"See you guys later," Taylor said to their friends as she and Amy, along with Mandy, Lucy, and Eric, walked out of the school. Behind them, Rich was discussing an assignment with the English teacher who he'd trapped as the man came out of the staff room.

"We're still on for Friday?" Mandy queried.

"We are. I'll get some more snacks in. And some real food, because we can't grow up into well-rounded members of society on snacks alone."

"If you live on snacks alone, you probably would grow up to be very well rounded," Lucy giggled. "Not in a good way, though." The others all laughed.

"No, I think I'd prefer to be a little less well-rounded than that," Amy grinned. "I mean, I saw someone in the grocery store the other day who was practically spherical, and her cart was completely full of junk food. Not a vegetable in sight, and damn near no protein. It's not healthy but what can you do?"

"You could probably do a lot, although it might be awkward mentioning it," Mandy noted.

"It's not impossible I'll run into her again, after the heart attack," the healer sighed. "You'd be horrified how many times that's happened. Oh, well, that's life. But I'm keeping an eye on my friends, so don't do anything stupid."

"This is a medical intervention, ma'am. Put the cake down and back away with your hands in the air," Eric intoned in a dark voice, pointing at someone who wasn't there and frowning fiercely. "Trust me, I'm a healer."

Taylor nearly collapsed laughing, supporting herself on Amy's shoulder, as the shorter brunette stared at the boy. He looked back innocently. "What?" he asked as she kept staring.

"I do not sound like that."

"You do when you're annoyed," Lucy said, removing one of the hands over her mouth that was failing to keep the giggling in. Mandy was grinning widely next to her.

"Thanks, friends," Amy sighed. "You, stop leaning on me, you overly tall crazy person. Come on, we have places to be."

She led a still-chortling Taylor away, both of them waving to the others. Vicky came out of the school and looked over at them, then the small group near the door who were all laughing, shook her head, and lifted into the air heading towards the Dallon residence. Both of them got into her truck once she'd unlocked it. "How's it going?" Amy asked as she started the vehicle. Taylor smiled happily.

"They are… impressed. Or is it terrified? I have trouble telling the difference sometimes," the other girl laughed, making her friend grin.

"Anything interesting happen?"

"All sorts of things."

Amy was fascinated yet again that her friend was in two places at the same time, both sitting next to her as she pulled out of the school car park and joined the flow of traffic, and somewhere under the PRT building with Linda and the various people testing her. She listened as Taylor described some of what was going on and had happened so far, until her phone buzzed at her, signaling an incoming text.

Taylor picked it up from the center console, tapping in the pass-code and looking at the result. "Brockton General, there was a bad accident on the freeway just outside the city. They have about a dozen casualties inbound and are requesting Panacea's services," she reported.

"Uh oh. That sounds nasty." Amy glanced in the mirror, then indicated, changing lanes and speeding up.

"I can't help there, really, and it's out of range of the PRT building, so I'll get out here," Taylor said as she put her friend's phone back. "Call if you need backup, though."

"I should be fine but thanks," Amy replied. She looked around, then in the mirror again. "No one watching."

"See you at the yard," Taylor gave her a small salute with a finger to her brow, before simply vanishing. Amused, Amy shook her head, wishing she could do that, then took the next turn, heading towards the hospital and hoping that she was in time.

Hannah checked the console on the wall outside testing chamber two, making sure that it wasn't indicating anything dangerous happening inside. Seeing that the protective force-fields were active, which was standard operating procedure, but that there was nothing else flagged, she typed in her access code and gave the correct password for this time period. The force-field over the door turned off and it opened. An odd sound immediately came to her ears, a faint electronic whine that was getting louder and softer again, apparently moving.

Quite curious to see what was going on, she went into the test room, hitting the door close button on the other side as she entered, then stopped dead and stared. After a long period of her head moving back and forth, she walked slowly over to the group just outside the control room who were also watching what was going on, both scientists and Colin all taking notes eagerly. Dragon was apparently simply enjoying it, and both Saurial and Metis were talking in their own language and grinning.

"That is… not what I expected," Hannah said when she reached them.

"It took them by surprise too," Saurial chuckled, glancing at her. "Hello, Miss Militia."

"Hello, Saurial. Metis." She looked back at the current activity. "May I ask what… that… is?"

"Vectura decided to build something impressive, based on a comment Saurial made recently," Metis explained, not looking away from the feline Tinker, who seemed to be enjoying herself. "She may have got a little carried away."

All three of them, along with the others in the room, tilted their heads up, panned sideways, then down again. "Definitely took the idea and ran with it," Saurial commented, deadpan. "But it's very impressive. I want one, now."

"I have to admit I do too," the new arrival said despite herself. They all followed Vectura again as she repeated the previous move in the other direction. "And I suspect Armsmaster may be getting somewhat… enthusiastic." She motioned to her friend, who was actually smiling at the sight. It wasn't a large smile, admittedly, he didn't really do those, but it was real and approving. "For him that's more or less rubbing his hands together in glee."

"Makes a change from the distinct worry of earlier," Metis remarked with amusement.

Hannah restrained herself from commenting that 'distinct worry' was more or less her default state when around these reptiles. She still didn't know why, since it was now very obvious that they were going out of their way to be friendly, but something about them left her deeply uneasy even after all the things they'd done. Or possibly because of that in some ways. They still didn't know enough about the Family, which niggled at the depths of her mind, like she had a subconscious worry that the other boot was yet to drop. And there was always the point that, by all the information they had, they were genuinely aliens.

She mentally stalled for a moment, then wondered when, in the last few months, that concept had become so familiar that she could be this calm about it. She was standing next to two literal aliens… Who were now discussing movies and the things they could get Vectura to make from them. It was… beyond bizarre.

But such was her life these days, and even before Saurial had turned up, it wasn't exactly normal.

The whining sound dopplered past again.

"All right, Vectura, I think we've seen enough," Dragon said, raising her voice. The cat-woman looked over at her, then turned around and came back, stopping in front of them.

Hannah inspected the… thing… she was sitting in. It was quite familiar in some ways, and not at all like what she expected in others. The Tinker responsible for it grinned, then got out.

Blinking several times at what happened next, Hannah gaped.

"Good, isn't it?" Saurial said approvingly. "I was talking about how it would be neat to have something like the Tron light cycles, because we watched the movie recently at the Hebert's place. But I didn't expect her to come up with that."

"The entire thing… is a hard light projection?" Hannah finally said, staring at where the feline woman was standing, holding what was basically a set of handlebars. The rest of the vehicle had disappeared when she'd got out, with an odd light show that ended in a brief flash of deep blue light.

"Pretty much," Saurial nodded. "There's a lot of hardware in the bit she's holding, folded fractally so it doesn't take up much space." They watched as Vectura twisted the ends of the part she was holding, collapsing it down to about a foot long straight rod which looked more like a flashlight than anything else Hannah could think of.

"She decided that a motorcycle on its own was boring, so she added some extras, though," the lizard-girl went on. "That quad-bike, earlier she had a sort of small dune buggy, the classic light cycle of course, and there's a jet-ski mode too, apparently. She can add more, it's mostly a matter of programming the thing properly. It's really cool, you need a good 3D computer model of what you want and it will recreate it as a functional vehicle. She downloaded these ones off the internet, there are dozens of them available."

"The light trail behind it is just for effect, though," Metis added with a grin. "It's not a solid barrier like the movie version. That could be dangerous and she's very careful about things like that."

Hannah stared at her, then the Tinker, who was talking to the two scientists and both Colin and Dragon. She could easily tell her friend was itching to try the thing Vectura had made. She covertly checked the time, then asked, "Did she bring that with her as a demonstration?"

"No, she made it here, from parts those guys provided and some bits I made," Saurial replied.

Less than three hours. That was… insane. Hannah shut her mouth with a click, then walked over to meet yet another one of the Family's peculiar friends.

And she really wanted to try that thing herself.

Glancing up, she shook her head. On the ceiling?

Insane, definitely. But it also looked like fun.

Watching Boss Hebert help Ella with her throw, Benny sighed. Both their wives were all too taken with the man, and in turn he was giving an appallingly good impression of being a nice and harmless guy who was way better at bowling than they were. It would have been embarrassing for him and Rudy if they weren't so worried. And if they didn't know it was all an act.

The Brockton Bay Boss looked over at them and smiled a little.

Benny shuddered, as unnoticeably as he could. The damned man kept doing that. He was enjoying himself, probably because he liked seeing them react.

It was most likely some sick sort of warning, or something like that. He wished he could figure out how they'd managed to attract Boss Hebert's attention.

You didn't want to come to Boss Hebert's attention.

Nothing good would come from that. This he was sure of. And he was also sure you'd never see whatever it was coming. It would all be friendly bowling lessons and smiles… then BAM!

He shuddered again.

"That's better, Ella," the man said encouragingly.

"Thanks, Danny," she replied, smiling, as she was left with only two pins on her first ball. Her second one took care of those. "Wow, you really know how to teach someone!"

"My wife was the really good bowler," he said as he waited for the pins to reset, holding the heaviest ball from the rack like it weighed nothing. Benny had seen him throw it dozens of times now, and he didn't even have the decency to look tired. And he was a fucking good bowler too, he'd pulled off six strikes in a row at one point, as well as some split shots that involved enough back and side spin that Benny knew he'd never be able to duplicate it if he practiced for the rest of his life. "But I'm not bad, although a little rusty. We taught Taylor between us, from when she was small enough that she had to use both hands to get the ball down the lane."

Cupping the ball in his free hand, he squinted over it at the pins, then drew his arm back, lightly jogged half a dozen steps, and released it so smoothly it barely made a sound when it touched down. Rumbling down the exact center of the lane, the ball spun at a slight angle, the course abruptly deviating at the last possible moment to come into the pins at just off the lead pin. Benny was entirely unsurprised to see them all go down in yet another strike.

"Well. Luck's with me today, it seems," Boss Hebert said jovially, turning back to them.

Ella and Clara beamed at him.

Benny and Rudy looked at each other.

Yeah.

He was doing this on purpose. You could tell from the smile.

Linda watched Armsmaster drive her latest, somewhat improvised, design around the room, the man looking about as pleased as she'd ever seen him. Which wasn't all that much, he was hardly all smiles and laughter at the best of times, but the small curve to his lips under his visor seemed to say he was more than satisfied. As did the scent, something she was still finding a little odd. The amount of information she could get about someone from that sense was remarkable to her even now.

It was a change from the initial reactions the PRT people had shown. Doctor Ikari had been about the calmest after Dragon, who merely stared for a moment, then somehow seemed very thoughtful. Linda still wasn't sure how the completely armored woman managed to emote so clearly through her power suit, but she was very good at it. Probably an awful lot of practice aside from any inherent talent. From what Linda had heard, no one had ever seen Dragon outside one or other set of armor, and she couldn't even smell a trace of the occupant on the thing. It implied she stayed in it all the time, which fitted some of the theories on PHO.

Aside from taking a lot of notes, then pulling out a camera and taking even more photos, Doctor Ikari had appeared quite calm, although impressed. Doctor Wilson had gaped a little, then grinned like a kid with a new toy, almost hopping up and down in glee. He'd had an awful lot of questions about it when she'd finally finished testing the device, which she still didn't have a good name for.

Armsmaster had stared in shock, then gotten very pensive, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he watched her drive around the room in the initial motorcycle mode. He'd seemed shocked when she'd reached the wall and neatly tilted sideways, allowing the hard light wheels to adhere to the surface and keep going. The entire thing worked even better than she'd hoped for. It generated a bonding force that attached the vehicle to any surface it was on, regardless of the direction of gravity, but still allowed travel along that surface to proceed unimpeded. The seat did much the same to the pilot, so there was no danger of falling off.

When she'd been designing it, it had seemed obvious to make it much more versatile than the movie showed. After all, if you were going to make a vehicle from nothing other than shaped force fields, why limit it to one form? It could make almost anything you could program it for, up to a limit set by the hardware and power supply, which for this prototype was about the size of a two seater sports car. That included an awful of options.

She was looking forward to trying the jet-ski version. Some sort of aircraft was certainly going to get added, but that was more tricky due to issues surrounding propulsion. It was possible, but would take a new variant of the hardware. There were also some limitations around the 'structural strength' analog of the resulting projection, it was never going to make a very good tank or armored vehicle, but it was at least as solid as a normal car.

'And solves parking problems pretty well,' she thought with amusement. 'You can put your vehicle in your pocket when you get to work. I bet this is another thing Lisa could sell.' She glanced at Miss Militia who was observing her colleague drive up the wall with an expression that was trying hard to remain neutral but was sadly failing. 'I can see some customers right in this room...'

Half an hour or so later everyone, even Saurial, had tried the vehicle generator. Doctor Wilson was measuring the deactivated system very carefully and writing down his results, his colleague watching and making suggestions. Armsmaster turned to her. "I believe we can dispense with the rest of the practical Tinkering tests, Vectura. It would be difficult to surpass that invention in the time we have available and I think it tells us everything we need to know on that specific subject. We do have a few more questions about your abilities, though."

"Sure. What do you want to know? I'll try to be as open as I can, but I'm not answering any questions about my background, my Trigger event, or my life before I joined the DWU."

"We never ask about Trigger events, Vectura," Miss Militia assured her, coming over from having been talking to Dragon. "Some people will volunteer that information but as you know it's intensely private in most cases. PRT and Protectorate policy forbids asking about it."

"And your former life is no concern of ours either," Armsmaster said. "Again, if a new Parahuman wishes to talk about it, we'll listen, but in many cases they do not for a wide variety of reasons. On joining the Protectorate we do make a certain number of checks, and it's different if the Parahuman is a minor, but neither applies in this case."

Saurial and Metis joined them, standing to either side of her and behind. She felt a lot more secure knowing she had backup from hell if she needed it, although she was fairly sure that the PRT as a whole, and these people specifically, didn't mean her any harm. And had not the first clue about her true identity. Former true identity, since her new one was the real one now as far as she was concerned. Even so, she couldn't help a slight tinge of worry at times.

Two friendly lizards standing next to her helped with that a lot more than she'd have thought possible a few months ago.

"OK. I can go along with that."

"Excellent." Armsmaster looked over at the scientists and Dragon, who was now waving one of her tricorders over the programmable vehicle generator. "Before we continue, may I ask if you are willing to leave that device with us for further tests? While we provided some of the hardware, something produced during a session like this is deemed the property of the Tinker who made it, unless it's immediately dangerous or a hazard to the public. That doesn't meet those standards, but we're all very interested in exploring the ramifications of the device."

Linda glanced at Saurial, who shrugged slightly. "Your call. It's safe enough, we know where they live."

With a small laugh, Linda nodded. She looked at Metis, who nodded. "All right. Please try not to break it. I like to keep my prototypes."

"Any Tinker does," Armsmaster said with a small smile. "I still have all my first attempts at everything I've ever made. They are… special. I promise we will be careful with it, and return it as soon as we have all the data we require."

"We can make some more later," Saurial said. "Get Lisa to order in anything you need, I'll make several sets of the rest of it." She grinned widely. "I can see a lot of people wanting to play with one, almost more than the mechs. Über and Leet will love it. Possibly too much."

Linda laughed while Armsmaster and Miss Militia exchanged glances. "Über and Leet?" the latter echoed.

"Yep." Saurial looked contented. "We came to an arrangement, they're going straight and we gave them a workshop at the DWU yard."

"Über… and Leet… have joined the DWU?" Miss Militia rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger, emitting a small and weary sigh. "For reasons that escape me I find myself unsurprised. I'm not even going to ask."

"They'll be good," Saurial assured her. "Mostly. Probably." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think."

Linda could swear the woman, very quietly, moaned "Oh, god."

"That is good news," Armsmaster said approvingly. "Having worked with both young men, I feel they have considerable potential once removed from a life of petty crime. While I would obviously prefer to have them join the Protectorate, I'll agree that the DWU is probably the next best thing and politically less troublesome at the moment. Anything that removes villains from the street is normally a helpful action, especially non-violently."

His colleague looked at him, rubbed her eyes again with a wince, then dropped her hand and took a deep breath. She appeared to be visibly trying to forget what she'd heard. "Moving on," she said. "The next stage will take place somewhere else more comfortable. If you'll come with me, please?"

"This one's crashing on me!"

Amy looked up from the woman she was putting back together at the trauma doctor on the other side of the emergency room. "Fuck," she growled. "Keep her going for a couple of minutes, I've fixed the shattered leg but she needs more work."

"Yes, Panacea," the middle-aged nurse who was standing next to her said as she moved in to do what she could. Amy nodded, dashing over to the young man who had abruptly stopped working. He'd apparently been triaged wrongly, she discovered as she grabbed him and probed the damage, but it wasn't surprising. There was a small fragment of glass that had worked its way into his heart down the basilic vein, presumably having been shoved into his arm during the pile-up on the freeway. The arm itself was sufficiently messed up that it wasn't obvious, since the puncture was small enough to not bleed all that much. But even a small obstruction in the right place was more than enough to trigger a cardiac event, which was exactly what had happened.

"OK, I've got him stabilized. Give me that scalpel." She held out her free hand. The doctor, without questioning her, put the handle in her hand. "Hold him still," she instructed, leaning over the boy, who was only about thirteen. Making a quick incision in the right place, she probed between his ribs with the blade for a moment. "Forceps."

The scalpel was switched for the relevant tool, which she put into the wound she'd made, guided by her power. Moments later she removed the instrument, a small blood-covered and glittering shard of glass clamped in the jaws. "Here," she said, handing it to the doctor, then concentrating. The wound closed in seconds and moments later the boy twitched. The ECG machine he was connected to with pads on his chest stopped wailing in horror and resumed beeping contentedly.

"Normal sinus rhythm," the doctor reported, looking relieved. "Good work, Panacea. Thank you. We nearly lost the poor kid, we'd never have got him to surgery in time."

Amy stepped back, wiping her hands on a paper towel. She smiled wearily. "That was too close." Looking around, she counted. "Only three left, including this one. Finally."

"It was a bad accident," he agreed, shaking his head. "Haven't had one like that for a year or so."

She went back to her previous patient, who was still leaking blood from a few minor places. With only a couple more minutes work she'd repaired all the damage she could. "This woman has a fairly bad concussion," she reported. "I can't do much with it. But it looks like it will heal normally. Other than that, she's fine now. Want me to wake her?"

"Better leave her unconscious until we finish," the trauma doctor said after looking around. "Let's get the last one done, then we can move them all to recovery and do the paperwork."

"Joy," she said in neutral tones, making him smile a little. Both of them went to the last casualty, who was semi-conscious and covered in bandages, but not too badly off, which was why he was last. The team who had been treating and stabilizing him moved out of the way without a word.

Not too long afterwards, she was finished. Sitting down she looked at her costume, thankful that Taylor's version of it was practically impossible to stain. The blood would wash right off without a trace, unlike her previous one, which would have had to be thrown away after something like this. The doctor slumped down next to her, his scrubs covered in all sorts of noxious things. "That was more action in one room than I like to see," he sighed. "Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We'd have lost at least one of them for sure without you."

"You're welcome," she said, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes. "Sorry for ordering you around like that." While healing like this didn't tire her in the normal way, especially these days, it was mentally quite a workout. Not to mention seeing people so smashed up was never fun, no matter how often it happened. Which, luckily, wasn't all that often outside an Endbringer battle.

"Don't worry about it, you knew what to do and did it," he told her, not sounding concerned. "Sometimes that's the only thing that matters. You saved his life. My feelings aren't important, not that I'm upset anyway. The results speak for themselves." Opening her eyes she rolled her head sideways and looked at him, seeing he was smiling.

"Good to know," she replied, smiling back.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, just resting, while around them the remaining doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel got all the former casualties cleaned up and moved to the various recovery rooms where they'd be allowed to regain consciousness and discover that they were fine, at least physically. She suspected that at least one of the children was going to need some serious therapy. Seeing your own hand more or less fall off wasn't the sort of thing that the average ten year old just got over, even if someone like her put it back on.

"How long have we known each other?" she said after the chaos died down.

"Three years, I guess?" he said, sounding puzzled. "Why?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Implicitly." The response was instant.

She looked at him again.

"You may only be eighteen, and not have a medical degree, but you're the best healer I've ever come across, dedicated, and honest. And very smart. Not to mention have saved more lives than every other professional in every hospital in this city put together. Yes, I trust you, with my life. I think the answer would be the same from anyone in the hospital."

Somewhat taken aback, but rather touched, she nodded. "That's… very nice to know."

"Why did you want to know?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pill bottle, handing it to him. He held it up to the light and shook it gently, watching the contents rattle around. "This is?"

"Family biotech."

He stared at her for a moment, then at the bottle again. It contained a couple of dozen of her instant fixers.

"What does it do?" Now he looked intrigued, more than anything, which she found interesting.

Waving a hand around the blood-spattered room, she replied, "More or less what we just did."

Inspecting her for a moment with raised eyebrows, he returned his attention to the bottle. "Is that a fact?"

"Yeah, it is. Problem is, it's not been through PRT testing yet. In fact, they don't even know about it at the moment, although that will be changing probably later today." She sighed a little. "It's something Ianthe came up with. Those things will fix almost any conceivable disease or injury, and if they can't fix it, put the patient into a form of biological stasis until they can be fully repaired by other means. They'll repair genetic damage, cure cancer, regrow a liver, you name it."

He gaped at her for some time, barely breathing. "And this actually works?!" he said disbelievingly.

"It does. I've seen it, and it's been tested on volunteers. Does exactly what it says on the bottle." He looked at the small container again, rotating it to read the label. Then he snickered slightly. She smiled.

"Fixes what ails you."

"Nice and simple. And true."

"I can't help but notice it's your handwriting."

She shrugged. "Had to put something and so far they don't have a name."

"Fair enough. Ianthe designed these?"

"Yes, she put a lot of effort into coming up with them. I've got access to a significant number and she can make any amount you care to name."

"So why tell me like this?"

Amy frowned, then sighed. "I've been carrying those things around for weeks, and known about them for longer. They work incredibly well. I've examined them in operation, they're entirely safe, completely effective, and far too good not to use. But it's the result of what the PRT would call a Biotinker, even though that's not really accurate in this case, and you know what they think of Biotinkers. And what the public does too. For obvious reasons."

He nodded thoughtfully, still rolling the bottle between his fingers. "Nilbog."

"Exactly." She took the bottle back and looked at it. "I've been trying to work out the best approach with these for some time. This..." she indicated the room again with her free hand, "just drives home that I'm sitting on something that could, no, will, save lives. But I've been letting worry about what the PRT would think stop me from talking to someone about them, someone outside the Family. It's… a medical ethics issue, I guess. Do I make sure to stay on the good side of the PRT if it costs someone their life when I know I could save it, even if I can't be there?" She turned her head to regard him. He was watching her thoughtfully.

"I've been wrestling with that since these were invented. How many people have died that wouldn't have if they'd had one available?"

He mulled it over some more as she fell silent, wanting to explain more of her thoughts but unable to really put them into words. "OK. First, don't think like that. It's ultimately as self-destructive as you were heading towards a while back. You can't be everywhere, and you can't fix everyone. No one can. Even with some magical cure-all, there would always be cases where it would fail. Deliberately harming someone, and not being able to help them, are two entirely different things, and you have no cause to feel guilty about it. Especially with an untested Parahuman medical treatment."

She nodded, feeling a little better. This was a problem that had been gnawing at her for weeks and even after talking it over with Taylor, the Varga, and both Lisa and Danny, she was still conflicted.

"Second, let's get all the paperwork finished off. That needs to be done no matter what else is going on or the administration will get pushy."

Amy smiled a little. "We don't want that."

"No." He smiled back. "Third… you've really seen these work?"

"I have. It's not a drug, it's a single use, self-destructing synthetic life form. You put one on the skin, press until it makes a sound, and let go. The thing will repair essentially anything in seconds to minutes, depending on the severity of damage and the available biomass to use as resources."

"Disease as well as traumatic injury? You mentioned genetic problems. Huntington's?"

"Yes. And MS, and Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, and..." She spread her hands. "Pretty much anything. And if you somehow found something it didn't repair, Ianthe could add that. Even if it didn't completely fix it, it would keep the patient alive for a long time."

"Brain injuries?"

"Assuming there's enough left to repair. It's conceivable someone could get injured in such a way that they lost memories or personality functions, but it would repair the organic damage."

He inspected the bottle with awe. "Jesus Christ. This is… this is a game-changer. It could put us all out of business."

"Yeah." She looked at him a little warily. "Does that change anything?"

"Not from my point of view," he replied. "In my opinion a doctor is a doctor to help people above all else. Making money from it is fine, but becoming a doctor purely to make money is something that I can't agree with. Although I will admit it's not uncommon."

He turned back to her. "What do you want to see happen with these?"

"I'd like to see them available to anyone who needs them," she replied honestly.

"And what do the Family want to see happen?"

"The same."

"How much do they want?"

"Hell, they'll give them away if people need them," she said with a shrug. "They have more than enough ways to make money, and it's not that important to them in the first place. Ianthe would rather see people get healed. Same with the rest of them. She did this because she thought it was the right thing to do, not because it was profitable."

He nodded slowly. "You have some odd friends, but I think they're good people."

"So do I."

He turned the bottle over and watched the single-shot healing symbiotes roll around in it. "The PRT will have a conniption fit about these, you realize."

"Yep."

"They'll need testing. Very careful testing, and you'll need to vouch for them and monitor the results."

"I know."

"But if they really do work..."

"They do. I guarantee it."

The doctor nodded again, then looked at his watch. "Right. Let's sign all the papers we need to sign, make sure our patients are comfortable, then you need to come with me and talk to the head of treatments and a few other people." He stood up, as did she. "And thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome."

Both of them went off to sign some reports, then upset the medical applecart. Amy felt surprisingly content about that.