I hadn't realised I'd fallen asleep until Panacea was at my bedside shaking me awake. You'd think that, after a month of being in a coma, my body would be pretty tired of being unconscious, but that couldn't be further from the truth, everything in me just wanted to sleep.
"Hello, I'm Panacea," The healing cape sighed, "Do I have permission to check you over, and then restore your body mass?"
"Uh sure," I croaked, and before I knew it she had placed a hand on my forehead.
"That's weird," she mumbled, "Your Corona Pollentia and Gemma seem a bit more swollen than you would expect, and the intracranial web lattice is much thicker than I've ever seen before… No wonder you were under for so long."
As she was muttering to herself I slowly felt my soreness in my throat begin to recede, and the weakness in my atrophied muscles ebbed away. It was a slower process than I had expected from the legendary Panacea, a healer who had long been lauded as one of the few reasons Brockton Bay as a city hadn't imploded in on itself over the past few years.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, I knew from biology classes that the Corona Pollentia and the Gemma were elements of the brain that helped give capes their powers somehow, but I hadn't ever heard the term "intracranial web lattice" before.
The healer quirked an eyebrow and shot me a glance, she probably didn't realise she had been muttering about my brain out loud.
"Uh, it's kinda complicated," she said. "Basically, anyone who has the ability to manifest powers has a Corona Pollentia, when they trigger there's a massive change in the brain structure, and the Gemma grows through while the Corona gets a bit bigger. It's why a lot of triggers end up passing out during their trigger events."
"Yeah, we learnt about that in school, you said mine was swollen?"
"Pretty much, yeah. Your Corona Pollentia and Gemma are way bigger than you would normally expect like they're working overtime or something. Then there's the webbing, which is basically how the Corona links up to the rest of the brain, I've pretty much never seen webbing like this before. It's like it's the only thing holding your brain together at the moment," she explained.
"Oh, well that doesn't sound worrying in the slightest," I said as the healer finally let go of my head.
"It shouldn't be an issue," Panacea remarked, "The webbing is strong, and your skull is completely intact, so it's not like your brain is suddenly going to fall apart or anything like that. Anyway, I'm pretty much done here. You're going to feel fine for a few hours, then you'll kind of crash. Think of it like a sugar high, I've replaced a lot of body mass and your metabolism is going to burn through it pretty fast. I'd recommend eating something soon."
She was gone before I even had a chance to thank her. There was something weird about that girl. She seemed down, like, more than your usual Brockton Bay inhabitant down. I didn't know all that much about New Wave or Panacea as a person, but I did know she'd seen her fair share of Enbringer battles, and if that interaction was anything to go by she probably spent most of her time healing people. Everything she'd set felt well-rehearsed as if she said it plenty of times every day. In other words, the poor kid probably needed a break at some point, but somehow she didn't seem like the type to give in to one.
I stretched out in the hospital bed and shivered a little as my joints gave a series of satisfying little crackles and pops. Panacea had done a good job, I didn't just feel as good as new I honestly felt better. It was as if she had given my body a total and complete tune-up, making sure everything was operating at peak capacity. If I was going into the cape business as a hero I could probably get used to semi-regular tune-ups if I got injured in the line of duty. It was like an entire weekend at a spa had been condensed into a ten-minute block, or at least how I figured a weekend at a spa would feel.
Was I going into the cape business as a hero? It was something that pretty much every kid growing up wanted to be, and I had been no different. Alexandria had always been my biggest role model growing up, I'd always wanted to be like her, a beacon of strength and power who took down the bad guys and kept the world safe. I was even a bit of an Armsmaster fan, I had a poster of him on my wall right alongside a poster of the Triumvaritae, and if I hadn't been so out of it when he had come to talk to me I would have probably freaked out a lot more than I had.
But joining the Wards? Was that really something I wanted? I wasn't so sure on that front. For a start, they'd allowed Sophia Hess to join up among their ranks as Shadow Stalker. I didn't have any idea what the backstory to that particular team-up was, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't leave an immediate bad taste in my mouth. They had done the right thing though, taking her away and sticking her into Juvie. Sure, she might not be in there forever, but the knowledge that I wouldn't have to deal with her ever again did act as a salve on the wound of her supposed heroism. Either way, the idea of the Wards had been kind of tainted by the fact she'd ever been a part of the team.
There was more to it than just Sophia, though. The way I'd left things with my Dad had been shaky, to say the least. I felt bad for what I'd said, and I regretted yelling at him as soon as I'd woken up like that, but I also didn't disagree with any of the things I'd said. Sure I'd hidden things pretty well, and sure I'd seemed perfectly capable by looking after him when he receded into himself, but he still had to have known that I wasn't okay, and if he didn't that just further proved the point that he'd done a terrible job as a father. Surely the only reason he had treated me so badly had to be because he blamed me for what happened to Mom.
I blinked away a tear and checked my cell phone again. No texts, no missed calls, no contact from him of any kind. He was probably already downing beer after beer, just like usual. He'd bought me the cell, a basic old school brick, a year ago and told me that if I ever needed him I just had to send him a message. I thought, then, that I'd actually got him back, that he was actually going to start trying again. Of course, he'd shut himself off again just as quickly as he'd opened up, and I'd never bothered to use it before. Still, it would have been nice to have looked down at the screen and been forgiven. Would joining the Wards help him, or would it just force him to spiral even further down his rabbit hole of depression? Was it even my job to worry about it?
There was one final snag that was stopping me from jumping at the chance to join the Wards and the Protectorate, and that was the fact I really didn't want to become just another piece on the PRT's chessboard. If I went Rogue and decided to do things on my own terms, I'd actually be able to help people. As a member of the Wards, I'd have to fight the battles they told me to fight, patrol the routes they told me to patrol and do the press junkets they told me to do.
There was no hiding the fact that being a Protectorate hero had become, on some levels, less about the heroing and more about the money that can be made by selling merch and making movies about the exploits of those very same heroes. I wanted to become a hero so that I could actually go out and help people on a day to day basis, I didn't want to be stuck in the Wards building when I could be out catching criminals, and I definitely didn't particularly enjoy the idea of managing my image down to the smallest detail in front of a camera on a nationwide talk show, which would no doubt happen somewhere down the line if I threw my lot in with the Wards.
Whatever I decided, following through on my promise to Armsmaster about the power testing would still be beneficial. I'd heard endless stories about freshly triggered capes trying to get a handle on their newly formed powers down by the boat graveyard or the trainyards and then being scooped up by the Empire, ABB and the Merchants while they were still learning. I knew that my power was based around changing into the characters displayed on my cards, but other than that I had no idea what I was capable of. If I were to get cornered by someone like Oni Lee, Hookwolf or Squealer then would I actually have any chance of holding my own? I couldn't be sure. Yeah, it would mean letting the PRT have an insight on how my powers worked and what my limits were, but I needed to know that information as well. Besides, there was nothing to say that I had to go all out, I could leave a few things up my sleeve.
A knock on the door pulled me out of my musing.
"Come in!" I called out, surprised by how normal my voice now sounded even though I was well aware of how effective Panacea's powers were.
It was Armsmaster again, still dressed in his blue and silver power armour, though this time Miss Militia was close behind with a simple full face mask in her hands.
"So, how many people already know my identity?" I asked pointedly, trying to keep the venom out of my tone.
It had been bad enough when it was just Armsmaster and the doctors who were keeping me going. I could even forgive Panacea knowing my identity, the chances were I'd be healed by her at some point anyway and, considering she could see how my brain worked, there was no point in trying to keep your identity secret from her while she was working on you. Identities were need to know in the cape scene, the identities of a minor even more so, and I didn't exactly understand why Miss Militia needed to know.
"Myself, Miss Militia, Panacea, and the doctors who were working on your case are the only people who currently know your civilian identity and we will all keep that identity secret due to law, both written and unwritten," Armsmaster said.
"Unwritten?" I questioned, that was something that had never been explained before.
"Something that can be explained when your power testing is complete," Miss Militia said, she offered the mask with an almost sad smile on her face. Did she pity my situation? "Armsmaster, would you please excuse us for a moment, so Taylor can change?"
I took the mask and slid it over my face. It didn't fit perfectly, it was clearly something mass-produced for situations just like this one, but the strap would secure it nevertheless. By the time it was on, Armsmaster had already left the room.
"We'll be heading down to the sub-basement testing area," Miss Militia began to explain as I clambered out of bed. "When we're there we'll be testing your power function in an attempt to ascertain your abilities. We know already that your abilities are, in some way, attached to the deck of cards that are currently on your desk as when we removed them from the room they, by some unknown matter transfer ability, warped back to you."
That was good to know, even if someone managed to separate me from the deck I'd still be able to bring it back to me, which meant I'd never end up being powerless in the face of an enemy. It would suck pretty hard to have a weakness as glaring as "get the deck away from her".
"So, what does this 'power testing' actually mean? What are you going to be doing to me?" I asked as I slipped into the workout tracksuit that had been left on the end of my bed.
"Well, first and foremost, do you know what the PRT's official threat ratings are?" Miss Militia asked. I shook my head, I was sure we'd learnt about them in some PSA assembly at school, but they'd never managed to stick.
"Okay, we'll walk and talk," she said, and I fell into step alongside her as we left the room with Armsmaster following close behind as he noticed we were on our way.
"There are your pretty obvious basic physical powers, brute for enhanced strength and durability, mover for capes who have some form of speedster power or have enhanced mobility of another kind. There are powers that fall under categories like Blaster and Shaker, which can have an effect on things at range or in an area respectively, while Striker powers allow capes to imbue some kind of an effect through touch," she took a breath as we reached the elevator at the end of the corridor and pushed the button to call up a lift.
"Then we've got your masters, who can control living organisms or create organisms ex nihilo, Thinkers who have some kind of enhanced cognition, and tinkers who can build crazy kinds of technology, but we'd know if you were one of those already because you'd be itching for a screwdriver," She said, and Armsmaster tried to suppress a snort.
"Finally you have your more esoteric abilities. Trump's mess with powers in some way, strangers work on stealth. Oh, and of course there are your changers who can alter their appearance and breakers who can shift through different states!"
She finished her explanation just as the lift arrived. We all piled in, cramped thanks to Armsmaster's bulky armour.
"So essentially you're going to be trying to figure out what classifications my powers fall under?"
"Yup," she said cheerfully, "and then, based on the strength of your abilities, we'll be assigning you number rankings for each manifestation of your power. If you choose to join the Wards, these numbers would be the basis for what missions we would choose to send you on!"
The unsaid opposite hung in the air behind her newfound cheery demeanour. If I joined the Wards they would know exactly where to send me, or if there was a chance I would be overpowered by potential Parahuman opposition. But if I didn't join the Wards? Well, then the opposite was true. They would know exactly who they could send against me if they felt the need to. While I wasn't exactly entertaining the idea of turning villain, I couldn't help but feel like it may have been a mistake to let them see how my power worked so they could start designing countermeasures.
We stepped out of the elevator and walked down another series of corridors that all looked the same. All of a sudden I felt like I had stepped into the belly of the beast. What if they didn't like the look of my abilities? What if they manifested in some way that made them immediately deem me a threat? There would be no way that I could escape from under the Wards building itself. There was no point going down that line of thought. If they wanted to capture me, then they would.
"Okay, here we are," Miss Militia said as we came to the end of yet another corridor. Armsmaster punched a code into the keypad next to the door and they swung open automatically, revealing a wide, empty room and an observation station off to the side.
"If you just step into the centre of the room and wait for Armsmaster and myself to get stationed behind the protective forcefield, we can get this started!" She said, already walking off to the side with Armsmaster.
I nodded, swallowed thickly, and moved into the room. I was about to use my powers for the very first time, and who knew how that was going to end up.