2.

I yawned.

"Hey, he's coming around."

"Robert, can you hear me?"

"Sparky!"

These were the voices of my family. I was lying down in a comfortable bed. The light was unfamiliar, harsh even through my closed eyes.

"What?" I finally asked as I opened my eyes and stared around. I was in a hospital ward; I could feel that I was wearing a hospital gown and could smell an unfamiliar shampoo on my hair as it fell around my head. What I didn't feel was any pain though I certainly could feel my whole body, so it wasn't a loss of sensation. I did note a strange hollowness discomfort though I didn't immediately recognize it.

I pushed myself up and dad reached forward and helped me sit up. However, it wasn't really needed, there was no soreness or tiredness. I gave him a smile and looked around. The ward had four beds and I was in the closest to the door. Two of the other beds were occupied each with a couple of people standing beside them. The patients in each were stirring and being helped into a sitting position. Very similar to how we must have looked.

I made sense of the discomfort; I was starving. I didn't remember ever being so hungry. My eyes found a large pile of sandwiches that were sitting beside the desk. The other beds had similar piles next to them and dad was quickly handing me the first sandwich, "They said that you'd be hungry, and you should eat as soon as you were able to."

"Okay" I started as I grabbed the sandwich and bit into it. Multigrain with layers of roast beef, lettuce, and tomato. Satisfying but a tad overdone on the fillings. Still, I devoured it easily and reached for another as my mind put together the clues.

Three people recovering at the same time, a large need for food, seemingly in full health when I could be positive that I should have been severely injured. I had been in the back of the van with no restraints or protection with both a falling amp and a significant amount of other loose heavy sound equipment. Injuries that would have normally taken many weeks or possibly month to heal fully and yet my mum and dad were wearing the same clothing that I saw them prior to heading to practice. These alongside the fact that we were living in the city with the most well known healer on the east coast of the United States gave me a pretty good idea of what must have happened whilst I was out. Seemed I had certain teen parahuman to thank.

As I devoured the second sandwich, tuna salad, I also noted something much more concerning. My mind was very different from what it had been mere hours ago. Whilst I certainly hadn't been stupid, previously I had a very specific focus on one element of my life to the near exclusion of anything else. Anything that wasn't related to music hadn't interested me. I had put barely any effort into anything else, just enough so that external factors wouldn't impinge on my musical interests.

However since waking my mind felt like it had been turbo charged, thoughts racing to solid conclusions, noting little details like a stain on my dad's jacket indicating he had been surprised whilst drinking coffee by something that was so important that it overcome his normal fastidiousness. The obvious conclusion being news of his son being in a car accident or being in hospital.

There were two possibilities, the second a lot more likely than the first. The first, that when she was healing me, Panacea had either corrected an issue with my brain or had someone how super charged it. This in contradiction to her stated inability to work with brains, something that, as I considered it, didn't really ring true. However even with my new doubts that seemed unlikely as even if she could heal or change brains, she certainly wouldn't be likely to reveal that on an unknown teen who at most would have only needed healing back to standard.

The second, I had become a parahuman, possibly some sort of thinker give the speed of my thoughts. That I would need to consider as the most likely and act accordingly until proved otherwise. Unwittingly revealing such could put me, my family, and my friends in a lot of danger.

There was only one logical course of action until I could be sure.

"What happened?" I asked as I grabbed another sandwich, a mixed salad.

I nodded along as my family confirmed my thoughts. I had been badly hurt as the same merchant vehicle that had smashed us off the road in the first place had returned back along the same roads in the other direction, swerved around the parked ambulances and police car, and ploughed right through the van.

I had been rushed to hospital, barely hanging on to life, and healed to full health by Panacea. The other two in the room were one of the officers and one paramedic that had also been hit. Unfortunately, I could tell that not all was good and from the tone and facial expressions when they mentioned the one officer injured, I was certain that the other officer hadn't been as lucky.

As I started on the last sandwich, meat loaf and tomato with a decent relish, I nodded at my family and choose not to ask any further questions. Staying in character so to speak.

After the food and a round of hugs my sister went back to her ever present book of the day perched on the end of my bed. Mum sat next to me with an arm around my shoulder pulling me slightly off centre and dad paced around and made idle chat with the other visitors as a doctor made his rounds arriving at me last.

"So, Robert, how are you feeling now?"

I shrugged "Fine."

"Are you up for standing up and taking a few steps?"

I nodded, stood up, straightened up the hospital gown and walked around for a bit. Shrugged again and looked at the doctor.

"Everything feel normal?"

"Sure." I said whilst instead being very conscious of how much more aware of my body I was compared to that morning. I could see that doctor wasn't expecting anything different and he was doing this by rote. It certainly reinforced the popular belief that Panacea was one hell of a healer. I certainly wasn't going to do anything to contradict that impression of the person who had so obviously either saved me from months of recovery or more likely, saved my life.

"Well then, you're free to go. Take care of yourself son." With a smile he left the room as a pair of nurses entered to assist with sorting out a few final bits of paperwork and other details. Such as a set of clothes I could wear home since mine had been cut away as they kept me alive until Panacea was available. My parents had been in too much of a rush to think of bringing a chance of clothing, might not have expected to have needed them. Mum would need to bring them back in a few days.

Though I was aware of everything that was going on around me the better part of my attention was planning my actions and behaviour going forward. I recalled the state of shock I had been in when I discovered by drums had been totally wrecked, that wouldn't do. Being barely functional wasn't going to help the situation and yet I couldn't just pretend that I had moved past them. I was already sure that with my newfound intelligence it wouldn't be that hard to borrow a few hundred dollars and get a job that'd have that paid off within a month.

That was the easy bit, a few minutes of thinking back to school classes and everything I had barely understood just snapped into clear focus even if I hadn't been paying attention. I had a feeling I wasn't quite at genius level, but I wasn't far off it. I was sure then that with a little bit of research I'd have my intelligence level well defined. Another task on the mental to-do list once I got home.

Soon enough we were in the family car and heading home. It turned out that today was already Sunday but not by much and everyone went to bed after a few more reassurances that I was still in one piece after the drive home.

I lay in bed after a long shower for some time before I decided there was little chance I was going to get to sleep anytime soon.

I booted up my computer. Dad's previous PC from when he last upgraded during the time that he had money. He so far had resisted selling anything off, but I could now see with my improved recollection that the family was struggling more and more with money.

It took me ten minutes to confirm that I could classify myself as just under genius level, a comfortable 'extremely intelligent' on normal scales. However as far as parahuman intelligence I was having a hard time justifying a thinker rating above a 2 and even that could be deemed overkill.

Two hours later and I had the beginnings of my plan to address our financial concerns. Online contract programming was going to bring in money and then online audio engineering was going to funnel it to my family. First, I would earn some money writing code, didn't need to a lot to make a difference. I spent most of the two hours scanning open source libraries and recoding and repurposing it to suit a number of code before pay jobs. Even if only ten percent paid anything that would give me the needed seed money.

Tomorrow when or if the needed seed money came in, I would enact part two. Putting in low quotes for some audio jobs using my dad's legitimate credentials to back the bids. Then offer them to dad at a more normal rate padding out his wage with the money I made from the programming jobs. It would need to satisfy dad's self-value; he'd prefer to earn minimum wage mowing lawns than earn twice that and still be underpaid at the job he took so much pride in.

Part three was arranging a fake or part time job for myself so I could justify bringing a few dollars home to put towards new drums. If I didn't do something along those lines people would start asking questions.

With that I decided I did need some rest and within a few minute I really was in bed and asleep.