Chapter 3: Emergency Surgery

"The pilot was badly hurt when we got him out, but he was still alive." Miranda explained to her children, "He needed surgery or he wasn't going to survive."

"What did you do next?" asked Rosemary.

"Your Uncle Karl and I brought the pilot back to my place so I could…work my magic on him," continued Miranda.

She told her children some time ago that she did some surgical training and knew basic first aid, but that only concealed the truth on how she really knew how to open and close people up. Through countless experiments that ended in disasters. To say the pilot needed surgery done was an understatement on Miranda's part. And what she did do save him certainly wasn't innocent magic.

It was a gruesome experience, but as far as Rosemary and Eveline were concerned, he only got some cuts and only one piece of metal in his body. But it was one experience that will come back to her every time she stepped back into her lab. The operation had sparked Miranda's interest in his…unique biology.

"It was a long process. And it started with finding out who was behind the mask…" said Miranda.

Monday 8:17 AM January 3rd 2000, Unknown Village, Carpathian Mountains, Romania

12 years earlier…

The journey all the way from Karl's factory grounds all the way back to Miranda's laboratory underneath the village was not an easy one given the near-corpse they were carrying. Each of them carried one arm over their shoulders to share the load, but their combined inhuman strength was more than enough to carry the stranger back to the village by foot. But the fact that they were walking through a blizzard return some difficulty to the task they were undertaking. Fortunately for Karl, he left his hammer back near the helicopter, intent on retrieving it later.

"How much longer do we have to carry this guy?" asked Karl, "My clothes feel colder than this blizzard now."

"Oh, stop complaining. We just need to get to the church up ahead." replied Miranda, pointing to their intended destination.

The church in question was incredibly small compared to ones in the outside world. Thankfully, with the storm still blowing, there were no villagers to witness what they were doing. Entering and closing the door behind them, they sat the unconscious stranger in a nearby bench as they stopped to catch their breath.

"Alright, Miranda. What's next?" asked Karl, "It was hell going through that snowstorm and I don't think-"

"Oh, shush.", said Miranda with mild annoyance in her voice as she approached a bookshelf, "Now we just need to go down."

"Down? What the hell does that-?" asked Karl in frustration before he was suddenly interrupted.

A hidden set of stairs showed themselves from underneath the floorboards. Miranda let go of a hidden handle that was connected to a mechanism behind the walls and floors of the church. Released from her grip, the handle retook its place in its hidden position in the bookshelf. Miranda took the first few steps ahead before turning to Karl. Looking down, Karl saw that it was almost pitch black were it not for the extremely faint light coming out from whatever was at the end of this stairway. The darkness didn't seem to bother Miranda at all.

"Like I said, down." said Miranda, gesturing him to follow her down.

Karl grunted, took better hold of the man's arm over his shoulder and followed Miranda down. The stairs behind them shifted and the floorboards took their place once again, but also vanquishing any light coming from above. It was like the floor never shifted and there was no secret entrance at all. Despite the darkness, Karl followed the faint light. Miranda took the lead and fast paced to her destination.

"Can't see a damn thing," Miranda heard Karl mutter before she heard him speak to his human cargo, "You're lucky you're not in my shoes right now, pal. Would it kill Miranda to get some decent lighting in here? Even some torches would do?"

Karl continued his journey through the tunnel with man's arm slung over his shoulder, taking a rest once to catch his breath and switch shoulders for the job. But he soon reached his destination, finding himself in an underground room.

The place may have been a secret bunker or shelter at some point in the past, but this was not as such anymore. This was Miranda's secret laboratory. Tables stood around with various books, instruments and papers scattered across them in a messy fashion, like the lab of a mad scientist. Bookshelves with books aged from decades earlier to more recent publications lined the underground cavern walls. A small room separated from the rest of the laboratory by barred walls and a door was in a corner. Overhead, a series of lights hung down from the ceiling. More light was provided by candles Miranda was quickly lighting around the room. Karl spotted a chair nearby and sat his cargo down, finally free of the burden. At least for the time being.

"His coat, boots, belt and armour need to come off.", said Miranda, "I'll need to get my equipment ready and prepare the surgical table."

Karl nodded to Miranda and then faced the man in the chair.

"Sorry, buddy, but the goods gotta come off." said Karl humorously to the unconscious man as if trying to make conversation, but got no response, "No objections, huh? Makes the job easier."

By the time Miranda had prepared her laboratory for the operation, Karl had successfully removed the equipment off the stranger's body without waking him up. Said equipment was laying on a nearby table, waiting to be put on again. Now the only thing that the stranger wore was the one-piece jumpsuit that had a strange device on its spinal area and the gas mask. There was a zipper that ran from the neck to the lower stomach.

"Alright, Karl. Get him up on the main table," Miranda said, "And do it carefully, for God's sake."

Grunting, Karl lifted the unconscious man from the chair and laid him gently on the table in the centre of the room as per his leader's request. Miranda appeared satisfied by this.

"You may go, Karl," said Miranda pointed to another tunnel, "That tunnel will take you out of here into the old fortress grounds. I'll take it from here. And…you'll do well not to come to this place again unless I permit it."

Miranda said that last part like it was a threat, but Karl just shrugged, said nothing else and he turned to walk out of the laboratory through the exit. This left just Miranda and the unconscious man on the surgical table. Miranda sighed.

"Okay, first thing's first," said Miranda to herself, "Need to check if he is still breathing."

The lenses of the gas mask were still glowing blue. Still working as if the man was looking at Miranda. But she knew better. The lights were on, but the only person home was asleep like he came home after a very long day. She soon noticed two things. The hexagon-patterned head covering going down to the neck was fused to the gasmask and a couple of wires that ran from the jumpsuit into a couple of outlets underneath the gas mask. Pulling them out one at a time, the blue lights faded from the lenses.

'So far, so good.' thought Miranda to herself.

Gently lifting the man's head, Miranda's hands searched for something that would remove the headwear. Her fingers followed the path of the straps from the gas mask until she felt a series of connected plastic buckles at the very back of his head. Undoing them, she felt the headwear loosen from the wearer.

It was time to see who was underneath the gas mask.

Taking a deep breath, Miranda gently tugged off the headgear from the man's head without try to stir him…

…and the face of the man was revealed.

"Who was it, Mama? Who was the pilot?" asked Eveline, excitement present in her voice.

"I didn't know who it was, sweetie. That was the first time I had ever met that man." replied Miranda, "And because he was unconscious, he couldn't tell me his name."

"But then what does the pilot have anything to do with the story?" asked Rosemary, "I thought this was the story of how you and Papa met?"

"Patience, Rose. If I told you the story closer to the ending, then the beginning would not make any sense. I will tell you when I am closer to the end of the story,", Miranda said before continuing, "When I got his mask off, I was expecting to see a badly hurt face like the rest of his body was. But what I saw instead surprised me. The face was fine. So it was time for me to get on to the main part. To heal him."

She didn't know it back then, but when she saw this mystery man's face for the first time in her life…

…she had unknowingly fallen in love.

Judging from the features of his face, the man couldn't be more than in his mid to late thirties. Slightly tanned skin with short dirty blonde hair that was glossy from all the accumulated sweat. There was a little bit of facial stubble like he didn't shave for a few weeks. His eyes were closed and gentle breathing can be heard from a slight gap between his lips.

But there was no sign of any external injury. No cuts or gashes. Not even a bruise. Like his body had sacrificed itself so the head would sustain no injury.

'Surely, this man must have sustained some kind of head injury during his crash,' pondered Miranda to herself, 'Could this be the work of what he has inside of him? Did it heal those injuries?"

Miranda didn't notice it before because of her goal and her own inner thoughts, but when she stopped to get a closer look at him…

…she smiled and cupped his cheek with her hand. A faint blush had appeared over Miranda's face as stroke his flesh with her free fingers. It was smooth to the touch and fuzzy when she felt the facial hair underneath her fingers. A sudden wave of comfort washed over Miranda.

Whoever this man was, he was…handsome. No other word for it in this first-time encounter. Handsome.

'How long was this man wearing this suit? What could he have been doing that needed such equipment?', thought Miranda, 'Why was he flying through a storm in the first place?'

Snapping out of her thoughts, Miranda focused her mind back on the job at hand, "Need to focus. I'll need to attain a sample or two of this man's blood for later to study."

Rolling up the man's sleeves and taking two empty syringes, she drew blood from each of his arms and set the syringes aside on another table for later.

"Now I need to administer anaesthesia and sedative. Sedative first."

Miranda reached out for a syringe laying on a wooden tray next to her. She slipped the needle underneath the man's forearm and pushed the plunger in. The clear yellow liquid made its way into the vein until the syringe was empty and Miranda removed pulled the syringe back out. Even though the man was still unconscious, him waking up during the surgery would complicate the procedure. So taking chances was not an option.

After waiting a few minutes, Miranda administered the anaesthesia through his other arm. The man was now, perhaps, in a state of deep sleep. And would feel no pain in this sleep while she worked on him. She still could feel shallow amounts of air being inhaled and escaping his lips along with his chest rising with every breath. Now it was time to get to removing the metal out of his body.

Deciding to start off small, Miranda set her sights on the pierced thigh. It was convenient as out of all the metal embedded in his body, this was the smallest. Pulling apart the sides of the torn fabric to get a closer look, the flesh wound was exposed to the outside of its covering. Blood surrounded the metal, but it didn't seem that the metal was in deep from Miranda's perspective.

"Okay. Here goes nothing." muttered Miranda to herself.

Miranda took a firm hold of the metal and gave it a gentle upwards pull. To her surprise, it slid out with minimal effort. Quickly setting the metal aside on the table, Miranda sets her sights back on the wound. True to her theories, the wound quickly closed on the thigh, leaving nothing but a barely noticeable scar.

"Incredible. Just as I had predicted. The man's body is repairing tissue and skin damage at an accelerated rate. Greater than that of a normal human," Miranda said to herself, setting the piece of metal aside on the table, "Much like the Mold does with me and the Lords. But this can't be Mold, so what does he have in him?"

Miranda repeated the process of removing metal and observing the results. Like with the thigh, the flesh wounds closed up before her eyes once the metal obstructions were removed. Small scars were left in their wake as the only evidence the body ever having foreign objects piercing its flesh.

"I had managed to fix up most of his wounds, but there was still one that would prove the most difficult," said Miranda, "There was a piece of…metal embedded in his chest."

Eveline shivered at the thought something like metal inside someone's body. Miranda caught sight of her daughter's discomfort and reached her hand out to her daughter's.

"Don't think about it, too much, Evie," reassured Miranda, "But it was okay. I knew what I was doing, so I knew that he would survive if I were to finish the operation properly. But when I was about to remove it, something unexpected happened."

"What was it, Mama?" asked Rosemary.

"The pilot had woken up from unconsciousness." said Miranda, "And he looked right at me."

Soon, all that was left was the metal shard in the chest cavity, which was the largest of them all. With the jumpsuit already unzipped, Miranda lifter the sides of the suit to get a closer look at the injury. The metal shard looked like it was in deep and, by sheer chance, it was on a horizontal angle, sandwiching itself right between two ribs. But still no doubt in or near his heart. Despite the injured state, the body was in fit condition.

'If this man was a soldier of some kind, he certainly has the body to look the part,' Miranda thought to herself, blushing again at the thought before waving it off.

Miranda wrapped her hands around the metal edges of the shard, ready to pull it out. She could feel the sharp edges already trying to cut into her skin, but she knew that it was a minor problem as her Mold powers would heal her rapidly if she did get cut.

But she found herself unable to move her left hand upwards. Before she knew it, the man's right hand had wrapped itself around Miranda's wrist, preventing it from removing the shard of metal.

Miranda gasped before looking at the man's face, which met her own.

The man had awoken from his slumber. And, despite the eyelids opened only halfway, he was looking right at her.