After the name of the last child had been revealed, the room became quite silent once more. The silence was broken, however, when Dicker nodded decisively and said, very much to everyone's surprise,
"Thank you very much. You five may leave now."
The children all looked up simultaneously, and Bella-Jane's tears stopped. They stood up as Dicker did, and followed him to the door, and let themselves be led out by the same officers who had marched them in. They didn't look quite as frightened as they had when they had entered, but they were definitely not at ease. Dicker closed the door after the back of the last retreating child, and then resumed his place at the head of the long table. He turned to the pleasant-faced, black-haired woman whom he had called "Miss Interpretation" and said,
"Well, Emily? What do you think?"
Emily bobbed her head, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Well, I thought that only one of them was supposed to have powers, but actually they all do."
"All five of them?" Spike asked, impressed.
"And, supposedly they were all homeless and living together?" Wave Lady asked, her eyebrows high on her forehead.
"Yeah, that was the story," said Bob, who was, like everyone else in the room, slightly incredulous.
"I believe the story. From the way they looked, they were either homeless or dreadfully neglected," Mirage put in. "Didn't you notice the way they smelled?"
No one chose to answer the question, although the strong odor of the childrens' unwashed clothes and bodies still lingered in the room.
"Yeah, they looked like they were in pretty bad shape," Lucius said, putting his chin in his hand. "So, the plan is to give these kids homes?"
"Yes," Dicker said curtly.
"Well, who gets which kid?" Florus asked, addressing Dicker.
"I don't know yet. I'll do the deciding after I find out more about each of them. Emily," he said, turning again to Miss Interpretation, "What kinds of powers do they have?"
"Well, that oldest girl, what did she say her name was?"
"Ashley," said Spike.
"No, it was 'ash-ling'," said Lucius.
"Well, anyway, she has powers of flexibility. It's almost like she's made of rubber, she can stretch herself so easily."
"You mean like Elastigirl?" Mirage asked.
"No, not like that. She can't stretch herself out, but she can bend herself almost any way she wants. Like, she can turn her head three hundred and sixty degrees, put a knee behind her head with no effort, and stuff like that. And not only can she do that, she can use her flexible bones as springs to make herself jump really high, and far, and fast, and it would be nearly impossible to hurt her with force, because she's just so. . . bendable."
As Emily was talking, Dicker was scribbling furiously on his note pad.
"What about the cute little girl?" Wave Lady asked, the shadow of a smile on her face. Miss Interpretation grimaced a little, and reached up to scratch the back of her head.
"What's the matter?" Dicker asked, looking up from his notes.
"Well. . . looking at her, I get the idea that she has a hard time controlling her powers. I mean, without some strict training she could do a lot of damage to herself, not to mention everything around her, if she were to lose control. See, she's an energy manipulator. She can absorb energy, concentrate it, unleash it at will, channel it. . ."
"What kind of energy?" Florus wanted to know.
"Every kind of energy! Right now she only knows how to concentrate and release heat energy, but I can see her potential. She can manipulate light energy, sound energy, electrical energy, nuclear energy. . ." she trailed off again, awed by the scope of the tiny girl's potential power.
Spike whistled, very impressed. Dicker just nodded and scribbled down some more notes.
Bob was eager to know more. "Okay, how about the pale boy?"
Miss Interpretation shook herself, as if to get rid of an unpleasant thought. "Um, he's got an empathy for animals. You know, taming them, communicating with them, taking their shapes, and all that. At this point in his life he can talk to dogs, and turn himself into one, but I think that if he practiced a lot he could get good connections with almost any kind of land mammal."
"That's pretty cool," Wave Lady said. Dicker continued to scrawl furiously on his note pad.
"And the little girl with the thick hair? What can she do?" Mirage asked of Emily.
"Now, she has tons of potential. She can displace particles, her own and those of other people and things. I mean, she can move them around, make the particles spread out, make them condense, generate explosions or keep them from happening. When the particles wander away from each other, the object seems to disappear. Plus, if she could do it really quickly and really efficiently, which I believe she can, she could use it as a kind of pseudo-teleportation."
"Now that's really cool," Lucius said. "So what about the last kid?"
"Er, I hate to use this word, but his powers may be the most mundane of the bunch. He's definitely more about brain than brawn. He has impeccable analytical skills, an excellent capacity for solving puzzles and finding the sources of problems, and overall he's just really smart."
Dicker nodded once again, and with a sweep of his pen he finished his note-taking. "Thank you, Emily," he said graciously, smiling a little.
Emily smiled back. "It's no trouble."
"Alright," said Bob, turning toward Dicker, "When are you going to decide who gets to take home each kid?"
"I've already decided that."
The assembled heroes all subconsciously leaned forward, being quite anxious to know if they were going to acquire apprentices.
In their cell down the hall, Aisling's Pack was sitting in a circle. None of them spoke, but each knew how all of the others felt. At this point, they were far more bewildered than scared, and all of their minds were dominated by the things that had just happened in the fluorescently-lit room down the hall from where they were sitting now. Eventually, Vasilisa broke the silence.
"I'm hungry," she said, to no one in particular.
"Me too," Joaquin said.
"Me three," said Aisling, "but they took our stuff away."
There was no clock in their little cell of a room, but their stomachs told them that it was nearly lunchtime, and they began to long for their bags and knapsacks, which contained fruit, bags of nuts, and little packages of peanut butter crackers.
"How long are they going to keep us here?" Patrick asked.
Aisling shook her head. "I don't know."
"Well, we'll be stuck here until they figure out what to do with us," Joaquin said, "And who knows how long that could take. They're probably thinking of carting us off to orphanages. Or, if they're really sadistic, they'll saddle us in foster homes." He shuddered visibly.
"God, I hope not," Aisling said under her breath. "Either way, we'd be separated," she said more audibly. Bella-Jane scooted closer to Aisling and pulled herself into her lap. Aisling hugged her. She was in the midst of sighing when the door was opened, not by a policeman, but by the gray-haired man in the business suit who had asked them their names. He closed the door behind him, and stood over the children in an imperious, but curiously un-intimidating way. They stared up at him, not being able to think of anything to say.
The man had four index cards in his hand, the first of which he handed to Joaquin, the second to Patrick, the third to Vasilisa, and the fourth to Aisling. Aisling looked at her card. It read:
Ashling Forrester
Powers: extreme flexibility, near immunity to impact wounds, ability to jump very high/far
To be apprenticed to: Wave Lady (aka Stephanie Waxworth)
Paying absolutely no attention to the fact that her name had been misspelled, Aisling looked up at the gray-haired man and stared at him with her mouth wide open. Joaquin had a more dramatic reaction.
"Edna Mode!" he nearly screamed, "You're apprenticing me to a fashion designer?"
The man said nothing.
"Uh, I don't get it," said Patrick.
"Yeah, how'd you know all this stuff about us?" Vasilisa asked. She had also taken to gawking at the man, who ignored her question.
"If you have no objections, you will be relocated as quickly as possible. Oh, and if you must know," he said, addressing Joaquin, "she has other work aside from fashion design."
And then, without so much as a by-your-leave, he strolled out of the room, leaving the entire Pack confounded.