"So," she said. Her sudden words almost caused me to fall over again. "You're in the room now. I'm guessing the cables didn't zap you? I thought you were some kind of stranger, but I was hoping there'd be a shadow-stalker-esque effect where the electricity negated your power. Guess that's not the case." She placed her laptop back down and looked across the room. "You haven't killed or attacked us yet, so I'm guessing you're a spy. We've barely been a team for a few days, only got a name yesterday… do you work for coil?"
Her body language was visibly tenser now. Where I'd been stunned into silence, I was snapped out of it at the name of a super-villain. He wasn't that well known, but I'd been somewhat of a cape geek before… I became like . Not much was known about him, but super-villain he was. Why did she think I worked for him?
I took a step forward, then froze. All that time, she'd been talking to me. For a long moment, my mind went blank. There were butterflies in my stomach and my eyes stung.
A human being had acknowledged my existence. Without thinking, I dived towards her in an attempt to wrap her in a hug. It had been so long, even before the change, that I'd hugged someone. But never in my life had I wanted to as much as now.
I passed straight through her and had to stop myself before I fell through the bed.
Lisa let out a gasp. "Okay, that was weird. What did you do?" She looked around behind her, but not directly at me. I stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what had caused her reaction.
Had she noticed me passing through her? No one had ever done that before.
"Wait, are you even still here?" she said, looking around the room with a troubled expression. After a moment, she groaned and lowered her head. "This is so frustrating. There are no visible tells, I can't get any read on you. I could just be sat talking to myself right now."
From the look on her face, I got the impression she didn't often have to deal with frustration.
I snorted; she didn't know the first thing about being frustrated. I glided across the bed and passed my hand through her head. She flinched away instantly, almost launching herself to the ground, but just about managed to catch herself.
"Okay, you are still here. Not crazy-" she stopped mid sentence and frowned. "Well, I guess that doesn't completely disprove that I'm going mad."
I wasn't sure if she was trying to joke around or really having self-doubts. I passed my hand through her head again, it was my only way to communicate. She didn't flinch this time, though her eyes widened a bit.
"Thanks," she muttered. "Still not convinced, but I'll just go with 'there's an invisible parahuman in my room' for now and run with it."
She reached across the bed and dragged her laptop onto her lap once more. I moved to her side to see her browsing through Parahumans Online at dizzying speed. I barely had time to read two words before she clicked a link and loaded up a new page. Rinse and repeat.
After a few minutes and countless PHO pages, she sighed and shut the laptop. "It sucks doing this manually," she said. A strange expression appeared on her face and she opened the laptop again. "Wait, go stand in the doorway again."
I complied. She furrowed her brows, glaring at the screen like it was her worst enemy. Her eyes flicked up in my directions a few times, then she shot to her feet and strode to the door, spinning the laptop so she could see the screen from her new vantage point.
The laptop showed a simple programme with four black horizontal lines, with parts of the lower three glowing blue like neon lights. The top line was completely black.
Lisa muttered to herself and reached up towards the door, her hand passing straight through my shoulder. She fiddled with something, watching the screen as the top line lowered fractionally.
"Are your feet touching the floor?" She asked.
I looked down, frowning. I really didn't have any way of knowing, but nor did I have any way of communicating that to her. I swiped my hand through her chest twice, hoping that would get the message across.
Lisa stared for a moment. "Is that code? Two swipes are no?"
I swiped once, hoping she'd interpret that as yes.
"Okay, so one swipe for yes, two swipes for no, three swipes for don't know."
She held out her hand and I swiped it once.
The blond grinned in what appeared to be satisfaction. "Right. It's not completely impossible to communicate with you, then."
I swiped once. My body gave no reaction, but I'm sure if I had retained any kind of regular functions my heart would be racing.
"So, again. Are your feet touching the floor?"
I swiped three times. Lisa's grin disappeared as quickly as it had come.
"So you can't see yourself either?"
Yes.
"That doesn't make any sense." She paused for a moment, scowling. "It's impossible to get any kind of meaningful read on you, so I don't have the slightest clue what your powers really are, but it shouldn't work like that. Everything we know about powers says it shouldn't work like that. You should at least have some awareness of your own body, even if you can't see it."
I swiped her hand three times, then froze. Thinking about it, there was the slightest of sensations when I moved my hand through hers. It wasn't just that, either; half my body was overlapped with the door and the wires. I could feel that too.
But I couldn't feel anything below my feet. Was I floating in the air, then? My perspective didn't feel any different to where it was before I gained my powers, so I'd pretty much assumed my height hadn't changed.
I concentrated on moving, and realised, to some extent, I could feel my body. It was kind of stupid of me in retrospect, but I hadn't really tried messing with my powers yet. Before I could experiment any further, Lisa called out.
"Brian, can you come help me out with something?"
There was no reply, just the sound of footsteps approaching. Lisa opened the door and beckoned him in as he got close. He stood in the centre of the room, hands in pockets, with one eyebrow raised.
"Fill the room with darkness," Lisa said without looking back at him.
Brian's other eyebrow went up. "What?"
"Just do it. I'm testing something."
Lisa's gaze was intent on the doorway where I was stood. Brian shrugged, then held out his hands. Both of them got a glazed look in their eyes. I looked around the room; behind me, in front of me, on the floor and on the roof.
I hadn't known what to expect, but I'd thought I was going to be shown some kind of power.
I almost jumped out of my skin as Brian let out a cry of alarm and took a step back. I looked at him, tilting my head with curiosity. And he was staring right back at me, his eyes wide. A moment later, Brian waved his hand and the glazed look left Lisa's eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Brian blurted out before Lisa could speak.
"What the hell was what?"
"You did something to mess with my power."
Lisa spun to face Brian. "I didn't do anything. What did you see?"
Brian regarded her with a cold look. "Lisa. What's going on here?"
"Tell me what you saw, and I'll be able to tell you what's going on!"
Brian seemed to hesitate, staring back towards the doorway. Back at me. Lisa followed his gaze, and her grin seemed to grow impossibly wide. After a moment, Brian slumped his shoulders and sighed.
"I couldn't see anything. There was no one there, but…" He trailed off and shook his head.
"But what?"
"But there was definitely something there. Like, there was a small space where my darkness felt different. I can't really explain it."
"How big? What shape? Did it move?"
"I can't say how big it was precisely; it was too…" Brian paused, searching for the right word. "Intangible. "
He squinted his eyes at the doorway, then lifted his hands again. This time he only flinched rather than crying out, then glared as if trying to burn a hole in the door. After a moment, he waved his hand again and turned to Lisa.
"At a guess, I'd say it's just a bit taller than you. The shape is like the vague figure of a woman from toilet signs. I wouldn't be able to tell if it moved or not."
I didn't know how to feel about that comparison. I didn't know how to feel about any of this. Someone could see me.
"But it's so… weak," Brian continued. "I wouldn't even have noticed it if you hadn't been standing right next to it. It's like my power is trying to interact like it does for people, but there's not enough there to have an effect."
They could get a message to my dad. They could get my bullies punished. They could talk to me.
Emotion overwhelmed me. If I had a body, I would've been crying my eyes out.
"So our Stranger isn't just made of wind or something." Lisa trailed off, her eyes darting around the room, taking everything in. "Okay, you still here, Stranger?"
Brian stiffened. "Stranger?!"
I rushed forwards and swiped once.
Lisa grinned. "Okay, when Brian uses his power again, I want you to move around, okay?"
Yes.
"And Brian, I want you to pay full attention. Give me every last detail you can about our visitor, okay?"
Brian rounded on her. "Are you going to tell me what's going on here? What's this about a Stranger?"
"Look, I'm not perfectly sure myself. All I know is we've got an invisible, barely tangible Parahuman here, they don't appear to be hostile, and my power doesn't get enough from them, so we're gonna have to play twenty-one questions."
Brian crossed his arms and glared for a moment. I drifted away, unable to wrap my head around the situation.
Eventually, Brian let out a frustrated groan and lifted his arms again. When Lisa got that glazed over look, I started drifting around the room in a lazy figure of eight. Brian's eyes widened comically before he schooled his expression.
He waved his hands again, and Lisa snapped her head round to face him.
"Well?" She asked, her grin almost feverish.
"Definitely female. Somewhere between five-seven and five-ten, it's hard to tell. It was like she was drifting off the floor without realising."
I flinched. I hadn't realised I was doing that.
"You have to understand, I can't see her. It's like there's a small part of my darkness that feels wrong, somehow. It was difficult to tell she was even moving, the abnormality would just shift every now and then as if she was really slowly teleporting."
Lisa's face fell. "That's all you've got?"
"That's it."
Lisa sighed and flopped back onto her bed. "This is going to be harder than I thought," she mumbled. "Thanks for your help, anyway. I'll figure it out from here." Brian opened his mouth to speak, but Lisa cut him off. "I promise I'll tell you everything as soon as I have a handle on what we're dealing with."
Brian nodded and left the room, his posture tense.
"Okay then," Lisa said, turning towards the centre of the room. I was actually by the window, but she had no way of knowing that. I drifted to her side and ran my hand through her right shoulder. She turned in my general direction, though she was still a bit off.
"Right. Question time. One for yes, two for no, three for you don't know. Got it?"
Yes.
"Can you hear?"
Yes.
"Can you see?"
Yes.
"Can you feel?"
I had to think about that for a moment. I hadn't actually considered it, but… yes.
Lisa raised an eyebrow and took on a thoughtful expression, but continued with a shrug. "Can you taste?"
No. I doubt my answer adequately communicated my sadness at the thought.
"Can you see yourself?"
No.
"Can you feel yourself? Like, proprioception?"
Again I had to think about it.
Yes.
"Can you touch yourself? Don't take that weirdly. Try and clap."
I paused. I hadn't thought about that, either. There was so much I hadn't even considered. I'd spent so much time moping that I hadn't even begun figuring out the particulars of my powers.
I lifted my hands and brought them together. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them pass straight through. Was that a yes or a no?
Yes. I answered, figuring that there was at least some feeling, even if I wasn't exactly clapping.
"Okay, I'm getting a better idea of your powers, even if they're weird." Lisa paused. "You can phase through solid objects?"
Yes.
"I already know you can phase through people, so that's good to know. The wires detected you but didn't stop you… can you feel pain?"
No. I knew that for sure. I'd tried. Hard.
"You remember who you are?"
Yes, I answered, though I didn't understand the relevance of that question.
"You're from Brockton bay?"
Oh. It made more sense now.
Yes.
Lisa grinned and pulled her laptop onto her lap. After a few more questions, we established I'd "triggered" around three weeks ago. Then, after a lot more questions, we had a small article from a Brockton Bay news site on the screen.
"Is this you?"
She pointed at the screen, indicating a missing persons report. By the 'missing' title, was a picture of me. It was the first time I'd seen my face in weeks. I didn't care about the too wide mouth or owlish eyes, seeing myself brought me such a feeling of euphoria that I ended up floating a few meters off the ground before I caught myself.
I tried to clear my throat, embarrassed, before I realised I didn't have a throat to clear. And that Lisa wouldn't have seen me acting like such a dork anyway.
Still. It was the principle of the thing.
Belatedly, I realised I hadn't answered her. I floated back to the ground and swiped my hand through her shoulder.
She smiled. "Having a moment there, were you?"
Yes.
She huffed a laugh and turned her attention back to her laptop, tapping away at the keys.
"Taylor Hebert. Age 15. Reported missing 10th March, 2010. Father head of recruiting at the Dockworkers association. Mother…" Lisa winced and trailed off awkwardly. Her eyes kept scanning various pages, but she didn't read aloud again. Eventually, she shut her laptop and stood up.
"That's good enough for now. Follow me, Taylor, we're going to go talk to Brian."
I barely paid attention to the conversation that followed. It was surreal. If I could've pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming, I would have. I'd thought I'd never get to talk to anyone again. I'd thought the rest of my life would be spent as a phantom, endlessly drifting along, alone.
I'd even entertained the thought that I was actually dead.
I wished I was able to cry.
I caught little tidbits of the conversation as I was lost in my own world. "Ultimate recon," appeared to be a phrase Lisa was fond of. "Can't trust someone we can't even see," was Brian's choice.
Eventually, Lisa spun on her heel so she was facing a meter or so to the left of me, then held out her hand.
"Welcome to the team, Taylor."
I awkwardly floated around until I was in front of her, then took her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~