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leebrontide · 9 months

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Secondhand Origin Stories, Chapter 7

Here's this week's chapter! Reblogs welcome!

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting a chapter a week of my free near future scifi/low neon cyberpunk YA/NA novel, Secondhand Origin Stories, which has been described as

"-a character driven, compelling story full of family, queerness, corruption, brain altering nanites, secretly teen parenting AIs, and taking aspects of the superhero genre to their very human and rarely-explored natural conclusions."

For previous chapter index, content warnings and more, check here:

You can follow along by following #SHOSweekly

Chapter 7

For all her trials and tribulations, Jane Eyre never had to spar with seven-foot-tall future superheroes after hauling multiple huge antique armoires up and down three flights of stairs four days in a row. Opal had healing enhancement, but right now, she ached in her everyplace. She was glad sparring was over for the day. She could be very thankful for the opportunity and still wish she could montage her way through the training parts.

It would be an overstatement to say Opal had acclimated to the Sentinels or their ivory tower. She’d survived her first few lessons from Yael, but she wasn’t really sure how much she was learning. She was, at least, slowly acclimating to Yael and Jamie.

Jamie, whose pale delicacy and understated intensity would have fit right into a Bronte novel, was arguing with Yael. “Solomon taught you tumbling when you were like five. You’re too good at it to teach it. You don’t even know what you’re doing. You just do it.” Opal couldn’t figure out now how she’d thought Jamie was 14. She was short, but even though she was thin, she wasn’t gangly. Plus, she was the sort of person who very seriously read multiple subscription news sites. Daily, apparently.

Then there was Yael, who knew everything there was to know about being a superhero and who had just decided that Opal was an ideal candidate. She was generous, and had mystery written all over her. Opal hadn’t expected mysteriousness from someone in bright yellow Doc Martins, but there you had it.

Their ASL lessons were always in the greenhouse courtyard Opal had fallen completely in love with. It was bursting with fruits and flowers and little grottos, all ringed by identical closed doors. It really was just like being in a Gothic novel. Big, mysterious house, full of locked doors everyone else took for granted...And one of them led to a 20-story drop. Bizarre that Opal never actually saw any construction workers in the courtyard. Everything was kept out of sight, if not out of hearing.

She knew now that it was Bion’s apartment that had been attacked, and a storage room downstairs was the only other room torn up. For the first time, it occurred to Opal to wonder where Bion actually was. A brief image of Lord Rochester's wife from Jane Eyre flashed into her mind. Driven mad, and locked all alone into an isolated room in a high tower…It was a head injury that had taken her out of the field, wasn’t it? Where did a brain-damaged superhero with prosthetic limbs that could fly and bend steel live? Did nursing homes take superheroes?

Opal shook off the eerie feeling as Yael and Jamie settled into some of the egg-shaped hanging chairs in the courtyard, as per usual. Majestic as this courtyard was, Opal missed her community garden back home fiercely. She should be up to her elbows in strawberries right now. Here, she was surrounded by all sorts of tempting fruits, but they belonged to the tower families. And as kind as Jamie and Yael were, there was no question that Opal was an outsider.

“She should practice on me,” Jamie argued.

“Wow. That is a terrible idea,” Yael answered flatly.

“It is not! I remember learning a little of this stuff. I know the basics.”

“You’ll snap in half.”

“I will not!”

Opal settled into another egg-shaped hanging chair. The familiarity of bickering siblings was a soothing counterpoint to her homesickness and morbid musings.

Yael sighed. “Jamie, you bruise like a banana.”

“Exactly. I bruise just finding my own bathroom at night. So why bother even trying to avoid it? Besides, she’s not going to throw-throw me. It’ll be in slow motion, with minimal bruising.”

It sounded reasonable, but. “Bruising you up seems like a pretty bad way to get on your folks’ good side,” Opal interjected apologetically.

Jamie waved this objection off. “They won’t even notice. I’ve always got random bruises. We just won’t mention it.” Co-conspirators again. Yael glowered at the stone pavers under their feet.

That was tomorrow’s problem. “Hey, so is your brother joining us?” Opal asked. He hadn’t yet.

There was an unmistakable flicker of discomfort from them both. They glanced at each other. Jamie answered. “He’s still pretty banged up. He got a concussion, you know.”

Yael picked at the edge of the hanging seat, rocking it restlessly. Opal noticed for the first time that the chairs were all hung at different heights, presumably to accommodate the serious height gaps in the residents. Someone had really put thought into the comfort of this space. “I’d rather we get started before him, anyways,” Yael added. “He knows more languages than any of us. I’m sure he’ll pick it up the fastest. We’ll need the head start.”

It hurt how uncomfortable they were any time Issac even came up in conversation. As far as Opal could tell, deafness was the only permanent effect of his injuries. But people talked about it like he had a terminal illness. She really hoped that Issac and his parents would get in on the lessons eventually. She knew that far too few parents of deaf kids ever learned to sign. Auntie still didn’t get along with Grandpa because of it.

Yael handled the subject change. “Do you have siblings?”

Opal grinned, digging out her phone. “I have a little sister.” She pulled up a picture, holding it out for them to see. “Shani’s twelve. She’s deaf, and super-fast with her signing. She got Daddy’s super-speed,” Opal laughed. “Even Auntie has trouble keeping up with her sometimes.”

Jamie sounded curious. “A deaf altered?”

“Sure. Just like my daddy. ...Dad. She’s got luminescence, and speed, but no super-strength or anything. She wants to be an EMT when she grows up, too. Just like him.” It was the perfect opening to ask, so she turned to Yael. “What about you? I mean, I saw…uhm…your powers…” Opal petered out.

All seven feet of Yael had gone rigid. Opal had overstepped. Not that Opal could blame her-- if Opal had inherited the superpowers of Ezekiel of the Heavenly Rule Line, she might not want strangers commenting on it, either. The APB guards weren’t surprised, though, so it wasn’t exactly a secret.

More like a conspiracy.

Backtracking was impossible, so Opal forged ahead gamely. “The silver stuff looked pretty cool. Like CGI, almost. More like movie superpowers than anybody I know.”

Yael blinked, studying Opal silently. She looked confused. Jamie regarded them both from within the pod of her chair.

“Can you make ice out of thin air?” Opal blurted. She wanted to signal that she knew what it was without being weird about it. She’d call that a half-win.

“…Yes.” Yael answered slowly. “But not very much.”

“And heat resistance too, right? I thought I read that. That’d be really handy with cooking. No oven mitts, no grease burns-- way more useful than live-in Christmas lights,” she finished, gesturing at her own blinking, nervous hands. Just ignore the awkward, and maybe it’ll go away.

Yael opened her mouth, then closed it. “I never tried it.” Jamie was smiling, so Opal’s flailing reassurance had sort of come across, at least. Yael's broad shoulders slowly dropped back to a posture of relaxation, re-engaging. “You know, they weren’t supposed to be lights. They were supposed to deliver electrical shocks. Like Papa’s. Er-- like Helix.”

Opal blinked, tilting her head to the side. “Where did you hear that?”

Yael shrugged. “Jenna told me, I think. They used to give her and Melissa notes from altering events, so she was one of the people who figured out what was going on.”

This was the APB all over. Opal wasn’t allowed complete access to her own medical records. Even her mom, who was a nurse, wasn’t allowed to see them. But it was idle gossip for the people the APB was cozy with. “Huh,” was all she said.

Jamie gripped the ropes of her low chair, leaning forward, voice low. “Yael, show her the other one.”

Yael chewed her lip, looking at Opal, hoping but hesitant. Opal leaned forward as well. A second power? So-- two altered parents, from different lines?

Yael stood, and looked over her shoulder, as if checking to see if anyone was around. Then looked back at Opal, then the floor, as if focusing. The shift was accompanied by a tiny noise that distracted Opal at first. Like a crinkling, but wet. It was barely on the edge of Opal’s hearing. The change was subtle, but the end effect was clear. “Oh! That’s why I thought you were a huge dude when I first met you! You were!”

Yael seemed a little bashful about the attention. “It’s helpful sometimes. It makes some people easier to deal with.”

Opal nodded. She tried to imagine flipping from girl to boy like that, and couldn’t.

Shape changing. So that meant-- Oh. Sure. Miriam. The other half of the South Dakota Uprising. Geez, what a family tree.

“Maybe we could learn the sign for ‘xe’?” Jamie suggested with a lean.

“Xe? Oh! Oh, that makes sense, huh? A pronoun that covers all your options. ASL doesn’t have gendered pronouns, though, so you’re all set.”

Yael's smile was hesitant, almost shy, and was interrupted by the nearest door opening.

They all turned to look. Obviously the shifting was less taboo than the silver stuff, since Yael didn’t switch back. Issac entered the courtyard, moving much better than he had been the last time Opal saw him. Yael, Jamie, and Opal may have been the ones discussing family taboos, but he grimaced as if he’d been caught.

Apparently he had. Yael hurried over to Issac at a pace that might not have technically been a run, but seemed like one because of her-- xyr long legs. “Issac! You’re just in time!”

He put up his hands, palms forward at first, then with the backs forward, then... the palms again? What?

Oh, nope, he was just showing that his hands were empty. Not signing. Did he not have contacts?

Jamie pulled out her phone and texted something. Issac’s phone vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He read the message, looking like he smelled something bad. He seemed to brace himself, then trudged over to where Jamie and Opal were sitting and sat gingerly on the long, low glass table that the chairs were clustered around.

Jamie held out her hand, into which Issac reluctantly put a contact case. Ah. Sure, he must not be used to them, yet. Still, they’d be a pretty good option in a quiet place like this.

Jamie fished around in the case for the contact while he studied every single other object and person in the courtyard. He settled on Opal, consideringly. He looked about to say something, but Jamie approached with one slender finger raised up, holding a contact.

A pleasant musical tone signaled an elevator, and Opal leaned around Issac to see who else had arrived. Issac noticed, turning away from Jamie to check it out. Capricorn and Helix stepped out of the elevator, each carrying several heavy-duty metal crates.

Issac was off the table in a flash, heading towards them. He almost knocked over Jamie’s tiny cargo.

Yael followed on his heels. “You got Jenna’s things back!”

Capricorn raised an eyebrow, amused. With a tank top on, Opal could see the large Capricorn tattoo that had become his superhero moniker. “You didn’t think we’d just leave it all down there, did you?”

“Well, you have for almost two weeks!” xe retorted without heat, leaning over and trying to inspect the tops of the crates. Jamie got up, and after a moment’s hesitation, Opal followed, keeping a respectful distance.

“There wasn’t any reason to hurry,” Helix responded fondly. See, now this family seemed pretty functional.

Capricorn craned around the crates to look at Opal. “Still here after sessions with Yael?” He looked at Helix. “See, told you she’s got grit.” Grit! They thought she had grit! Opal felt herself grinning again. Having been noticed and complimented gave her the courage to step closer to the assembled family members.

Helix smiled easily. “I don’t remember arguing with you.”

“Neil didn’t go with you?” Yael asked, with the tone of someone hoping to be wrong.

The ease and cheer from a moment ago died on the vine. Capricorn shook his head. Seemed to hold a sigh in. “He’s still not feeling so good.” Not feeling so good? It would take a hell of a lot to keep an altered of LodeStar’s caliber down for long. Opal would have seen any injuries that severe, and LodeStar would hardly ever get sick. All Opal could think of was some form of alteration complication-- one of those health problems that came with alterations. Opal herself had once been hospitalized for almost a month, when her lights had tangled under her skin and her super-healing tried to fix it with scar tissue.

Capricorn tilted the crate Issac was inspecting. There were codes written on the tops of them that meant nothing to Opal, but which fascinated Issac. Capricorn looked back to Opal. “These kids giving you any trouble?”

“If by trouble, you mean bruises and aches in novel places, then yeah.” She decided to push her luck a little. “Y’know, I won’t charge extra if anyone else wants to join the ASL lessons. The more of you can practice, the faster everyone will learn it.”

Of course, her lessons might not be necessary for long if Issac decided he didn’t want them. Shoot. Maybe she could pay Yael for fighting lessons? She was saving a lot of money on rent.

Issac must have reached some conclusion about the code on the box. He pulled it off the stack in Capricorn’s arms, barely controlling its landing with a clank. He was on it immediately, opening complicated closures with practiced surety.

Issac leaned over the open box. Frowned, and leaned over more, setting the lid down beside the crate.

He reached inside, lifting an object out. A long, complicated, tapered mechanical cylinder with some bendy part. It was blue and silver, the paint a little scuffed.

At the end hung a limp, lifeless metal hand.

Issac let out a cry of sudden horror, dropping it and recoiling as if it was a real arm he’d found in the box. Opal could hear his breath rattling in short pants, as white rimmed his irises.

Next to Opal, Jamie gasped. Yael took a full step backwards.

Opal felt like she’d wandered into a horror movie and was the only one who didn’t catch the plot. Wasn’t that a prosthetic? Didn’t his mom make those?

Yael surged forward, grabbed the crate lid, and moved to slam it back over the box, as if the arm might crawl out on its own. Opal felt a shiver go up her spine. But Issac was back at the box, one hand reluctantly inside. Opal heard the ping and scrape of metal against metal. More objects-- more limbs? In the box.

A door behind Opal opened. Dr. Tillman paused in the doorway, taking in the scene. Concern turned to muted horror, just like her son’s. But Jamie said she manufactured those!

Dr. Tillman rushed right past Opal, went to her knees next to her son, and firmly pulled his hands out of the crate. Yael slammed the lid back on. Dr. Tillman kept tight hold of Issac’s wrists, but she turned furious eyes on Capricorn and Helix. “What the hell is going on?”

Capricorn juggled his other crate under one arm so he could shrug broadly with the other, clearly disturbed by everyone’s reaction. OK, so at least one other person didn’t get the plot. “We went to get Jenna’s stuff. He wanted to look it over.”

“So you gave him that?”

“Mel, he builds them! He’s got a patent in that model.”

Helix, cringingly contrite, spoke to Capricorn in an undertone. “You remember how he got when Neil replaced his arms, the last time.”

Jamie piped up, edging towards Helix, torn between watching the crate and watching for an answer. “Why, what did he do? When did Dad replace his arms?”

“He wouldn’t go near Neil for two weeks. He’d cry every time Neil approached him.”

“He was two,” Capricorn argued. “Kids that age cry when their mom gets a haircut.”

Issac’s voice was high, flickering with fear. “Those are model C243 neuro-link sockets! Those are-- I’ve worked on those! I’ve done mainten-- They don’t come off! Those aren’t supposed to come off, they hook up-- they go direct-- they’re, surgically--”

Blue and silver prosthetics, made of metal, not lightweight plastic. Opal’s stomach dropped. Bion’s prosthetics. And of course, being a superhero’s prosthetics, they were designed for hard use, and couldn’t come apart for easy maintenance the way another prosthetic might.

They’d just opened a box of their own aunt’s body parts, stored in an APB crate. Limbs that were supposed to be surgically attached to her.

“Aw, crap,” Capricorn muttered.

“Yeah,” Dr. Tillman snapped at him.

“But why?” Yael asked, still hovering a little further back from the group, behind Issac and his mom.

Jamie answered before any of the adults. Realization dawning quietly. “To take away her superpowers. Her biology was normal. Without those, she’s…just a quadruple-amputee with a head injury.”

“Now, listen,” Dr. Tillman commanded. “Those are just tools. That’s all. They weren’t her first set, and no, they didn’t turn out to be her last, either.”

Her tone softened to near a whisper, bled dry of any tone of command. “Drew, please take those--”

“On it.” He stacked his existing crate on Helix’s pile, then picked up the one on the floor. Issac tried to get up to follow it.

Dr. Tillman tried to hold him close. You could hear her heart breaking. “Issac, honey--”

Opal cleared her throat softly, and everyone seemed to remember for the first time that she existed, which was not fun. “He doesn’t have the contacts in. He doesn’t know what anyone’s been saying.”

Dr. Tillman's first reaction was to pull Issac closer, away from Opal. Her thought process was clear. Outsider. Then, she processed the words. She tilted her son’s head up, looking at his eyes.

Jamie looked at the forgotten contact case in her hand. “Oh! Here, I can--” She went to Issac, opening the case. He followed her with his eyes, then lurched to his feet when she opened the contact case. He staggered several feet back from all of them. He was no less panicked than he had been, hadn’t even gotten the lukewarm assurances the others had.

His voice was shaking worse, but it was clear and loud. “I’m going to bed,” he announced with finality, then turned and booked it out of the room.

Dr. Tillman sighed heavily, deflated for a moment. She looked at Opal, then at Jamie. There didn’t seem to be any venom in the look, but Jamie shrank under it. Jamie turned to Opal. “Uhm. Is it OK if we make up the lesson later on?”

Right. Opal was getting too deep into family secrets. Which meant it was time for her to leave. “Sure. Just let me know.”

* * *

Don’t hyperventilate. Hyperventilation causes reduced blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, resulting in temporarily reduced cognitive skills. Issac couldn’t afford any loss to his clarity of thought right now. Deep breath in, deeper breath out. Trick the ventral vagus nerve into settling the shit down. One more time.

OK, one more time.

Another-- this usually worked, why wasn’t it working?

He settled for pacing, for trying to force his fingers through hair he hadn’t bothered to comb. Usually he’d have his music on to help with this.

“Usually” didn’t apply anyway, because this had never happened before. There was too much at once. Jenna-- how could they do that to her? Those limbs were part of her. Surgically integrated, just like Dad’s. She’d had them for so long. And she was so proud of them. They were the physical embodiment of her life’s work. All the brilliant engineering, all the ambition and courage, in titanium form. She’d sacrificed her mind to save people, and then they took away even the symbol of her work? Stored them in a box, like Mom’s out-of-season Christmas decorations. Like it was nothing.

Something touched him. He spun around, air rushing out of him again. He wrenched his knee, sending pain lancing up his leg to his spine as his leg collapsed under him. The tall figure behind him rushed forward as he started to fall. Issac raised his arms protectively, just as hands no bigger than his own settled around his ribs.

Mom held on long enough for Issac to regain his balance. Great. Freaking out and then collapsing at the terrifying sight of his own mother. Fantastic. That sure did make him look like he had his shit together.

She looked at him with the same watery anxiety he was starting to expect. Issac limped into his desk chair; she kept a hand on him until the chair had completely taken on his weight.

She held out her hand and-- oh no. The contacts. He’d left them with Jamie, and now Mom had them. He’d been carrying them in his pocket since he’d gotten them, almost like a talisman. As if having them in his pocket might leech the horror out of them.

Plus, when they were in his pocket, he knew where they were, so that this exact scenario couldn’t happen.

His gaze drifted to Mom’s fingernails. At least they weren’t painted a bloody red at the moment, but they were still sharp-looking and long. She used to wear contacts back in the days before laser correction, but there was no way in hell he was letting those fingernails anywhere near his cornea. He shivered. She handed him a sweater. What sort of secret mom-dimension did she pull that from, all of a sudden? He took it, put it on to delay the conversation, and immediately started sweating. By the time he finished, she’d put the horrifying plastic slivers on the desk, beside Issac’s flash drive.

Her lips thinned, and she looked at him, watching him carefully for something. She nodded to herself and pulled out her phone. Oh, thank fuck.

He got his out before it vibrated her text’s arrival.

MOM: Issac, Jenna is OK. She just replaced her tools.

He re-read the text a few times. Did Mom really not get it? But she’d helped Jenna make the Bion prosthetics-- she’d installed the original ones! She’d helped maintain Dad’s over the years, too. She made a huge, international company and a career out of making body parts for people. How could she see them as simple tools? Especially when Jenna’s were built explicitly to not come off.

He didn’t trust his voice right now, and didn’t want to text her an essay about why she was wrong.

But he couldn’t completely let it go, either. He texted, not sure what tone he’d take otherwise. Was it her idea?

She didn’t need to answer. She looked away, looking so guilty, he started to wonder whose idea it was. Mom was Jenna's designated “next of kin.” The person allowed to make medical decisions for her if she was incapacitated. Or brain damaged?

Whose idea had it been? Mom, no.

Her eyes landed on the screen projection above his desk, and he could see her swap out guilt for an external focus. She texted him without looking at her phone. You have 17 unread emails? That’s not like you.

Un. Helpful.

How excited would she be to read her email if all she got were bland, awkward condolences and college rejections?

He sank lower into the chair, even though his freshly re-wrenched back complained. He rubbed his throbbing knee and didn’t say anything.

MOM: We should get downstairs for your doctor’s appointment.

He grimaced, irritated enough to use his voice, tone or no. “What’s the point? We have a clear answer. My primary auditory nerve and some of the surrounding tissue is shot. They can’t fix it. The end.”

You also have a concussion. No doctor-dodging with a concussion.

The visit was awful.

Issac had been down in the APB clinic before, but as a visitor, not a patient. Him being a patient at a clinic for altereds was embarrassingly absurd. And he had to haul around the stupid tablet while medical staff who all knew his situation looked at him. He wondered if any of them were the ones who took Jenna’s limbs. He wondered how they’d treated her.

He left the tablet turned off until the doctor came into the exam room, so Mom wouldn’t try to talk to him any more. He couldn’t handle some of the answers she might give him to the questions running through his mind, and didn’t want to suspect her of lying if she gave him a better answer.

When the doctor entered, Issac booted up his software, and a new problem materialized out of thin air and utter bullshit.

MAN1IwantyoutocomeinagainnextweeksoIcanhaveanotherlookatWOMAN1I’mcallinginaprescriptionformorphineforMrNMAN1pincheddiskWOMAN2pleaserollupyoursleeve

Issac hugged the screen to his chest. Shit! He could read the private conversations of the whole clinic! Not well, but still. What would they do if they realized Issac had just broken every available rule about medical confidentiality?

Would they take his tablet away from him? His fingers tightened on it. What if he had to keep coming here, and they took it away every time? He discreetly turned it back off.

It turned out, the tablet was practically irrelevant. Because the damn doctor wasn’t even trying to talk to Issac. He was just talking to Mom. He didn’t even look at Issac for the first several minutes, and only barely did so when he took Issac’s vitals. Issac couldn’t read the man’s expression as he stood there, talking to Mom.

They stuck sensors on Issac’s head. Tilting his head for him, as if he didn’t have sensors just like these upstairs. The doctor looked over the readings on a tablet, and sat down next to Mom, showing them to her and talking. Which, OK, Mom did have a bio-med doctorate and APB security clearance, but still.

Issac squashed worries about how his voice sounded. “Hey, can I see?”

The doctor gave him a tight smile as fake as any Dad had ever worn on TV interviews, and held up a finger, one minute, at him, then went back to talking to Mom.

Mom tossed Issac an apologetic glance, but was hanging on the doctor’s every word. Come on. Issac might not legally have rights to his medical record until his 18th birthday later this week, but this was just fucking stupid. “Seriously. It’s my brain. Lemme see.”

This time the doctor gave him a cold look, and went right on talking to Mom.

OK, fine, Dr. Ass-hat. Say hello to 24 separate HIPPA violations. Issac booted up the tablet. He’d make sure to delete all this, and he tried to focus only on what he was looking for. But he wasn’t going to get shunted aside at his own neurology appointment.

DR BEALL: Has his temper been much of a problem at home? Sometimes impulse control can be affected by even fairly minor concussions, and he seems--

Issac slammed the tablet down on the exam bed, glaring. The doctor just gave Mom a very significant look.

Mom shook her head, though, and while she kept the doctor engaged in conversation, she slipped Issac the doctor’s tablet. He had this same software at home-- had access to all the products Mom’s company made. But the doctor had been writing notes, and Issac didn’t have a background in treatment for acute phase brain injury.

He could see his own agitation in the patterns. But they were good and active, with no major dark areas besides the empty fissure in his temporal lobe. Too big a crack for a neural implant, but otherwise, as brain injuries went, it was a best case scenario. A lot of it would probably have even bounced back, if it weren’t for the major auditory nerve crapping out on him. A 17-year-old’s neuroplasticity wasn’t going to fill in a gap like that.

The doctor took the tablet out of his hands, and started tidying up the room. So that was it. The whole appointment, and nobody’d tried to talk to him.

Had anyone tried to talk to Jenna? Mom said she was OK, that she had new arms and legs. But Issac couldn’t imagine a prosthetic that could make up for involuntary surgery and de-powering. He tasted bile as his mind flashed an image of Jenna down here, confused and ignored, while the family went on upstairs.

What would happen when Issac was an adult? In less than a week? Would he still be expected to bring his mom with him to every appointment? He’d bet his whole first quarter’s patent payouts this doctor didn’t know any ASL.

Mom escorted Issac back up to his bedroom. He wasn’t normally above a bit of parental hovering by any means. But after all that, he just wanted to be alone.

He sat at his desk. If he’d sat on the bed or the futon, she’d try to sit with him. Try to fix this. She loved fixing things. But she couldn’t fix his brain.

Fix his brain. Wait. His eyes flicked to the flash drive on the desk.

MOM: Four days until your birthday. Do you want your dad or Drew to make you something special, or do you want to go out? It’s not too late for reservations at the Golden Fig.

Ooh, the Golden Fig. That was his favorite restaurant. And his appetite was apparently back in full swing. He could drown his troubles in Bearnaise sauce. Nice decor, familiar foods he loved, private dining room, quiet classical music playing…

Wait, no.

A hundred people talking. His family all talking. He couldn’t even keep track of conversation at a quiet medical clinic. In a busy place like a popular restaurant, he’d be sunk.

“I don’t want a birthday dinner.”

She frowned; he’d set off a warning light in her head, he could tell. Her lips moved, and he glared at her. She flinched, texting instead. Why not?

He could explain. She would listen. She would try to help.

But what could she do?

“I just don’t have the stamina for it, yet,” he lied. He let his eyes drift down, back to his desk. Trying just to look tired, like she expected him to.

In the controlled chaos of a desk covered in mugs, fidget toys, models, and rubber ducks, two objects sat, representing his options. The contacts; terrifying, disgusting, marking him as broken, still keeping him from his family, his favorite food, music. Leaving him under the scrutiny of a rude, limb-stealing government agency. Then, the thumb drive beside it. The possibility of fixing himself, of following in Dad’s and Drew's footsteps. The footsteps Jenna had left first.

It was the bigger risk. There was a non-zero chance that this would kill him. It shouldn’t. But it wasn’t impossible. But if it worked, he’d be free. He’d have proven to his parents and to all those schools that kept rejecting him that he could actually deliver. He’d have back everything he’d lost, and show everyone the value of what he’d made. His value.

He looked at Mom, who was still watching him with that worried, miserable look on her face. What was it like for her to have a broken son?

Better than having a dead one. If this failed catastrophically, she’d be crushed.

But Issac wouldn’t have to be around to see it. He was either going to take her worrying away from her, or make sure he didn’t have to see it. Maybe she’d eventually understand. She’d risked her own life to change her body, once. Sure, she regretted it, but surely thinness was a less worthy goal than hearing.

MOM: Honey, do you need me to take sign language lessons?

He gathered the contacts up in his hand, scooping up the flash drive beside them.

Mom, Dad, and the whole freaking US government would object to this plan. But apparently, none of them had objected much to what happened to Jenna, so screw them.

He refused to be too afraid to follow in her footsteps.

“No, Mom. I’ve got this.”

* * *

Yael was tired. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. Lately, it seemed like nothing made sense. It was so bad, even xyr room didn’t feel right. The under-occupied hamster hutch and Yael’s own sketches seemed to stare at xyr, judging xyr failures.

Xe’d defaulted to staying near xyr papa. But that was weird, too, so now xe was laying on the couch on xyr back, trying to burn up restless energy by balancing couch seat cushions on their ends on xyr feet. Xe tipped xyr legs one way, trying to keep them from falling. Then the other way. Xe tested xyr range of motion over and over. Xe was allowed to take the furniture apart, as long as xe put it back together again. Xe could do that.

Towards Yael. Away. Towards. Away.

They’d gone back to pretending things were normal half an hour after xe’d demanded he say xyr birth father’s name. But since the incident in the courtyard, Papa had barely spoken a word. That might be the worst part. Yael had always taken it on faith that Jenna was safe and well cared for. Xe still wanted to. But Papa’s gaze seemed to slide away from Yael. His chin wasn’t as high as it normally was. It looked like guilt, and Yael didn’t know what to do with that.

Xe could hear the quiet tinkle of dishes coming from the kitchen as Papa fussed.

Towards. Away. Maybe xe should head down to the gym. The quiet in here was stifling. Xe kicked the cushion into the air, and succeeded in catching it on xyr feet for a moment. Then it toppled over and knocked into the lamp behind the couch. “Whoops.”

A sigh heavier than the team jet wafted from the kitchen. Yael sat up and retrieved the pillow off the floor. “Sorry.” Xe looked up, but he had turned back towards the cabinets. Xe let xyr arms drape down the back of the couch, holding on to the cushion. “When are we going to talk about your meeting with Nodiah?”

“It was interrupted. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Did he ask you about me?”

“He did not.”

Yael dug xyr chin into the sapphire blue corduroy of the couch, frowning. Then they really had only talked about Issac and his illegal nanites. Xe mushed xyr face into the back of the couch. Should xe confess to giving the plans back?

Well, yes. A good superhero would confess to that.

But what would a good sibling do?

Which one did Yael want to be more? The important thing was to try to be good, but what did that even mean, here? The nanites were the only thing Issac had shown any enthusiasm for since the attack. How could Yael take that away from him? Or get him into more trouble? He was too vulnerable. And protecting the vulnerable was good superhero behavior, right?

So much was in Nodiah's hands. And xe hardly knew anything about him. “He asked me about you.”

Papa froze with a glass in his hand. He wouldn’t turn around. His voice was sharp, but more anxious than unkind. “What did he say?”

“He asked me if you’d confessed to me.”

“…What did you say?” Fear. That was fear in his voice. He was afraid of Nodiah. Maybe he really was somehow afraid of Ezekiel and Miriam, then.

It was so close. The big unspoken things were so close to the surface, yet again. Xe bit xyr lip. “I said you didn’t have anything to confess.” Xe dragged the pillow back up and lay back down on the couch, hugging it to xyr chest.

The sound of the glass being set on the counter, not the cabinet. His voice was subdued. “Everybody has something they need to atone for.”

What was that supposed to mean? Sometimes Yael thought that Papa had read too many books where heroes had cryptic mentors, and purposely turned especially opaque just to baffle Yael. Like Yoda. Of course people had things to atone for. Yael did. And yeah, so did Papa. But why bring that up now? Did he mean his adoption of Yael was something he had to atone for? Why?

Or was he thinking of Jenna?

Xe hated all of these options. They were dangerous and terrifying, and xe couldn’t punch them.

Xe summoned a little courage, but stayed safely out of his sight, behind the couch back. Xe tossed the pillow and caught it. “He said something when he was here about how people would react to me. About needing a plan.”

Papa’s dead, flat tone showcased why he always lost at poker. “Nodiah’s always been overcautious about public opinion. I’m sure everyone will love you.”

“Do you think he’ll come back?”

“I doubt it.”

“He’s not much like how you described him.”

“I described him as a kid. That was a long time ago.”

“Hm,” Yael agreed vaguely, tossing the pillow again and remembering how protective of Papa xe’d felt, down in the bunker. “I don’t think I like him very much.”

This time there was no mistaking the pleased tone in his voice. “He’s your uncle. You shouldn’t say that.” Yael rolled xyr eyes.

“Do you like him?”

“He’s my brother. I love him.”

Not the same thing. Not the way he said it, at least. “He’s not a very good brother. I’d never treat my siblings that way. Not coming by for seventeen years.”

Papa huffed a laugh, which helped a little. “You can barely stand Neil keeping to himself for three days, you spoiled brat.”

Xe carefully placed the pillow back on the soles of xyr feet. “He picked a bad three days to do it.”

“Patience is a virtue.” Patience. This from the man who burned his mouth every morning eating his breakfast before it’d cooled off enough. Yael didn’t have time for patience. Xe’d be 18 in October. If xe was going to be the hero xe’d been training to be literally xyr whole life, some of these conversations needed to happen, and soon. Yael’d tried being sensitive about Papa’s aversion to the whole subject of xyr birth parents, but xe wasn’t about to get hurt because xe wasn’t using xyr full power set in a real fight. And he was being stupid.

And xe was still mad he’d pretended xe didn’t know. He had to have been pretending. He couldn’t think xe was that dim.

Xe should have pushed harder when the subject had been so close. Xe’d missed the window. But xe was pretty sure xe knew another way in. “I’m going to go find Jamie and Issac,” xe lied. Papa didn’t notice.

As a rule, Yael wasn’t a sneaky person. Sure, shapeshifting sounded like it’d make subterfuge easy, but when you were near seven feet tall, sneaking was just not going to be your forte, no matter how you configured your mass.

Still, the MARTIN system wouldn’t report xyr comings and goings unless someone asked, and their home was large, with plenty of construction noise to camouflage xyr movements. The little side staircase between residential floors wasn’t technically even off limits. Just unused.

Xe settled on a chilly concrete stair. Was this wrong? Maybe xe should trust Papa’s judgment about Nodiah. Nobody on the team seemed to like him. He even seemed to intimidate them, which was both fascinating and creepy. But they worked for him. Killed on his order. They had to at least respect him. Had to trust him, to some degree.

Papa still said he loved him.

Xe sat down. Stood up. Sat, but with a foot tapping. Xe’d stolen Nodiah’s number from Papa’s phone years ago. Xe’d never dared to make the first contact. Now they’d met, so it should be OK, right? He’d shown some kind of interest. He’d wanted to talk. Maybe Yael just had to extend an olive branch.

Xe called. On the 6th ring, xe realized xe was holding xyr breath, and carefully evacuated the stale air from xyr lungs.

Just as Yael was starting to worry xe’d have to leave a message-- a possibility xe hadn’t planned for at all-- he answered. “Good evening, Yael.”

Shoot, what should xe call him? Xe was planning to ask for a favor and a bunch of personal information, but xe didn’t want to insult him. “Good evening, Secretary.”

“You may call me Nodiah. But I appreciate the sentiment. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. Who do you want to hear about first?”

Miriam. No, Ezekiel. No, Miriam. Or Papa. Ezekiel. They were all so tempting, and all so tangled in each other’s stories.

Priorities. “Issac.”

“I expect you know the Tillman-Voss boy better than I do,” he answered dryly. Xe wondered what name he’d hoped xe’d give.

“But you know what your agency plans to do about him.”

“Ah.” He went silent.

“He’s my brother,” Yael blurted out.

“So I’ve heard.” Yael couldn’t read any approval or condemnation in his tone. “From what I hear, he’s sustained a fairly sizable concussion, and his data was destroyed in the attack. Given that he’s a minor, I suspect the incident can be safely forgotten, provided it doesn’t reoccur. I suppose we owe LodeStar that much.”

“He really was trying to help--”

“A good half of them believe that. You would think the fact that their work is illegal and has to be hidden from the public would clue them in to the absurdity of that. What good will any technology do if it’s locked up in the vault? Is that all you called about?” He sounded disappointed. Maybe he wanted someone to talk about their shared family as much as Yael did. Maybe he hated that Papa wouldn’t talk about them, too. Yael knew he’d never gotten married. Never had any kids. And it didn’t seem like Papa and Nodiah ever talked about anything but work.

But Yael had started this, and had to see it through. Xe wanted to know about xyr birth parents, but at the end of the day, they were dead, and Issac was alive, and needed xyr. “I’d like to know about the pilot in the attack.”

“Now, that’s Bureau business.”

The fury xe didn’t usually dare to touch carried xyr past his objections. “He knocked a giant hole in my house and almost killed Issac and Jamie.”

“And you.”

“And me. Then they arrested him and locked him up in the same building. And then my whole family got banned from the investigation!” Xe realized too late xe’d just implied that Nodiah wasn’t family, and cringed, knocking xyr head against the concrete wall as quietly as xe could.

Nodiah didn’t seem to notice, but there was something quietly furious in his tone. “He’s being transported back to prison in Detroit within the week. I promise you that.”

“Back? He was already a criminal?” Xe flinched at xyr volume, glancing back at the door and stepping down to the landing to make sure the next door wasn’t opening. It wasn’t.

There was a thing that happened in people who were dangerous. There was this little voice-- no, not a voice, more like a muscle memory, that always knew that violence would work in Yael’s favor. That shredding another human being was, at the end of the day, always an option. Yael had first seen it in action in footage of superhero fights. Xe had first felt it when xe and Issac had been kidnapped. It had saved Yael’s and Issac’s lives.

Yael was scared of that impulse. Only knowing that the other superheroes had it kept xyr morale afloat. Kept xyr from being afraid of xyrself. Now, xe heard that same impulse bleeding out past Nodiah's linen suit and shoe polish and clipped, careful words. “Yes. Out on early release for ‘good behavior,’ no less.”

Yael's own violent impulse turned over restlessly, tried to wake up in response. This was righteous anger. Xe let it have its way, just a little. Xyr voice showed it more than Nodiah's. “Why?”

For the first time, xe heard him approve. “A very reasonable question. That is, at least, the one positive in this tragic string of events. I’ve been waiting to propose a bill aimed at fixing exactly this issue for some time. Your brother’s sacrifice won’t be in vain. I hope that now, we as a people will be ready to act, to prevent such unnecessary pain in the future. I hope that may be some comfort to him. And to you.”

A bland retribution. Xyr anger fizzled like a fire cut off from oxygen. Yael had next to no use for politics. But it was something. “Thank you.”

“This bill is my genuine pleasure. I have high hopes for its effectiveness in reducing altered crime.”

“Oh. Well, good.”

“That seems to be all you feel capable of asking me, for now. Is that right?”

Xe rubbed xyr face. He knew xe wanted to ask. But it was too much.

And xe couldn’t even think about asking about Jenna. But xe should ask about Jenna before asking about xyr birth parents, right? “That was all I needed.”

Nodiah said a polite goodbye, and hung up.

Yael let xyr head thunk against the wall.

* * *

2 AM. The house was quiet. She couldn’t even hear the city, far below. The light streaming into Jamie’s window was as dim as Chicago could get, and augmented only by the pale blue light of her tablet. She still hadn’t slept. She’d tried, right around midnight. But she couldn’t.

She’d kept thinking about Jenna, and about Issac’s reaction.

There was nothing about Jamie that would let her do anything about it. The gauntlet she’d worn all day couldn’t do anything about this. And trying to problem-solve her way out of it was just putting angry knots in her brain.

She’d tried a distraction: just a quick peek, to see if Opal had any public social media.

That was not what she found. Opal’s name only came up in reference to an eight year old court case-- her dad’s. That seemed like a likely conversation-ruiner, so she’d started reading, wanting to find potential landmines ahead of time.

But reading about the trial was so confusing, she’d gone looking for reason in adjacent trials. That didn’t make any more sense, and she’d ended up reading old articles online for hours.

In retrospect, her plan to cure her insomnia was flawed.

Now it all made sense, except that she couldn’t understand how this could be allowed! How had nobody fixed this yet?

The whole system was a disaster, and Detroit was a microcosm of every single way it was broken. Detroit had no superhero team, and never had, though it was by far the most altered city in the US. Instead, it had a police force with army-grade gear and military tactics. The bureau had never endorsed the protective actions of any altered civilian in the city. There was trial after trial for altereds who had protected people, and every one of them was convicted and jailed. The sentences were so much longer than they should be.

That led her to reading about how thoroughly that mirrored racial issues in the larger criminal justice system. Racial minorities were, across the board, hugely more likely to be arrested than given warnings. More likely to serve longer sentences. More likely to be arrested young. Really young. More likely to be fatally shot by police. More likely to die in prison. More likely to have their kids taken away forever because they were locked up.

With the altereds, a lot of the charges were especially nonsensical. Anyone who wasn’t white was ten times more likely to be imprisoned on drug charges. But since most drugs didn’t even work normally in the system of an altered, they were all automatically charged with intention to sell, which was a felony. As far as Jamie could tell, a black person found in the same house as drugs could be convicted of a felony for just that. And they kept arresting whole households at once, even taking in anyone who was just visiting the house. The trials were short, and didn’t seem to matter much.

And Jamie had exposed Opal to it. Put her in the path of APB guards with guns, made her look like a suspect to anyone who expected to see a suspect, instead of someone who’d just wanted to help.

Even Jamie had reacted to her with fear at first. How must that have felt to Opal?

And the APB, who owned Jamie’s home, who controlled the superheroes, was embedded right in the heart of it. They were the ones who kept pushing for new laws for altereds. Longer jail times, more aggressive charges. There was a new bill expected from Secretary Bridgewater within the week aimed at “lowering recidivism rates,” tightening restrictions even further. There were hints that it was going to be something dramatic. Jamie felt sick.

She didn’t understand how her family could be involved with this. How Opal could want to be.

Did she know her family as well as she thought? What did the gauntlet even mean? It wouldn’t let her do anything about any of this!

Her door opened, and she looked down over the side of her lofted bed at Issac, her face still hardened into a furious expression from her reading. Issac, standing in the doorway, actually took a step backwards at the sight of it. She tried to shake off enough of it that he would know it wasn’t directed at him. He stepped into the room, and shut the door behind him. She tilted her head. Issac up at weird hours bordered on normal. Issac looking for Jamie at these hours was not.

His voice was hushed. “Good, you’re up. Are you busy? I need to talk to you.”

Jamie was busy. Busy learning about a million awful things she was too useless to do anything about. Being powerless and bitter. Being angry at herself for thinking a single weapon would empower her to do anything.

Probably better to go with Issac, for now. She shook her head.

He looked relieved, turning around to walk out the door. Jamie gathered her sheet up around herself and climbed down to follow him, careful to keep the sheet from overturning any of the cacti on her ladder.

Issac headed right out the front door, to the courtyard.

Yael, baffled in sleep shorts and an old Sentinels tank top, sat in the courtyard with a fistful of beef jerky sticks. Xe was turning over leaves in one of the raised beds. Still looking for Skittles while xe waited for them.

Issac passed the elevators, right back to Jenna's door.

He tried the handle, which clicked, refusing to open for him. He tensed, ducking his head. Several breaths passed, as Jamie and Yael exchanged worried looks. He tried the door again.

It unlocked, and swung open. Now he could mess with the security systems telepathically? What? How did he do that?

Issac stepped inside. The scents of drywall, sawdust, and metal swirled out as he disturbed the space. This time, he stopped a few feet in, giving Jamie a chance to steel herself and follow. Yael shut the door quietly behind them.

The museum show was over, the frozen tableau of Jenna's last days in the tower replaced with plywood floors and echoing emptiness. Not even painted yet-- the recently closed seams were still visible in the walls. There was no kitchen, no light fixtures, except for some big industrial ones brought in by the construction crew. Tools different from the kinds anyone here used littered the floor, projects left half-finished, waiting for sunrise, when the workers would return. With the wall sealed, they’d have to start coming and going through the courtyard itself, intruding further into the family space, to finish an apartment no one lived in.

Maybe Mom would have them leave it like this. Let it be a placeholder for-- for who? Yael, when xe was older? Opal, maybe?

Issac went over, started fiddling with a light on a freestanding pole, groping around blindly. There was a click, and a painfully bright beam of light had them all squinting in an instant. The city outside was burned away by brighter reflected light. Issac straightened and, showing his first sign of reluctance so far, stepped into the beam. The light washed out his features to their bare essentials-- a few dark lines marking earnestness that bordered on desperation. Jamie stepped forward, not into the beam, but close enough that he could see her clearly. Yael stepped a little closer, half into the beam, half out. Issac’s voice matched his expression. “I need you guys’s help.”

Yael took another instant step towards him, now into the beam. “Of course. Anything. You know that.”

Jamie nodded. His breaths were too big, too slow. He was controlling them on purpose. Jamie knew that feeling.

He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket, and held it up. “I still have this. Which means neither of you told anyone what it was or that I’ve got it.” They both nodded. “Thanks. For that. I needed this. I need it.” Something to fix. Jamie and Issac had that much in common. Jamie craved something to fix. Someone to help. If it was Issac, even better. “And now, I need you, too. Because I’m going to use it.”

So that was why they were here. Out of MARTIN’s sensors.

She wanted to help, but-- testing experimental tech on himself? That was too far. Jamie shook her head. “Nope.” No way. She turned around, about to-- about to go tell Mom, probably. But her feet got tangled in the sheet, slowing her down.

He grabbed the flimsy fabric. “Hear me out. Hear me out.” If he could hear himself, he’d never let himself sound that way.

“Look, I’m not brain damaged. Or-- well, I am, but audio processing only! My reasoning is fine. Do you really expect me to just sit here with this, when I actually have a way to repair brain tissue? And the major auditory nerve is actually a really straightforward structure! A great place to start.” He looked at her, watching her expression much more closely than he had when he could hear. “I can fix myself. Science can fix me. Just like it fixed Jenna and Dad. That was all experimental, too. But it worked. I know what I’m doing. Every medical procedure was experimental and scary at first. And if anyone is going to be the tester, shouldn’t it be me? Isn’t that better than expecting other people to trust my skills as much as I do? Isn’t that the real barrier between me and being like… a supervillain? That I won’t endanger other people?”

He leaned back a little, less in Jamie’s personal space bubble, apparently so he could address Yael, too. “I need to do this. You guys have to understand that. I can’t live like this. It’s wrecking everything. And, if it does what I think it will-- if it works? It’d be the first step towards helping…helping people like Jenna. Put her back the way she was. Let her have her life back. Let her--”

Let her come home. Let her be a hero again. Let her be a scientist again. Let her think clearly. Control her temper. Have her life back. Her responsibilities. Her body parts.

“What if it goes wrong?”

He perked a little at Jamie considering this seriously, checking the tablet for her words. “That’s what I need you two for. If something goes wrong, you pull the plug and get help. No harm done.”

Yael was cautious. “How likely is that?”

He looked at xyr pleadingly. “I can do this.” He hesitated. “Someone has to believe me. Come on. You guys never doubted before that I could build these.”

Yael wavered. “But Issac, even if it works, the bureau--”

The bureau. If they knew Issac still had this, they’d take it away from him. And he was under their jurisdiction, now.

Under APB jurisdiction. Wait, did Jewish count as a minority race in all those studies? Would Issac get the same type of treatment as all the people Jamie’d been reading about? Sure, the APB endorsed Dad, but they’d endorsed Drew too. And both of them had started superheroing more than 20 years ago, before the bureau was founded. She remembered Dad telling her once that Jews were only white until it inconvenienced a white gentile. When would Bridgewater decide he’d had enough?

How did people with disabilities fare under bureau influence? Based on everything else she’d read, she didn’t like the odds. After all, people died of treatable medical conditions in the altered prison all the time. They weren’t interested in taking care of people who needed it.

And someone had taken Jenna’s limbs. It was easier to imagine it was an APB demand than someone in her family.

They had no right to control what Issac did with his own body. He wasn’t even trying to be altered, he was just trying to be normal! And if he was fixed, if he was normal, he wouldn’t be under APB jurisdiction anymore.

Issac shook his head. “I’ll hand it all over to them as soon as I’m done. But they’ll wrap it in red tape for years. Especially if there’s never been a human trial. I want this fixed before I’m…before I have to go out in the world like this.”

Jamie could do this. She looked him in the eye. “I’m in.” He didn’t need to look at the tablet. He understood.

They both looked at Yael. Xe was a shadow against the bright glare of the window behind xyr. “You really need this?”

A pause. “Yael, my own doctor won’t tell me anything. I can’t keep up with conversation when the whole family’s in the same room. I can’t even eat at a restaurant, and I’m getting rejected from one college after another as it is. I can’t hear music, or go to services. I can’t do this.”

Yael put xyr hands up. “Shh! Not so loud, or the courtyard sensors will hear you!” He didn’t check the tablet, eyes glued to Yael’s reaction. Xyr shoulders dropped. “Yes. OK. I’ll help you. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

#SHOSweekly

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