steps after Delsin’s attack landed.

Makayla reached Orion quickly using her toxic gas as a way to flicker in and out and build momentum. She leaped toward him, toxic gasses spewing forward and hitting him in the face as he took a moment to look up. Orion must have heard her coming though, as he dodged to the left and forcefully exhaled, rendering her gasses useless for the moment.

But Makayla wasn’t alone in her leap and attack. Two wolves of shadow latched onto Orion’s arms via his own shadow and the sound he made was one of guttural pain. Makayla winced on his behalf and glanced over her shoulder looking for Benji, but instead found Celia looking directly at her for a moment before Fetch punched that rabbit mask right off her face.

Makayla didn’t have any time to laugh–as funny as that was to witness–because Orion was free of his shadow restraints and he tossed shards her way. Makayla heard her name being shouted and quickly dodged the shards thanks to Benji’s call.

“I’ll only ask this one more time,” Benji stood with shadow weaving around his legs like a fog of hungry wolves waiting for a signal to lunge. He was focused on Orion and giving Makayla time to move into position behind her former teammate. “Where is Lucky?”

Orion now turned his focus on Benji with a snarl, “Leave my sister alone.”

“After what you did to her? No.” Benji retorted.

“What did you just say to me, shadow boy?”

“No.” Benji repeated with more assurance than was written on his face. Makayla pulled more toxic gas into her palms and raised them to her face.

Orion’s hands became fists at his sides and he dashed forward directly at Benji. Benji quickly utilized his shadow dash to move further from Orion than was humanly possible. Unfortunately, this was also further from Makayla and she clenched her fists around her toxic power with a grumble to herself.

“All that for nothing. I gotta get him closer.” Makayla shifted the gas into her own dash to catch up to the two men moving and flinging mirror and shadow at once another in unaimed bursts. She rolled her eyes behind her goggles at the mess they were making. But at least they were giving Delsin, Eugene and Fetch more time to figure out what moves to make next.

“Get off me!” Celia yelled up at Fetch as the neon user had her pinned to the grass. Her mask was gone, knocked off her face and a bruise on her cheek was already quickly fading with color.

Fetch scoffed, “So you can run? No chance, Doves.”

She knew she could catch up with Celia but Fetch knew it was always a risk to even have the paper-user free to run and right now Celia would probably reach Caly before she could, despite Rosaline being in the way.

Celia scowled below Fetch and then started to laugh slowly, “I don’t need to run to get what I want.”

Before Fetch could comprehend what Celia was saying, the girl simply exploded into shredded paper bits and Fetch was suddenly kneeling over the grass and a pile of white confetti. Hazel eyes went wide and she looked over her shoulder at Rosaline to warn her.

<I see her!> Rosaline’s voice flooded Fetch’s mind and she watched as Rosaline grabbed Caly in her arms and dodged right. A viper of paper seemed to rise from the grass and bite thin air where Rosaline and Caly had been seconds before. Then Celia reappeared on the rooftop of the warehouse and was quickly scared back to the grass as Fetch opened a barrage of neon missiles and lasers upon her.

Fetch wasn’t sure how Rosaline saw Celia before she did but that question would have to wait. Celia was now flinging doves with sharp edges toward Fetch and a few of them bit into her skin as she was caught off guard. Papercuts lit her face and arms with blood trails as their only proof of hitting their mark.

Celia was fast with her attacks and relentless now, spurred on by being so close to her goal before she was thwarted. Fetch was having a hard time avoiding attacks and closing the gap enough to knock Celia down again. The struggle was real and for a moment it felt like she was going to lose this battle if she didn’t make her move soon. Fetch summoned neon into her palms and released a status bubble toward Celia which thankfully caught the paper-user in midjump, slowing her descent long enough for Fetch to release missiles into the bubble. Celia flew backwards, bounced in the grass and stayed down.

Four-against-one was not fair in the least bit. But Orion was enjoying himself despite the tables not being in his favor. He bounced his attention between these goody-two-shoes conduits who thought they could stop him and he laughed under his breath. This wasn’t even half his power. Let them continue to push him, he’d show them things they would wish they could forget.

As much as he hated Benji for seeming to win over his sisters’ heart, pushing the battle backwards was all part of his big plan. Orion shifted the conduits closer to Fetch and Celia. After a few more minutes of discarded mirror and avoiding shadow and toxic gas hallucinations, he reached close enough to shift his full attention to the women he was aiming for all along.

Then Celia was knocked out and looked to be staying down. Orion had his suspicions that Celia would be okay but of course this was the perfect opportunity to make his move.

“Fetch… finally, a worthy opponent,” Orion was offering her his hand as though this were some strange ballroom dance. She scowled at him. “Oh please. You know it. You know you are better than everyone here.”

“Define ‘better’ because all I’m hearing is that I can beat your ass and you want me to,” Fetch snided.

Orion chuckled, “Hardly. Though I’d let you test that if circumstances were… different.”

Fetch cocked an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms over her chest.

Orion smiled, “I meant what I said back there, about you being a queen among conduits. Think about it, Fetch. You could fold everyone in this fight, in your school, to your whims.”

“I don’t see the need to do that.”

“No? Not even with a powerful king by your side?” Orion stepped closer to Fetch. Benji and Makayla had flanked him and he knew this but his focus did not waiver. “We could be so good together.”

Fetch tilted her head to the side and seemed to clamp her teeth together behind her lips, “Are you really asking me out right now? In the middle of this fight?”

“Would you be mine if I said yes?”

“I’m taken.”

Orion huffed and narrowed his eyes at Fetch. She stood her ground which was making it hard for him to be angry at her but he hated being told no. He tried one more time, pushing mirror into his palms which he now held behind his back.

“I don’t care for Celia’s idea of freedom. It’s convoluted and tired. I want a new empire for conduits and I want you to be my Neon Queen.”

Fetch seemed distracted for a moment as she opened her mouth to speak and abruptly closed it again. Then after a moment of silence she moved her hands to her sides and neon flared brightly without hesitation, “Fuck you.”

Orion had no time to bring his mirrors to his aid before he was shot backwards by neon, the heat burning into his stomach. Mirror shards scattered to the ground around his feet. Fetch moved toward him and Orion summoned a full mirror shield just in the nick of time as a neon blast headed for his core. Instead it reflected off the mirror and flew backward into Fetch herself. She was unprepared for this defense and was knocked to the ground by her own blast, Benji and Makayla rushing to her side.

Orion took this moment to turn his attention behind him and race toward Delsin. If he couldn’t get Fetch by his side voluntarily, he would take out his competition.

Delsin saw Fetch flinch backwards as her neon collided with her and he quickly left Eugene in a series of smoke dashes across the field.

Before he could reach her, he collided with Orion who looked hellbent. Orion wrapped his hands around Delsin’s neck and through sheer conduit strength lifted Delsin off the ground by a few inches. Makayla screamed something to Delsin but he couldn’t hear her over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. Orion worked quickly, summoning a full mirror behind Delsin and growling as Delsin clawed at Orion’s hands that were reducing his air flow. Delsin had no time to ask questions before he felt himself being slammed backwards, Orion’s eyes shining with brilliant gold crescents.

He hit the floor hard. It was cold, concrete beneath his body. The grass gone and the battlefield lost to some doorway he could not reach. The view through the door shifted to show only sky and Delsin knew he was trapped in some magic box lost among the blades of grass. He felt an overwhelming ache of being a disappointment, the fear of never being good enough for anyone creeping from his innermost thoughts and into the open space around him. He sunk into the depression, dropping to his knees in this mirrorverse trap.

Orion knew using his ultimate this early was not in his plans but he wanted Fetch and so he took out the Delsin she knew and summoned his karma opposite to do his bidding instead. The full mirror shrunk and was pushed backwards into the grass to hide it and give him more time to control this new version of Delsin standing at his side. He pointed to Fetch who was slowly standing while Celia seemed to be struggling to sit up a few feet away from her.

“Do your worst, Delsin,” Orion sneered and Delsin shook out his arms before smoke dashing with red embers in his wake toward Celia.

Celia wasn’t sure what was happening but she seemed to have enough power to burst into paper scraps and reform on the rooftop again, out of Delsin’s reach for the moment. She turned her attention to Orion and gave him a hard stare, reforming her familiar rabbit mask in her hand.

“What are you doing, Orion Stella? You dare defy me?”

“You said it yourself, Celia. I’m stronger than anyone gives me credit for, yourself included. I’d advise you to run away now or face your final fold.”

Celia surveyed the ground before putting her mask on, “You will regret this decision.”

“Doubtful.”

Celia moved to dash and suddenly Eugene was on the roof sharing the space and giving Celia another blockade. Orion shifted his attention to see where Delsin was and saw the man sizing up Benji instead.

“Rowe! Get Celia! Benji is mine.”

But it seemed this evil karma version of Delsin had now decided that he took orders from no one.

Makayla recognized the attack Orion was doing on Delsin and called out to him to free himself but it was too late. Delsin was banished to the mirrorverse and would be trapped there until someone could break the mirror or knock Orion out. Breaking the mirror was going to be easier but finding it among the scattered shards and the tall grass was going to make that more like a Where’s Waldo search. Regardless, Makayla burst off toward where she thought the mirror may be to try and set the real Delsin free.

“Forgive me, Lucky. I’m not looking for bad luck right now,” Makayla spoke under her breath while stomping on mirror shards trying to find the piece that Delsin was trapped within. She didn’t know how big or small it would be as she had never stuck around to see what the mirror looked like after Orion had used his ultimate successfully. She was suddenly glad for wearing platform boots at a time like this with glass crunching below her feet on purpose.

For some reason she glanced over her shoulder and saw Delsin seemingly narrow in on Benji. Makayla was too far away to shout a warning so she left her location and hoped she’d find this spot easily enough in a minute. She pushed her toxic gas to her limit, building momentum that she did not stop as she collided with Benji, shoving him to the right as Delsin unleashed a red-tinted smoke bomb that she took the full impact of.

The smoke wasn’t bad to breathe as she was used to her own power but the taste was awful and the blast knocked the wind out of her as she splayed out on the grass, dizzy and weak all at once.

She vaguely tracked Benji leaning over her and shaking her to wake her before she passed out.

Eugene raised a hologram cylinder around Celia on the rooftop. It trapped the paper-user in her tracks and she banged against the side of the blue pixelated walls in anger. They filtered in color but remained in place.

“Relax, Celia. I just want to talk,” Eugene said, one hand raised, palm facing Celia to maintain his creation around her. She shook her paper mask at him from within the cylinder. “Please. All you have to do is call off Orion and promise to leave us alone and I’ll let you go.”

“You don’t understand,” Celia called out, “I lost control over Orion moments ago. I cannot stop him.”

Eugene blinked at her as though this were some sick joke, “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Celia nodded, “But if you set me free I’ll help you contain him.”

Eugene studied Celia for a moment. It was hard to read her with her mask on and he hadn’t really worked well with her in any capacity but he didn’t have much of a choice right now. Fetch seemed too injured and low on neon to do much fighting, Makayla was out, Delsin was flipped to Orion’s side.

Eugene did what he thought was right.

He let the cylinder fall and Celia glanced over the edge of the rooftop in silence. Then she moved in a flutter of paper pieces to directly behind Eugene.

“After all these years and you still trust too easily, Eugene Sims,” Celia whispered into his ear from behind him before he felt a wet sensation crawl up his legs quickly. He glanced down and saw papermaché forming around his body and encasing him in a shell faster than he had time to react to.

The world fell into darkness as his paper coffin encased him completely there on the rooftop, the last thing he saw was Celia inspecting her work as she walked around him and then disappeared into paper pieces to leave the battle to Orion alone.

Everyone was much closer to them now and Rosaline did her best to protect Caly and keep the child from watching too much of the fighting happening around her. Because of her. Everyone just wanted this tiny spark of a girl all to themselves and it was disheartening to think about.

Rosaline had seen Orion using mirror though she didn’t know what he was planning and she alerted Fetch to be careful. Fetch had done her best in that moment but now seemed very low in spirits and power. She could drain from the warehouse, of course, but she’d have to retreat to do so and Fetch did not seem like someone who retreated that easily when she still had fight left in her.

Rosaline wanted to help in some way. She wanted to help turn the tides in their favor. But with Caly clinging to her legs she knew she couldn’t just run onto the battlefield. Besides, what good would that do? She didn’t have offensive attacks and she didn’t even know how to throw an effective punch.

She ran through her small list of abilities that she had been practicing and expanding and found something that maybe could work, if she could target the right person. Seeing Benji looking distraught, Makayla out cold, Fetch low on power and Eugene lost above her someplace, she had two options to try: she could target Orion, or she could target Delsin.

She reached out to both, pulling their emotions into visible auras for her to sift through. An idea formed in her head based on what she knew about both parties. She pushed her way into Delsin’s head and increased the one thing she knew he wanted the most right now–his desire for more power.

Delsin’s head snapped up suddenly. He swung his focus from Benji, to the one oozing power right now–Orion. The hyper focus was almost tangible. Rosaline magnified the drive for power with everything she had.

“What… What are you doing?” Orion accused Delsin as the man suddenly turned his focus and started stalking toward the mirror-user. Orion took steps backward to keep the distance from closing between himself and Delsin.

“Rowe! Go after them, not me! Make them pay!” Orion pointed toward the group behind Delsin but the mimic with the crimson beanie paid no mind to Orion’s words as he picked up his pace toward his personal target.

Orion knew he was in trouble. He suddenly turned to run and Delsin gave chase. The two men moving at a breakneck pace as they moved over the grass, away from the warehouse. Orion was purposely zigzagging through the field and breaking every mirror he found trying to undo his own spell and set things right to save his own hide.

Suddenly, Lucky was in front of him and Orion stumbled in his footsteps upon seeing his banished sister. The vision of her faded away and Orion spun on his heels, the distraction allowing Delsin to catch up too quickly. Orion watched as Delsin leapt toward him, hand outreached for him, and Orion shielded his face with his arms knowing it was too late to run now…

Thank you for reading and enjoying InFAMOUS Sparks!

A huge thanks goes to my beta readers and friends who encouraged me to write this and get my characters into the world. They are truly my sparks of inspiration.

[infamoussparks]

Chapter 2: Safe with Me

Approx. 4,000 words; 25 minute read.

“You! Stop moving!” Shit. Fetch tsked softly and slid her butt to the floor, sitting down and raising her hands in front of her in a show of cooperation and surrender. But her eyes were narrowed and hard, her body language not hiding the fight in her eyes. As the guard moved his attention to someone else, Fetch slowly placed her hands on the floor, the tiles cool beneath her palms. Her position wasn’t far off from where she wanted to be in the room and she still felt that she could execute her plan, which fueled her confidence.

Back within the comfort of her own office, Rosaline created a makeshift pillow using her extra doctor coat that hung on the back of her office door and laid Caly down on top of half of a fluffy blanket on the small couch she had in her dark space. Caly made no noise as she snuggled in and started to drift back into sleep. Rosaline covered her with the remaining half of the blanket while thinking to herself how amazing it was that kids could fall asleep practically anywhere so quickly. 

“You poor thing. You’re exhausted. I hope your Mom knows to come back here for you. I hope she’s… safe.” The words felt wrong to say, as though it sealed an unspoken fate. Rosaline tried to shake off the thought but then a familiar chime rang through the speakers and she almost dismissed it… except no follow up announcement signaled that the chime was just a drill. The hospital had different sounding alerts and drills were run several times a month, much like a fire alarm being tested to ensure everyone knew what to do in the case of a real emergency. This particular alarm that sounded was for a full hospital lockdown so now Rosaline was on high alert, further spiked by Caly quickly falling asleep in her office.

“Caly? Can you wake up for a bit? I need to go see what is going on. Stay here and stay quiet, ok? I promise I’ll be back for you. See my badge? No one can get in here without it. You’re safe.” Caly was struggling to keep her eyes open, her lids fluttering heavily as the doctor gave her instructions. Within a moment after a nod of understanding, Caly was back asleep, the blanket pulled over her head.

Rosaline did not want to leave Caly here but instincts told her it was the best thing to do right now. She left her office, ensuring the lock clicked into place behind her and smoothed her doctor coat as she quickened her pace toward the Maternity ward waiting room to see what was going on.

The day had been moving along just fine. Patrol of the city street from the rooftops was often boring work but Fetch enjoyed her shift nonetheless as it gave her time to stretch her legs and run free with her boost of neon at her heels. As she was about to call it quits and head back toward the school to review lesson plans before her classes started, she heard a shrill alarm from a large building to her right. Hazel eyes narrowed at the sight of two uniformed men standing outside the main doors and Fetch grabbed her cell phone, sending a photo and a short text to Delsin and Eugene.

Recognize these uniforms? Alarm at children’s hospital. Checking it out.

She didn’t wait for a response before turning off her phone completely and shoving it into the back pocket of her ripped jeans, dropping into an alley beside the hospital and strolling inside without a second glance from the unusual guards posted outside.

Once inside, she heard the alarm again and heard shouting from somewhere down the hall before her. Fetch didn’t wait to see what was going on while running down the hall as quietly as she could, her neon extinguished but easy enough to summon should she need it. She ducked into a waiting room where people seemed to be crying and whimpering. She tightened her jaw when she saw three men, in the same uniforms as the ones out front, with large weapons pointed at the people who were all sitting on the floor. Some were crying and clearly panicked and scared while one of the uniformed men with a helmet on and tinted visor down over his face was barking at them to stay quiet.

Fetch dropped to the ground trying to blend in and started crawling toward the center of the room. If she could get there, she could get the jump on these guys using neon without the worry of hurting anyone beyond her targets. She’d also have a straight shot to the doorway behind the men–an easy way to evacuate everyone once they were safe.

“You! Stop moving!” Shit. Fetch tsked softly and slid her butt to the floor, sitting down and raising her hands in front of her in a show of cooperation and surrender. But her eyes were narrowed and hard, her body language not hiding the fight in her eyes. As the guard moved his attention to someone else, Fetch slowly placed her hands on the floor, the tiles cool beneath her palms. Her position wasn’t far off from where she wanted to be in the room and she still felt that she could execute her plan, which fueled her confidence.

Suddenly a voice seemed to pull her attention from the guards, <Fetch…? Are you Fetch Walker?>

It caught her off-guard and she spoke normally without regard for the caution of the space she was in, “Yeah. Who said that?”

“No talking!” The familiar click of a gun being swung in her direction had Fetch growl as her attention was pulled to the barrel of the weapon. The men were wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on their shiny murder toys… interesting.

<Keep quiet. They can’t hear me. If you are Fetch Walker, please just nod once or tap your finger along the floor twice.> The voice seemed loud enough for anyone to hear it and Fetch was slightly confused as to how someone could be speaking to her but no one else seemed to hear it. She waited for the guard to sweep his attention to a now sobbing woman and she tapped her index finger against the tiles twice.

<Thank God. This hospital is full of pregnant people, newborns and children. We need to make sure everyone gets full medical care without interruption. We need to get this situation under control quickly.>

“What do you want me to do?” Fetch spoke again, causing the closest guard to turn his gun on her, pressing the barrel into her chest sharply.

“I want you to shut the hell up! Speak again and you’ll be too dead to regret it.” A muffled voice sounded over the radio system attached to the shoulder on each mans’ uniform and the guard turned his attention to getting that message understood. Fetch glanced around looking for the person who was needing her help, but saw no one seemed to make eye contact nor get her attention.

<First, stop answering out loud. I can’t hear your thoughts but I am speaking to you through my own. Please nod if this makes sense.>

Fetch turned her attention back to the three armed men, quickly studying the uniforms for any identification as she nodded casually.

<Good. My name is Doctor Hutch. We are under a lockdown. These men stormed our hospital looking for something called ‘Project 41 and 42’. Do you know what that is?>

The voice was coming in clearer now that Fetch realized it was in her mind and that was why no one else could hear it. It was a woman’s voice and it was calm and collected. It had to be someone in this room with her but Fetch decided to stop looking for whomever it belonged to and to focus on the task at hand. She shook her head slightly from side to side in a silent answer.

<No, huh? I have a sinking suspicion that I have what they are looking for. I need your help to get to my office and get Caly to safety. I’ll find you after the hospital is clear. Can I trust you?>

Fetch bobbed her chin in response, her jaw set in determination.

<Thank you. I’m going to distract the guards and slide you my badge. You’ll need it to get access to my office. It’s on your left just past the Maternity Wing, first floor. Take a left out of that doorway in front of you. I’m counting on your speed here… please no fighting. It will scare her.>

With another subtle nod, Fetch stored the directions away and shifted herself into more of a crouching position to give her a jump start on a dash once the badge was in her hands. She wasn’t sure how this mysterious Doctor Hutch would distract these no-nonsense guards, but she was here for a reason and apparently that was not to help the hospital but instead to run with whoever this “Caly” was and to get her to a safe place.

<I’m going to cut communication with you now. Once the guards are distracted, take my badge and go. I’ll find you!> Suddenly, Fetch’s head felt heavy silence as though someone had turned on the noise-canceling button of headphones she didn’t know she was wearing. She focused on the closest man before her when suddenly he dropped his weapon and was scrambling to pull off his helmet with a loud shout. The helmet clattered to the floor beside the gun as the man put his hands over his ears and screamed in pain and surprise. The guard to his right gave a glance to the guard just outside the doorway before striding over to the one screaming and reaching out to him.

“Hey, what’s going on?” As the second guards’ hand touched the screamer’s shoulder he immediately also started yelling and panicking, weapon dropping and helmet quickly being unbuckled with his free hand. It was during this weird show of invisible distraction, that Fetch felt something bump into her boot. She snatched up the mentioned badge and in a burst of pink and yellow, raced out of the room, heading toward the office. The final guard didn’t even have time to fire a warning shot as he was so distracted and confused over what was happening to his partners that he let Fetch go further into the hospital without a fight.

It took seconds for Fetch to reach the office and she shook off her neon and gave a look down the hallway both ways before placing the badge on the reader and unlocking the door. She slipped inside and the door closed, locking behind her. She didn’t know what this “Caly” person looked like but before she could start her search, movement to her left caught her eye.

A child was wide awake and had moved herself into the far corner of the couch, her pink blanket brought up over her mouth, gray eyes wide in fear and uncertainty.

“... Caly? Are you Caly?” Fetch reached out to the child and she shrunk further away. The neon-wielder paused in her approach and instead knelt beside the couch, holding up the badge beside her head.

“Caly, Doctor Hutch sent me to come get you. It’s not safe here right now and she wanted me to get you someplace safer. My name is Fetch. Will you come with me?”

Caly looked from the badge with Rosaline’s photo on it, to Fetch and after a moment nodded then stood up on the couch reaching her hands upwards. Fetch released a quiet breath of relief and stood before picking up the child.

“Listen, I’m going to take you back with me but we are going to run very, very fast. I need you to hang on very, very tight, okay? You can close your eyes. I promise to be careful.” Caly nodded again and buried her face against Fetch’s neck, squeezing her eyes closed and clinging tightly to both Fetch and her blanket. Fetch reached into her pocket and pulled out the emblem that Delsin had given her. It hung from a necklace chain, something she had modified it to do instead of being pinned to her outfits daily, suddenly thankful she didn’t have time to clasp it around her neck this morning. She left her emblem necklace on the Doctor’s desk before pocketing the badge and listening at the door. No alarming sounds were heard so she carefully pushed the door open and checked the hallways before leaving the office and racing off toward the emergency exit. Leaving through that door set off a secondary alarm and this one she recognized as one that Seattle Police would respond to. She hoped they’d arrive quickly.

“Should we go looking for her?” Delsin was pacing in the office, wearing a path of worry into the thin carpet below his sneakers. Eugene was perched on the arm of the red couch in the office, looking at his cell phone and quickly running through different apps and settings.

Eugene paused long enough to make eye contact with his clearly worried friend, “Her phone is off. We can’t track her, but we trust her. We know her, Delsin. She’ll be okay.”

“What if something happened? What if she–” Delsin was cut off by a burst of bright pink neon rushing into the room and slamming the door behind her. Fetch seemed to be okay as she leaned herself against the door to catch her breath. Her back was to the guys and Delsin nearly seemed to snap to her side with Eugene giving her a once over to check for any signs of Fetch needing immediate first aid.

Delsin motioned broadly, his voice raised in relief with a bite of anger, “Fetch! You gave me a heart attack! What the hell happened–”

“Shhhh!” Fetch spun around then to face her friends and that’s when they both saw Caly clinging to and being cradled by Fetch. Fetch looked utterly exhausted too, which was unusual for her.

Delsin’s mouth dropped open without a sound. His anger vanished in a moment seeing Fetch standing there with this tiny human wrapped around her. Fetch looked so… motherly. That was something he never thought he’d see with her, despite his brain providing him with plenty of what-if daydreams in which similar scenarios played out.

“Is she okay? Are you? Here, get her to the couch.” Eugene leaped into motion grabbing a blanket and moving a throw pillow horizontally on the couch. He was great with kids, mostly because he felt like he could relate to them. The teenagers at the school were more comfortable with Delsin and Fetch.

Fetch blew out a rush of air and moved toward the couch, sitting down carefully and gently running her hand through Caly’s hair, “Hey, Caly? We’re here. You did great. You were very brave.”

Caly blinked and looked around cautiously before releasing her hold on Fetch and slipping off her lap and onto the couch cushion beside the pink-haired woman. Her gray eyes studied Eugene who knelt before her and offered her a rubber duck he pulled from the window ledge behind the desk. Caly took the duck and held it. Delsin slowly approached from around the back of the couch and gave Caly a quick glance before locking eyes with Fetch. His ears started to heat up suddenly and he raised one hand to absently rub the back of his neck, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“There was a lockdown at the hospital and these uniforms I’ve never seen. I went in, but then had a weird encounter with a conduit who had telepathy, maybe? She’s a doctor… Here's her badge. She said the uniforms may be after Caly here. Asked me to get her somewhere safe. I ran all the way back here via rooftops with neon, carrying Caly, so we’d have less chance of being seen.” Fetch tossed the badge to Delsin who caught it with his open hand. After examining it, he passed it to Eugene who took it and held it.

“Caly? My name is Eugene. How old are you?” Caly gave Eugene a small smile, mimicking his own, before holding up four fingers.

“She’s four years old, guys. Seems too young to do any damage that would cause a lockdown.” Eugene stood and took the badge to the desk, opening up their shared laptop and setting to work.

Fetch looked at Caly and tried to piece together the puzzle she had before her, but she felt like she was missing pieces. Caly yawned and snuggled against Fetch, placing her thumb in her mouth and hooking the index finger of the same hand over her tiny nose. She pulled her soft pink blanket up close to her face with her other hand, the rubber duck falling into her lap.

“Fetch, I… “ Delsin started to speak, but the image before him seemed to be washing him in feelings he thought he had long since buried and forgotten about. Fetch ran her fingers through Caly’s hair, gently pulling at the hair ties and releasing the platinum blonde hair from the lopsided and wind-blown pigtails and into a mess of waves and curls.

“I’m sorry to worry you, Smokes. I just had this feeling… you know? Like when you are exactly where you are meant to be? I didn’t have time to do much else besides send that photo and text.” Fetch’s voice was soft, speaking more to the top of Caly’s head than looking at Delsin directly. She wasn’t avoiding him, not exactly, but she had a feeling this was going to lead into a different conversation if she didn’t keep it on topic.

“Yeah, that photo was a bit blurry but I’ve never seen those uniforms before. I ran a script on it to see if I could track any similar photos and only pulled up one posted late last night on social media. They seem to be a cross between police and some old D.U.P. looks, wouldn’t you agree?” Eugene was focused on the laptop, the keyboard quietly clacking away, the reflection of the screen visible in his eyeglasses.

Fetch turned her attention to Eugene and tilted her head slightly as though she was lost in thought, “... yeah, maybe? I dunno… they seemed so… crisp. Anything popping up if you search for D.U.P. or factions?”

“Nothing. Everything is just from seven years ago when they disbanded and shut down. It’s weird though… Did you get a closer look at the logo on the front at all? It was too small and blurred for me to make out.”

“An owl. It was an owl. I got close enough to take note of it. I can draw it for you in a bit. I’m… kinda stuck here for right now.” Caly had fallen asleep against Fetch’s warm side and her thumb was slowly falling out of her mouth. Eugene glanced around the laptop screen and smiled at seeing Caly so cuddled into Fetch, before nodding with approval at Fetch’s suggestion.

Delsin suddenly interjected, pulling himself loose from his thoughts, “What about that doctor? Anything on her?”

“Doctor Rosaline Hutch, CGC which is code for Certified Genetic Counselor. Fairly new to Seattle. She has a published, award-winning paper on the conduit gene and how to identify it. It won her a prestigious ASHG–American Society of Human Genetics–award and quite a large sum of money. Looks like she used some of that money to help expand Seattle Children’s Hospital.” Eugene scrolled through his findings, “No mention of any kids of her own, but she does have a sister who lives nearby. Is Caly related to her somehow?”

“I… I don’t know. She didn’t say. Just told me to get her out of there and keep her safe. I figured this was the best place for her. Doctor Hutch said she’d find me after the hospital was safe. I left a calling card of sorts behind in her office to help her track me down.”

Delsin shrugged, “Then I guess we will keep the kid safe and wait it out. We can question the doctor once she shows up.”

“... Will she show up?” Eugene peered over his glasses, his focus bouncing between Caly and Fetch.

“Absolutely. I triggered the main alarm for the hospital on my way out. The cops have gotta have things sorted by now.” Fetch shifted just enough to gently maneuver Caly onto the pillow beside her. She grabbed the blanket Eugene had set on the couch and shook it out before laying it over the small child and making sure she stayed asleep.

Delsin stepped behind the desk now and took over the laptop, typing something quickly. The laptop speakers sparked to life, relaying a live feed of a local news channel that was set outside the hospital where the reporter was explaining that everything was under control and no one was hurt. His eyebrow shot up and he glanced back at Fetch over the screen.

Fetch rolled her eyes, “The doctor did something to distract the uniforms long enough for me to grab Caly. I’m not sure what she did or how, but they seemed like they were in pain from hearing something only they could hear. But if the news isn’t reporting about the uniforms then we may have bigger problems.”

“She’s right. No mention of the uniforms or anything related to any reason on why exactly the alarm was triggered.” Eugene had seized control of the laptop again and his glasses reflected that he had already pulled up various sources looking for information before it was asked of him.

Delsin moved to perch on the edge of the desk, arms crossed loosely over his chest as he exhaled a puff of air. No one had a moment longer to think things over before a soft knock sounded on the office door, “Come in.”

The door opened and a female student stood there in the hallway before waving hello at Delsin and ushering over someone beyond the door frame. A woman walked into the office with the confidence and professionalism expected of someone wearing that doctor’s coat. Her hair was up in a bun, made slightly messy from the earlier events of the day. She removed her glasses and allowed them to dangle from the beaded chain around her neck.

Delsin stood up and dropped his arms before clearing his throat, “Thanks, Alessia.” He crossed over to the door and closed it, leaving the students to wonder about the doctor now in a meeting with the founders of the school. Fetch glanced over the back of the couch and Eugene stood from behind the desk, closing the laptop.

The woman held out her fist and walked toward Fetch, dropping something into Fetch’s outstretched hand, “Thank you for this.” She peeked over the couch and sighed softly in relief at seeing Caly there asleep. Fetch nodded and clasped the returned necklace around her neck, dropping the emblem into her shirt.

“Doctor Hutch, I presume? I’m Delsin Rowe, that’s Eugene Sims and I see you’ve met Fetch already. Welcome to our safe haven,” Delsin spoke welcomely though he had an edge to his voice that teetered on the verge of suspicion.

“Please, call me Rosaline. I’m sure you have questions for me. I don’t know that I have all the answers, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

Fetch was standing now, having walked around to the back of the couch and was leaning against it. She held the doctor’s badge out toward Rosaline who took it and dropped it into her pocket. Eugene joined the group and stood beside Fetch. Delsin offered Rosaline a cold water bottle from a tiny refrigerator beside the office door.

“We’d love to know what you know.”

[infamoussparks]

Chapter 1: Sparklers & Secrets

Approx. 5,300 words; 35 minute read.

Someone below started clapping and another group of students started laughing loudly. The three heroes peered over the ledge in half supervision and half pure glee in the moment. This was so much better, so much bigger, than they could have ever hoped for. It meant so much to all of them.

“Two whole damn years. Can you believe it?” Hazel eyes scan the grounds as the sun casually dipped below the horizon in the distance. Fetch was seated on the top of the concrete border that ran along the rooftop of the warehouse. A half-full bottle of beer was beside her on the ledge and her boots gently tapped against the wall as they dangled over the edge. The soft, warm breeze of the final summer evening played with her hair, toying with her fringe as it fell over her eyes. She was focused on the people below who were laughing and enjoying the summer air as they played and chatted with one another. 

Delsin sat beside Fetch, facing away from the commotion below and gave her a soft smile. He took a long sip of his beer and softly chuckled in response, “Two years… how the hell did that happen so quickly?” 

He brought his free hand to his head and adjusted his beanie in place. It was a staple of his wardrobe despite the warmer air and made him easily identifiable to the group gathered below. The school had done well, pulling in people from all over with powers looking for protection and guidance. Fetch knew that Delsin wasn’t sure he was the best at either of these things on his own, but with Eugene and herself by his side the three “Heroes of Seattle” had somehow managed to provide all that and more. It didn’t get better than this.

Eugene opted not to sit so close to danger and instead was seated in a fabric camping chair that was set up on the roof. He dragged it close to his friends and put himself in charge of beer counting to make sure no one had too many and ended up with several regrets come morning.

“It’s been a great two years, though. This feels like a new beginning.” Eugene raised his bottle and nodded toward Delsin who nodded in agreement. Eugene had really come out of his shell with the school under his belt and he was sitting there in a casual gaming t-shirt, no longer hiding within an oversized hoodie. Fetch figured his confidence shift happened due to how good it felt to be looked up to by everyone here.

The school went unnamed, but it was theirs. The outside was painted with murals of powers and people long since gone but never forgotten. Spray paint and neon intertwined throughout the outside and inside of the main building, adding a personal touch and a reminder that conduits were just normal people with extra abilities. It helped to really keep the students and members of the school at ease and feeling as though they were a part of something amazing, safe and welcomed to be themselves at every turn. It was the small things that mattered most, it seemed.

And those students were so amazing. Ages ranged from teens to adults. It was a very diverse collection of people all pulled together because they had abilities and needed help with accepting them, or using them, or simply needed a place to crash after feeling unsafe for just existing as they were. Some of them didn’t even want anything to do with their powers, but being here was important to them in other ways and so, they stayed. 

Everyone who stayed at the school had a small, dorm-sized room to themselves. The rooms were narrow but not claustrophobic and they were all wiped down to a neutral slate in between students. They included a desk, chair, bed and a decently sized closet, with enough room for a small couch or a few beanbags if the students decided to purchase extra furniture. Students could do anything they wanted to the room–rearrange the furniture, paint the walls, plaster them in posters, hang their powers on display–anything goes. The only rule was no demolition. The rooms were a reflection of the people who lived within and it was always a fun way to get to know someone by simply visiting their domain. Common restrooms and bathing rooms were found within each hall of dorm rooms.

The hallways were named after things that mattered most to Delsin, Fetch and Eugene. They had a wing all to themselves upstairs and tucked away from the main lobby, each with their own room and private bathrooms. They also had a shared space on the second floor that was a meeting room to discuss any upcoming classes or issues with students in private. Occasionally things came up, but mostly the school was a positive and fun place to attend.

As for classes, Fetch mostly taught combat–how to wield and defend yourself with your abilities; Eugene taught technical advancements–how to think beyond your powers and use your environment for a more tactical experience; and Delsin taught acceptance–how to love your powers without getting too cocky about it. Between the three, they had a balanced day of classes that focused on what they wished they had learned growing up with abilities instead of having to run, hide, or fight to be understood. They also made sure to include a little of the average core classes (English, Math, Science, History) into their lessons as well, but they could weave that in as needed and it was never the true focus of any class. The school was more a haven and less a high school.

Access to the rooftop was forbidden to the students, but that didn’t stop them from sneaking up there while testing their abilities. Delsin, Fetch and Eugene controlled the rooftop space and used it now as a place to just relax and quietly celebrate their accomplishments. Fetch smiled softly to herself watching the group below her now. Powers were flared now and then, but never in a way that seemed dangerous or alarming. It was a different experience for her to be in a place where powers could be used freely and in such a safe environment. She felt like Brent would be proud of who she had become afterall.

Suddenly, Delsin stood up, “Shit! I almost forgot. I got you both something.” 

Fetch glanced over her shoulder at him and adjusted herself to now be sitting sideways on the ledge, one boot on the roof while the other still dangled off the edge. She nearly knocked her beer off and onto the rooftop, but luckily Eugene grabbed it seconds before disaster. He handed it to her with a lopsided grin. 

“My hero,” Fetch joked as she took the bottle from him and raised it to his before taking a sip and tossing Delsin an expectant glance. “What you got for us, Smokes?”

“I’m glad you asked, Fetch. First, hold these,” and Delsin tossed a flat, narrow box to her. Fetch snagged it from the air easily enough and then placed her beer on the rooftop beside her foot to better examine the box.

“Sparklers?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean, I figured we could light them as a toast to everything we’ve built. Together.”

“I won’t complain about lighting things on fire.” Fetch winked at Delsin while removing two sparklers for herself and passing the box to Eugene. Eugene fished two out for himself and passed the box back to Delsin with an underhand toss. Delsin caught it without seeming to think about it and grabbed two for himself then he placed the box on the gravel of the rooftop.

The three friends brought the tips of the sparklers closer together and Delsin cleared his throat.

“To everything we’ve built, everything we have and whatever the future holds,” With a snap of his fingers simply for flair, embers of smoke summoned and worked their magic to light the six sparklers in a bright flare of light. Eugene grinned like a child and Fetch laughed out loud at the sight, “Most of all, to us.”

“To us!” Eugene and Fetch chimed in. Fetch traced the letters U-S in the air using her sparklers, sparks leaping and dancing on the slight breeze in the growing dark of twilight. Eugene seemed to be inspecting the process of the soft flame swallowing the ignited fuel for the sparklers.

Someone below started clapping and another group of students started laughing loudly. The three heroes peered over the ledge in half supervision and half pure glee in the moment. This was so much better, so much bigger, than they could have ever hoped for. It meant so much to all of them.

“One more thing… hold out your hands.” Delsin reached into his pocket, both sparklers slowly burning down between the fingers of his other hand. Fetch and Eugene exchanged a curious glance before shifting their sparklers into one hand and holding the empty one out as instructed. Delsin found what he was searching for in his pocket and with a grin dropped something into each of his friends’ hands.

“What… is this an emblem?” Eugene was holding the small gift in his fingers, using the light of the sparklers to get a better look. 

Delsin nodded, that grin still plastered on his face, “Yeah, exactly! I thought we should give something to the students to make them feel like more of a part of this wild idea of ours. And it will help us identify them on and off grounds.”

“I’m impressed, Smokes. This is really cool.” Fetch was holding it up and out over drop to the ground below without fear of dropping it. The emblem was a small, silver piece that had a pin back. The back was engraved with three initials and a year–“D, F, E - EST. 2023”--the year the school opened. The front was engraved and embellished with a design that featured a spray-painted star with a smaller star cut from the middle and two wings on either side–one resembled her neon style and one clearly looked like Eugene’s video wings. It was about the size of a half dollar, around 1.2” or 3.05cm, and it was perfect. Eugene and Delsin attached their new emblems to their shirts and Fetch pocketed hers for the time being.

“The sparklers are almost out.” Fetch sighed softly, slowly waving hers through the air. Delsin sat right beside her, his shoulder bumping into her knee playfully.

“Got plenty more where those came from.”

Eugene joined the two on the ledge, but sat so his back was to the drop below. He scooped the box off the ground and handed it to Delsin, “Are we lighting them all tonight?”

“Sure, why not? This is a celebration, after all. Let’s light it up!”

Fetch laughed again and snatched the box from Delsin, “Okay, but I gotta see if I can light ‘em with neon.”

“Maybe I’ll move the fire extinguisher closer.” Eugene chuckled as Delsin groaned and rolled his eyes jokingly. The night was rung in with good beer, bright sparklers and enough contagious laughter to be caught by the students below.

“Paging Doctor Hutch. Doctor Hutch to Maternity.” The loudspeaker announcement echoed in the silence of the small, dark office which had seemed like as good a place as any to get some breathing room at the moment. That didn’t last long.

“If they keep calling me this often no one is getting any results back today,” the words a hushed chuff below Dr. Rosaline Hutchs’ breath. No one else occupied the space with her and she wasn’t exactly upset at being continuously pulled from her research, it was simply the workflow of the day. She pulled back from looking into the electron microscope long enough to blink her green and gold flecked eyes, pull her reading glasses from her hair and made a recording on a chart that lay in her lap. That was all the time she allowed for herself and her work. Then she was standing, placing her clipboard down on her desk, smoothing any wrinkles from her doctor coat and repositioning her glasses so they hung neatly around her neck from a dainty string of pretty beads.

She didn’t need to lock up behind her as every office, lab and most hallways were only accessible with a badge, so once the door latched with a satisfying click Rosaline was off toward the maternity wing of Seattle Children’s Hospital curious to see what type of situation she’d encounter this time.

She didn’t have to wonder for long as upon swiping her badge and entering the quiet, yet busy maternity ward, a young nurse with excellent taste in scrubs (today they were light blue with doodles of puppies and kittens all over them) immediately met her with a bright smile and a clipboard of her own.

Rosaline returned her smile and gave her a quick nod as she stepped away from the main hallway and more toward the wall, not wanting to hold up the flow of people rushing here and there, “Nurse Smith.”

“Doctor Hutch, please. Call me Meg.” Meg Smith was a newer nurse, full of potential and a passion for her job. She was quickly becoming one of Rosaline’s favorite people to work with within the hospital–her energy was infectious and kids of all ages really loved Meg.

“Alright, Meg. What am I walking into?”

Meg checked the clipboard before passing it over to Rosaline, “Super anxious mother, room 301. Newborn is a preemie in NICU and stable.”

“What about the father?” Rosaline had her glasses back on, peering over the chart and flipping the pages to ensure she had a decent glimpse of everything before her. A strand of auburn red hair fell loose from her tight bun and she absently tucked it behind her ear.

“Out of the picture. Or so I assume from what the mom has said.”

A soft tsk fell from Rosaline’s mouth as she gave a slight frown to Meg and removed her glasses, “We should never assume…”

Meg instantly cringed at the disapproving look, pleading her defense in a rush of breath, “I know! I know, but I just overheard some things and I…”

“Smart girl,” Rosaline smiled softly, hoping Meg understood her stance on this matter. Sometimes it was best to follow your instincts instead of the rules. “Thank you.”

Meg immediately brightened again, her smile giving her dimples and she started walking toward the room at a quick pace, “I’ll introduce you.”

“Please. It makes it a lot easier for everyone.” Rosaline followed closely behind Meg as they wove between staff and patients toward their destination. Meg rapped on the door with her knuckles before opening and entering the room. It was a standard hospital room for new moms and contained everything needed for both mother and baby while both were monitored before being sent home. The mother here was sitting up in bed slightly and seemed relieved to see Meg.

“Ms. Rogers, this is Doctor Hutch. She runs our Discovery Department and I know you had a few questions for her. If everything is okay, I’ll leave you both to chat in privacy.” Meg swept through the room, her eyes darting between machines, charts and Ms. Rogers. It looked like a normal conversation, but Rosaline made a mental note of how astute Meg was and noticed that the young nurse was checking all the vitals with a quick glance. It made Rosaline proud knowing that Meg was doing everything right without so much of a fuss nor prompting.

Ms. Rogers adjusted her position on the bed and looked simply exhausted, “Yes, everything is fine. Thank you. Hello, Doctor Hutch.” 

Meg nodded and left the room and after the door latched Rosaline approached the bed with a soft smile.

“Hello, Ms. Rogers. Congratulations on your new baby boy.” Rosaline reached out one hand to shake Ms. Rogers’ hand. This was how it started, how Rosaline worked her magic. Ms. Rogers extended her hand and it was wrapped in a gentle handshake that then turned into a comforting handhold. Rosaline left the handhold relaxed in case Ms. Rogers pulled away, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t happen. Her internal clock started ticking down.

“Thank you, Dr. Hutch. I’m just so…” Ms. Rogers hesitated and took a calming breath, seeming to steel herself.

“It’s okay. I understand. How can I be of assistance?” Five seconds down. Five to go. Rosaline took her own quiet inhale. This was second nature to her now, but meeting new people this way always made her a bit nervous. It wasn’t the people per say, but their stories that brought them to her.

Ms. Rogers blinked back tears. New mothers were always this way–so much was happening to their bodies, their minds, their souls–it was hard to stay neutral after such an emotional experience from giving birth. Bringing a new life into this world was hard no matter what lens you looked at it through. Rosaline gave an encouraging squeeze to Ms. Rogers’ hand and the mother seemed to find her words.

“My son. I need to know if he’s… one of them. I just… I’m so worried. His father may have been one, but I never knew for sure and I… I don’t know what I’ll do if, if he’s…” Ms. Rogers stumbled over her words, but they were out now and Rosaline didn’t flinch nor react beyond a genuine comforting smile. Enough time had passed and she saw what she needed from this worried mother. Rosaline patted her hand and let go.

“My testing isn’t covered by insurance but I can perform the test immediately if you consent. I’ll take a small sample of blood–no more than a pinprick–from your son’s large toe and then I can have results for you within a few hours. I’m a tad backed up in my lab, I’m afraid.”

“Yes! I mean, please. I’ll pay out of pocket, I just.. I have to know.”

“I’ll have Meg bring you the forms to sign and then I’ll collect the sample. I’ll be as quick and painless as possible.”

“Thank you. I’ll wait for the results.”

Rosaline nodded and said her goodbyes then left the room, signaling to Meg who was already headed over with her clipboard and paperwork, “Thanks, Meg. I’ll wait for the official signature.”

Meg disappeared into room 301 and Rosaline leaned against the wall around the corner from the room, replaying the conversation in her mind. Ms. Rogers was so frightened for her son to be “one of them”, to be a conduit. It broke her heart. This child who was fresh to the world was already being judged and having decisions made based on something he had no control over, based on genes that may never activate in his life. Regardless of whether or not the absent father truly was a conduit, it was clear only to Rosaline that Ms. Rogers was not one. The aura she saw after ten seconds of skin contact was white, and after years of fine tuning her ability she knew without a doubt that Ms. Rogers was not only not a conduit, but that she didn’t carry the gene at all. Maybe her son would be spared as well.

“Doctor Hutch? I have the paperwork,” Meg’s approach pulled Rosaline from her own head and she offered Meg a grateful nod. 

“Which NICU room for her son?” Rosaline took the paperwork and placed her glasses on, peering through the few pages to make sure all the signatures were in place.

“NICU 3-B. He’s a real cutie, you can’t miss him.” Meg was practically swooning. 

Rosaline found herself thinking that Meg would make an amazing mother someday when she was ready, “Thank you. I’ll go now and run my tests. Hopefully, I’ll have time to complete this one before I’m paged again. It’s been a busy day.”

“It has! Good luck with the tests.” Meg waved and then was quickly summoned back to the main desk to assist another patient. Rosaline returned the wave, removed her glasses and headed to the NICU.

The NICU was a quiet space full of machine beeps tracking oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate and emergencies for the smallest of babies who were born too early for a variety of reasons. Nurses sat nearby every block of rooms taking turns with monitoring the babies, changing diapers, feeding, holding them and comforting them in the times that their parents were unable to be with them. 

It was a tense place, but the nurses here were the best of the best. That was partially thanks to Rosaline and the funds she donated to the hospital after her research paper on identifying conduit genes had won a prestigious award that came with more money than she knew what to do with. The award was earned after years of intense research on the topic at hand and years of fine-tuning her own abilities. The Seattle Children’s Hospital was ever so thankful and they restructured the maternity wing, adding a brand new NICU center to the hospital as well. Rosaline’s only request was that they didn’t name it after her. The hospital board agreed but only if Rosaline would join their staff. And that was how she moved from Boston, Massachusetts to Seattle, Washington to continue her conduit gene Discovery Department, staffed by only herself. The pay was wonderful and she was able to continue to refine her skills and powers at the same time. As they say, it takes one to know one, and being a conduit identifying other conduits was her secret gift.

Meg was right about the baby. As soon as Rosaline found his space, she could see he was precious. He was swaddled tightly and according to his charts only two weeks premature, so he didn’t have as many red flags to watch for as some of the others in NICU care. The blood sample was absolutely useless to her, but Rosaline had to keep up appearances and she prepped for it regardless. She gently unswaddled the baby enough to free one tiny foot from the warmth of the blanket.

“Sorry little one. Forgive me?” Rosaline quickly pricked the baby’s big toe and squeezed a single drop of blood into a small vial. The little bundled baby hardly stirred in his sleep with the swift prick of pain, then Rosaline was back to adjusting his foot into his blanket, cooing softly to him to relax him further into his deep slumber. After the paperwork was done, the sticker placed on the vial and the vial safely dropped into the pocket of her doctor coat, Rosaline cleaned up her small mess and then returned to the baby in 3-B. His hand was out of the swaddle due to stickers in spots that the machines had to read. Rosaline placed her index finger against the palm of his hand and he instinctively curled his fingers around hers. It was always her favorite moment of this job–it was her sign of comfort and her reassurance that this was what she was meant for.

She silently counted to ten in her head and watched as the aura began to shift and appear around this new, tiny human. It was white at first but within a few milliseconds it shifted to a cream color–a clear indicator that this baby did have the conduit gene. Whether or not it would activate was unclear and Rosaline was still working to try to figure out how exactly to see this future state, but just like illness or cancer sometimes you don’t know until it makes itself present. At least she didn’t see any colors indicating either of those for this newborn. With a soft sigh she retracted her finger and left the NICU, headed back to her office just outside the maternity ward. 

Now she needed time to figure out how to tell Ms. Rogers that her son was a carrier. Inside her office she left the lights off and sat in her chair, glasses pulled back on to look over the charts on her desk, on her clipboard and in her pocket. Sometimes this job was heavier than it had any right to be. She reached out her right hand toward her microscope and felt a familiar pressure in her fingertips, like a magnet being pulled to its polar opposite. A soft glow of yellow shifted from the microscope into her fingertips. It took seconds to drain the small device and seconds more to shake the glow from her fingers and blink it away from her eyes, but it was done and now Rosaline had refueled her abilities. She was thankful she didn’t need much power to do what she did and even more thankful that her eye glow was controlled so she didn’t give herself away while using her powers. But reading cells at a magnified level was still tiring and having to deliver news that she needed to mentally prepare for was often exhausting.

She left her office a few minutes later checking her reflection in her desk mirror before finding her resolve. She bypassed the main desk in the maternity ward and knocked on the door before entering room 301. Ms. Rogers seemed surprised to see her back so soon and Rosaline handed her a formal letter, breaking the news in a comforting tone of voice.

“Your son is a carrier, however, this does not mean that the gene will activate. This letter is a formal record of his results and a list of things you can do to help prevent activation, although that is not guaranteed. I’ve also included a name and extension in case you needed to speak with our Adoption Specialist.” It was all formalities and facts, but Rosaline delivered them with a soft grace that seemed to resonate well with her patients.

Ms. Rogers nodded and a single tear slipped down her cheek, “Thank you. Bless you, Doctor Hutch.”

“It will not be included in his file, as this test is confidential. I know you’ll do the right thing for both of you. He’s a beautiful baby.”

“I… yes, thank you.” Ms. Rogers would have to take it from here, so Rosaline said her goodbyes and offered her contact information. Then she left Ms. Rogers’ room and tried to block out the sound of sobs as the door closed behind her.

Rosaline decided to take a loop through the hospital before returning to her office. It was good for her to get some extra steps in and it always helped to reset and clear her mind. She took a moment to get herself a coffee from the breakroom before stopping by her favorite window beside the maternity ward waiting room. The day was looking warm and sunny for once, the fog from the morning heat had long since lifted and the hope of an overcast autumn day was long over. She sipped her coffee and found herself daydreaming about her weekend hot yoga plans. She deserved it after this week.

After a moment of lingering, she paused at the doorway of the waiting room, watching some home design show playing on the television. As she pulled her focus away from the interior design mess happening on screen she nearly walked into a small child who was standing directly behind her. The little girl looked up at Rosaline with large, gray eyes and immediately raised her arms as though she wanted to be picked up.

Rosaline gave the child a confused look, eyes narrowing as she scanned the waiting room for any distraught parents looking for their missing daughter. Her ears perked to listen for any calls of names that could help better direct her to the parents and return the child. But after a minute of seeing nothing out of the ordinary nor hearing any names being called in worry, Rosaline suddenly felt uneasy.

The small girl tugged at the bottom of the doctor coat that Rosaline was wearing, getting the doctors’ attention again. She repeated the action of asking to be picked up without words or sounds, a pink blanket in one fist while the other one was open and shut, open and shut, trying to signal in her own way. Rosaline glanced around again quickly, then placed her half-empty coffee cup on a nearby table before kneeling before the little girl. She wasn’t wearing any socks or shoes, her platinum hair was up in two lopsided pigtails full of wavy curls and those eyes suddenly looked so scared and sad.

“Hey there. I’m Doctor Hutch. What’s your name?” The little girl just shook her head and pulled her blanket to rest against her cheek. Rosaline sighed quietly and decided to try a different tactic.

“Do you see your parents? Can you show me where they are?” This seemed to work as the child gave an enthusiastic nod before pointing toward the main hospital entrance.

This was very strange and Rosaline stood to get a better look at the main doors. Again, she didn’t see anyone who looked to be in distress over missing their child. She hated to ask more questions, but the little girl was still pointing to the sliding doors, “They’re outside? Are you sure your parents aren’t inside with you?”

Now the child was back to asking to be held and since Rosaline saw no other way to traverse this strange encounter, she obliged. The quiet child rested her hand on Rosaline’s as though to calm and praise the adult for understanding her request. Once she had the little one in her arms, Rosaline noticed a note tucked into the chest pocket of the overalls that the girl was wearing, the outside of the note simply said, “READ ME”. She shifted the child to sit on her left hip and moved her glasses into place. She pulled the note from the pocket to read it, hopeful that the parents’ information was included so she could track them down.

Dear Reader,

Please take care of my baby girl. Her name is Calypso, she is four and she is very special. We are in danger and I don’t have much time left.

Caly, sweetheart, Mommy loves you so much. No one will ever hurt you again. I’ll make sure of that. Be brave, be good, stay safe. I love you.

Rosaline could feel her heart drop into her stomach, unable to believe this was happening. This child, seemingly abandoned at the hospital. What was going on? Where was her mom now? What was the protocol for finding an abandoned child here? Would her mom come back for her? A zillion questions without answers rushed through her head, her coffee forgotten and her mind now cluttered with something new. Maybe she should go visit the Adoption Specialist for advice on who to contact for this sort of thing? She read over the letter again, scoffing at the word ‘special’. We’re all special until we’re not, Rosaline frowned slightly with the thought.

“Oh, dear. Calypso, right? Can I call you Caly?” The girl nodded and seemed suddenly very tired, her eyes fluttering as she rubbed her cheek with her blanket and her other hand idly rubbed the back of Rosaline’s. This was when it struck Rosaline, when the doctor truly saw Caly through her own, special eyes. There was a glow around the girl, her aura bright from the contact of their hands. The color reflected off Caly’s black and white striped shirt and suddenly pulled Rosaline to full attention.

Her aura was yellow. And yellow was the color only reserved for active conduit genes. But this child was four years old… no conduit on written record had ever been so young. Rosaline’s voice was a hushed, worried whisper as Caly rested her head against the doctor’s shoulder, “Oh, Caly… you are a special girl…”