In the morning, Dr McCoy immediately starts to give me a check up. Shines a light in my eyes, checks my responses.
"Dr McCoy?"
"Yes Acacia?"
"I want to try something."
"What?"
"Previously, the more plant I go, the slower my brain works. I want to try and go plant a bit at a time. To see if I can find my tipping point."
He frowns.
"Aca…"
"Look, I need to see if I'm still change. If I can't, I'm pretty much a baseline. And I want to know before I go to one of Logan's sessions."
"Aca…"
"Please."
He frowns then sighs.
"You'll do it anyway."
I nod then allow myself to go tree. I don't really care what I'm becoming. I think it's some sort of pine. And then I realize something. My brain isn't slowing. I'm over two-thirds plant and my brain is racing ahead, faster than it's ever been. I'm human but I'm so much more. This is how a plant thinks. A series of interconnected images, all to do with the environment. Normally when I'm this far in I've almost lost control on my human side. But now I can fully appreciate what a plant is. There are new senses as well. One, an almost mix between sight and touch, is all about light. Another, almost hearing and scent, is about water. Then Dr McCoy is yelling at me.
"Turn back Aca. Turn back right now!"
"It's fine. I'm still thinking. Faster than I ever have before. This is…amazing. I'm…I'm the plant but the plant is me…"
And I turn back, before Dr McCoy has a heart attack. Everything goes dull and I feel so…empty. It's like I'm only really me when I'm a plant.
"Aca, I could barely see your human form. You were almost entirely plant."
"I could see… I could hear… Dr McCoy, I…I was still me. I think… Do you think I needed to go all the way to full plant before I could change without having to lose my mind? I think… I think I've changed."
He opens his mouth to say something and then the comm-thing all X-Men wear starts beeping.
"Hank, get ready. We've got an injured woman. Really bad. Slit throat."
And Dr McCoy goes all business-like.
"You were told to stop the assassin. Not kill her Logan."
"Hank, it's not like that. They wanted to get me. They were controlling her. Hank, she slit her own throat to avoid killing me."
And Dr McCoy goes a paler shade of blue.
"Oh my stars and garters…"
I'm shocked. A woman is dying. A woman is dying. And here I am messing around, playing at being a mutant. Experimenting without caring about those who suffer. I never really wondered why Logan's claws were metal. Or the rest of his skeleton. And there I was thinking how unlucky I was to live on the streets for under a year. What am I?