Set up 1.0

According to scientists, the average human body has around 37.2 trillion individual cells. As I said though, that's just on average. So say a person of average weight, average height; the quintessential 'average person' whenever a scientist is speaking, a mid thirties white man of average height and build. We'll say 5 feet 9 inches and just shy of 200 pounds. This can of course fluctuate pretty extremely, people have been as tall almost 9 feet and that's without including parahumans who can sometimes even take those extremes to even further extremes.

I'm getting away from myself, sorry, let's get back to my original point.

So let's say we round up to the least average person possible, we'll make them 9 feet tall, 300 pounds. I haven't done the math, though given time maybe I could, but let's just say that's double the cells. It's not quite right, but it'll do for making my point. So we're saying 74.4 trillion cells.

Can you imagine being aware of every single one of those cells? Every second of every day? Now imagine I was underestimating that cell count. It was actually much much closer to 200 trillion cells, all packed into a 5.8 frame of a slender female body, slender in this sense meaning very few feminine features. Before gaining powers and minus my hair, which I had been rather proud of, there had been little to differentiate my profile from that of a rather tall teenage boy.

You're probably thinking that sound like it'd be pretty hellish right? Most people freak out when they remember they have a tongue in their mouth and struggle to forget about it enough for it to feel comfortable. Being aware of every single part of your body, inside and out, always?

Well I'm happy to tell you, you're wrong. That many cells? Completely under my control? Always aware? It was exhilarating.

Here I sat in the middle of a crowded mall, eyes taking in the hundreds of faces as they walked by, my perfect memory noting every single difference, every discrepancy, everything that made every single person unique, and I made it mine. I felt my brain matter shift as the memories of everything I saw, every wrinkle, every slight difference in the shade of someone's skin or hair, the similarities between people obviously related. Every single pattern of freckles on the six different redheads who'd walked past and I noted it permanently to memory, mine to play with as I wanted, my golden eyes sweeping hungrily for more and more information.

If you'd told me three months ago that people watching would have been one of my greatest joys I'd have called you crazy.

Well not really, I'd have mumbled something and looked down at the floor. But I'd have thought it.

Getting back to my previous point. You're probably wondering how the people watching and the awareness of every single cell making up my body were connected right?

Well as I've mentioned, I have powers. I'm what they call a cape, or a parahuman, or for me specifically in my situation and out cape.

See the thing is, other than my golden eyes, I'm also blue. It absolutely makes having a secret identity. You're going to be questioning that in a second when I finally reveal my powers, so I'll cut that point off now. I was in the middle of the boardwalk, part of the city I lived in often patrolled by the Protectorate, government capes, and therefore people recording them on their phones.

I was in the middle of being verbally beaten down by a girl I'd once considered a sister when my powers had decided they'd had enough of me being unaware of their existence and decided to make up for lost time by making sure everyone saw me in all my glory.

My power was shape-shifting, and it included being able to use my cells to create clothes and other small items. It also did the opposite, so when I was in my base form, it took my clothes with it. So there I was, three months ago mid January in all my blue naked glory, cell phone cameras turning to record the new publicly revealed cape. An hour later ten different videos, some of which had captured the initial change were plastered all over the internet and thousands knew who I was before I'd even managed to get in touch with my father.

I was past that though, it had come with perks that I would have struggled to understand at the time.

One of those was why I was walking around in all my blue skinned, golden eyed, red haired glory. I'd never shifted in front of a single person bar that initial public indecency and as such it was generally considered an unfortunate side effect of a rather weak brute thinker combo, two of the classifications given to powers.

I'd left people quite happily with the idea that my powers made me a little bit smarter, a little bit more flexible, and just a little bit stronger than my frame should allow. The idiots had taken it at face value.

That was another difference in myself from my powers. I had a bit of a complex, and I was smart enough to know it.

There I go again.

It's hard though, when you can look like anyone, when you can read every single micro expression because you can make your eyes and brains capable of processing everything about a person's face and body language at almost half speed. When you can sit on a computer or sit at a table at the library and digest a couple million words per hour and are capable of remembering and understanding them. You start to think of yourself as quite smart, and the people around you who until you turned blue considered you as beneath them, as beneath you.

Fortunately for me the PRT official in charge of my 'case', the civilian division in charge of the Protectorate capes known as the Parahuman Response Team, recommended a rather decent therapist and I was working quite hard to control my superiority complex while retaining the confidence it had bestowed me. It was a work in progress.

There was one downside though, and I'm sure you'll agree with me on this. Being aware of myself so much, even when people watching everything I was doing to build up my 'database', so to speak, of peoples features my mend tended to go into overdrive, tangents upon tangents building upon themselves, focusing was quite difficult. Which meant that when a pretty blonde, with a nice set of freckles and lips I was stealing for myself even as they quirked into a little friendly smile, walked up to me and began to speak I actually jumped, having completely missed her attention.

"Hey there," she started, her smile present in her voice. "My name's Lisa, and do I have a proposal for you." The quirk of her hips, hands places confidently, head tilted to the side, her eyes twinkling.

I turned to her my posture instantly imitating her perfectly, a frown slightly marring her face as a sense of something off she couldn't quite place likely took hold of her. I couldn't help myself, pretty girls like her would probably always piss me off just a little bit even as much as I enjoyed looking at them so toying with them would always be too fun to stop doing.

"Let's hear it then," I said, an identical smile on my face.