I wander the Boardwalk in a daze, hanging onto just enough presence of mind to step around people when they don't move out of my way, processing Parian's speech.
I don't think I can blame her for trying to stay out of cape fights. I don't know who else she's looking out for or what responsibilities she has. I don't know what costs she's paid for her freedom, her image. It's fair for her to be scared of losing it. The logic of her rejection doesn't make me feel any less like a pariah though.
I keep walking, eyes down, and start trying to make a flower. Nothing from the book, nothing natural. Something that I can push this feeling of hollowness into. I let my power go to work, twining and flexing like it does when Emma gets in a good dig, or Madison's pranks really land, or Sophia sneers half an inch from my face and all I want to dois lose myself in a whirlwind of blades, spikes, hooks-
I grow a rose in my right hand and snap it off, luxuriating in the focus it brings. Past wrongs are not a good line of thought. My left hand is still holding the project, which is a mass of thorned vines shaped vaguely like a spider lily, still growing, woven together to form an elaborate vase. Convenient.
I wonder...
I keep pushing my confusion and emptiness into the spider-lily thing while growing roses in my right hand. Interesting. I wonder how many different projects I can juggle? I keep creating, drawing further into myself and angling my walk towards the hospital.
By the time I'm happy with my new creation I've filled it with more than a dozen roses and have arrived at Brockton General. The clock says it's not quite three, far too early. Chances are Isidis isn't even out of school yet.
I stand by the main entrance awkwardly holding the strange sculpture of bone and weighing my options. I could go home but by the time I got there I'd just have to bus back here again. No point to that. School's a misery, and even if it wasn't I'm supposed to be sick. I don't exactly have any friends so I can't call anyone and ask to hang out. Patrolling wouldn't mean much in this part of town and I don't know enough about the law to do it properly. Another thing to look into at the library.
On the other hand, selling flowers at a hospital is probably legal...
I step through the revolving doors, nodding politely at the people sitting in chairs reading or watching the clock. I get fewer looks than I expect. Probably because most people here have more important things to worry about. I continue to the receptionist's desk, place the vase on it, and wait for her to get off the phone. A few muttered words later and she puts down the receiver with a huff, balling in her eyes before turning to me.
"How can I help you..." she trails off, a mix of surprise and caution in her voice.
"White Rose," I state. It feels silly saying my cape name to someone. Like I'm playing dressup, and everyone is only humoring me. "I was wondering if you could tell me where I should go if I wanted to sell some flowers." I motion to the vase. I don't think this is how capes are supposed to market their wares but it's not like there are a ton of guides for parahumans who don't want to fight.
"There's a gift shop down the hallway on the right," she says, slowly and carefully. I nod in appreciation and leave the vase on the desk. Free advertising, or a gift to an overworked and underpaid employee.
The gift shop is a sad affair. Filled with fresh flowers, stuffed animals, cards and candies, it's positively bursting with commercial cheeriness. The cashier has a semi-genuine grin, and the shelves have enough space on them to indicate some amount of use. That doesn't change the fact that you can still smell powerful disinfectant under all the pollen, or sweep away the crumpled Get Well Soon! cards on the ground by the spinning rack.
This is the place where people buy gifts for the injured. There aren't a lot of good ways to spin that, no matter how good your marketing team is.
I walk up to the cashier, who physically shrinks as her gaze goes up to my eyes. Damn. Not the impression I want to generate here. Girl's just doing her job.
"Could I talk to the person in charge of supplying the stuff on the shelves..." I glance at her name tag, "Jenny?" I try to keep my voice positive. Just a six foot plus cape looking to make a living, kinda like you. Nothing to be afraid of here.
"Um, sure," she says, eyes never leaving my lenses as she reaches out with one hand, scrambling for a receiver. After a few attempts she grabs it and turns away from me, punching in some numbers with shaking fingers. Well, she's not calling 911 so I'll count this as a win.
I spend some time examining the vases. They're in a range of colors, the whole spectrum of the rainbow with irregular, organic shapes. I grow a rose and place it inside one of them, examine it for a moment, and pull it back out, shaking my head in disappointment. It looks wrong somehow, like a minimalist landscape on the wall of family living room. Neither the flower nor the vase are bad on their own but they sure as hell don't mix. I kill some time, adjusting vases and trying out different flowers, looking for a combination that works.
"White Rose?" a masculine voice asks, bored and steady. I turn away from an arrangement of sage and roses and come face to face with an grizzled man no younger than fifty, with leathery brown skin, grey streaks peppering black hair, and startling blue eyes. He sticks out a hand.
"Marco Borkowski, inventory management specialist. I heard you wanted to talk to me?" He has a slight twinge to his voice, like he's spent some time rolling his r's and hasn't completely shaken the habit. I like it.
I take his hand and shake it twice, firm and fair. "Yeah, I can grow flowers and was wondering if I could replace some of your suppliers," I joke, motioning to the now-filled vases behind me. Marco looks over my shoulder and shrugs.
"How much do you want to charge us?" he asks, eyes neutral as he scans the array of bone in glass. I move out of the way and he moves forward, touching and shaking the flowers gently.
"No idea," I respond honestly. "I figure I'd provide a few for cheap and test the market and figure it out from there." There isn't really a way to track the price of parahuman biomass. I mean, Tinkers can sell their stuff for Scion knows how much but the number of capes outside the Toybox that turn their powers towards economic pursuits is not high. As a result it's a wild, wild west, with no one knowing when NEPEA-5 and Co. will step in.
Marco nods along and pulls out a cluster of Forget-Me-Nots, holding them up to the light and watching how a little filters through the thin petals. "What sort of limits do you have?" he asks. "What can't you make?"
I lean against a shelf of chocolates and cross my arms. An interesting way of phrasing the question.
"Well, I can only do bone," I began, speaking slowly. "That means that things like Honeysuckle are tricky. Too thin, and apt to break if you jiggle them too much. Besides that, I'm pretty sure I don't have any hard limits." If it wasn't for the spike of pain every time I broke a bone, I'd say I won the jackpot of powers. That, and the fact that people like the Triumvirate and Dragon exist. All power, no downside.
He replaces the flower and turns back to me. "Bring in your lawyer," he says. "We can't sell these," he adds, motioning to the filled vases. "We don't have any idea if there's anything off about your powers, and we don't want to be liable. On the other hand, if you get checked out, we'd be more than willing to make a deal."
I nod. The same concerns I had. "Are things normally this hard for parahumans?" I ask. The concerns aren't unreasonable, but at this rate I'll be able to join the Protectorate instead of becoming a florist.
"Do you know how much paperwork legal had to fill out for Isidis?" he responds, raising an eyebrow. "Armsmaster's sent a few upgrades our way, and it's not unusual for those to take months to get through a review board. You're lucky we can get you onboard with just a third party evaluation and a contract or seven." He cracks a smile. "Besides, the profit margin for parahuman stuff is high enough that it's usually worth it."
We exchange a few more pleasantries, but he has work and I need to take the flowers to a biohazard bin. He gives me his card (I'm building quite the collection) and directions to the nearest dumpster. I thank him and gather the flowers in a box of bone before waving a final goodbye and heading off to the back of the building.
Once I'm done tossing the flowers into the trash (and warping them beyond recognition to discourage dumpster diving next to used needles) I head back into the lobby and check the time. Almost four. Ugh. I look around for something, anything to do. My eye stops on a shelf, piled high with beat-up hardcovers and well-worn paperbacks. I pick one up at random and check the title. The Old Man and the Sea. Well, it's been a while. I settle into a chair and take some time to remember Santiago.
A short time after the Marlin has finally given up the ghost, someone clears their throat in front of me. I look up and see Isidis in surgical scrubs, with an ankh over her heart and a raised eyebrow.
"Ready to experiment?" she asks. I nod. She jerks her head towards a hallway labeled 'intensive care.'
"Let's get going then."
Turns out, my power does work well with hers. But not perfectly.
I need to break the bone off for it to count as dead flesh, so I either have to do my best impression of a wood-chipper and shatter the bone out as fast as I make it, or I have to have pre-made pieces.
That's not the biggest issue, though. Turns out, Isidis can't turn my bones into flesh. They're great for fixing broken bones and marrow transfusions, but I can't make organs or blood for her. I give her some skin grafts, which work well enough, but that's as far as I can go.
She tells me not to worry about it. That this much is going to save lives, that no one expected to find a true panacea thanks to just two capes. I take the compliment and shatter a few of my toe bones to keep the mask on. When that doesn't push down the disappointment completely, I break a rib. Better.
At the end of her shift Isidis drags us both into a bathroom.
"Strip and shower," she says, pulling off the scrubs and tossing them into a waiting bin. I turn away and do my best to keep my flush down while reeling a little from shock. She wants me to what now!? "Shedding your armor isn't going to do enough," she clarifies, grabbing a bar of soap and heading off to a stall. "You actually need to get disinfected. Use the antibacterial soap," she finishes, voice partially drowned out by the pounding of water against ceramic.
Ah. Right. That's what she means.
I grab a towel and a bar of soap before walking into the shower stall and turn on the hot water. There's no problem, I tell myself. You're just disinfecting. It still takes a try or three to pull the bones back in all the way, and longer to stop flinching at the stall door every other second.
It's not that I expect Isidis to come in and peek, or anyone else for that matter. It's just that old habits are a bitch to break.
Eventually I get clean, armor up again, and go back to the hallway. Isidis is waiting in street clothes, loose jeans and a Bad Canary shirt, a minimalistic yellow profile on a black background.
"Thanks for helping me out today," she says, smiling gently. "If you want to make this a regular thing, we can talk about paying you for it."
"I'm looking into a lawyer already," I respond. "And I'm glad to help, Isidis."
"Amy," she says, shaking her head. "Out of costume, I'm Amy. Makes life easier." She walks towards the exit, and after a moment I follow her.
"Amy," I say, trying the name on and finding it not entirely unpleasant. "Do you have any suggestions-"
"For being a new cape?" she interrupts. "No idea. No one in New Wave is good example of how an average parahuman develops. You want to talk to someone useful? Try a Ward," she finishes bluntly, pushing through the door and holding it for me. I nod my head in thanks and move past her, pushing down a feeling of hurt. She probably didn't mean to be harsh. The response is curt, but honest.
"It was a pleasure working with you," I say, extending a hand, smoothing down some of the sharper edges on my gauntlet. Isi -Amy I remind myself- takes it and pulls me in for a one-armed hug. She barely comes up to my shoulder.
"Don't get hurt," she says, pushing out of the hug and walking towards the bus stop, pulling out a book and sitting down on a bench while a pair of patients smoke by the sign.
All in all, not the worst interaction I've had today. I walk back towards the Boardwalk, trying to remember if there's a payphone on the way I can use to contact Parian's lawyer.
