THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION

Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.

Notes: Well, after everything I said about delays and writing more quickly, this has to be the single worst example of a writer letting down anybody still masochistic enough to be his fans. Folks, I have no excuse whatsoever for letting this story slide as long as it has (something like six flipping months at this point), other than sheer inertia and the slow realization that I don't have the stamina to write until three in the morning and still get my son out the door to school by eight any more. As the old joke goes, I never believed in writer's block, but apparently it believes in me. To those still following, thank you for waiting, and please feel free to berate me in the comments. (Or if you want to really punish me, just remark, "Oh, had you fallen behind? Hadn't noticed." Extra points for sounding like Jimmy Carr if you can manage it.)

Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters.

- 19 -

HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, PASADENA, CA

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2015, 9:37 A.M.

When Leonard opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the hospital room again, backlit by morning sunlight spilling past the closed curtains, the déjà vu that swept over him was so powerful as to be almost nauseating. For a long minute, as he blinked up at the ceiling, the images boiling over in his brain seemed like nothing but a fantastic series of dreams.

Surely none of that could really have happened. Whatever had gone so catastrophically wrong with the JPL plasma wakefield accelerator (he remembered that clearly enough), it couldn't possibly have somehow caused people all over the world, including his fiancée and his best friends, to gain superpowers—could it? And even if it had, how could that have led to all of them somehow becoming federal fugitives, to the point where a simple day-trip to Vegas for a wedding had turned into a kidnapping and a battle in the streets against cops, criminals and monsters? And the idea that that battle had only finished when he himself had somehow pulled off an impossible feat of telekinesis to save Penny's life at the last moment . . . .

Leonard shook his head firmly. No. No, it wasn't possible, any of it. That sort of thing only happened in comic books, movies and TV shows, and if Leonard knew one thing about himself, he knew there was no conceivable way his life could be interesting enough to make a TV show about. He let out a sigh of relief and looked over at the shelf beside the bed, trying to find his glasses.

They were gone. And he could see that they were gone, with perfect crystal clarity. His eyes widened; memory crashed over him in a wave of fierce and painful cold. "Oh, shit," he breathed.

"Leonard?" He jerked around at the muzzy voice, his body recognizing it with a surge of warm relief even before his mind caught up. In an armchair at the foot of the bed, Penny was blinking awake, squinting as she pushed herself upright. When her eyes met his, her whole face brightened with a relief and joy as powerful as his own; she scrambled to her feet and flung herself on him. He tried to return the embrace with as much strength as he could, which in hindsight was a mistake—she tightened her own grip in response to his, and his ribs creaked in sudden agony. He yelped aloud. Penny let him go as if she'd been scalded. "Oh God! Oh, baby, I'm sorry—are you okay?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine," he coughed, massaging his side and feeling an odd urge to laugh. It was strange—her superstrength hadn't been a problem at all during their shower quickie the other day; maybe the hormones of arousal interfered with whatever neural networks contained the oneirion fields empowering her muscles. Oneirions—yes, Sheldon's name for his theorized ultraparticle, the quantum bit that was as much information concept as space-time event. More and more was coming back to him, and he drew back to size Penny up. Once again, all the tumult she'd gone through had played merry hell on her clothes; her T-shirt and jeans were sweat-stained, dirty, torn and frayed from head to foot, and her hair and skin were smeared with dust. But she herself appeared uninjured. Even the swelling in her eyes from Rozokov's gunshot (oh, God, she'd been shot! In the eye!) had more or less faded away completely.

Following his gaze, and accurately surmising his thoughts, she shrugged with a half-smile. "You really never are going to stop worrying about me, are you?"

"Hey, you always worry about me. Seems only fair."

"Yeah, but you aren't invulnerable." Penny tapped the bandage visible on Leonard's upper arm, just below the edge of his johnny's sleeve. Then she frowned. "Or are you, now? You told me my invulnerability was more like a, whatchacallit, a force field, instead of my skin becoming some super-tough armour. If you can whip around giant metal swords with your brain, maybe you can put up force fields too."

Leonard considered. "Actually, that makes a fair bit of sense. But that's assuming last night wasn't a one-off deal, that I haven't, I don't know, burned myself out or something . . . ."

Penny raised an eyebrow. "Well, you never know 'til you try, right?"

"Tru dat," Leonard admitted with a sheepish smile. Penny laughed. Leonard looked around, then pointed at the window. "Okay, let's see if I can open the drapes. That shouldn't take much force." He levelled his index finger at the control rod that hung from the inside of the curtain, then squinted his eyes and tensed his muscles, trying to recall the indescribable sensation that had fired off inside his brain and spine, that mixed surge of freezing, searing lightning. Move, he mentally told the curtain, twitching his finger slightly in the right direction. Move. Move. Move.

The curtain stayed obstinately where it was, its only movement the slight stirrings of the air conditioning system. Leonard concentrated harder. Nothing continued to happen. His jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed almost shut, blurring his vision; his hand quivered and his teeth and temples started to hurt. But not even a single solitary tingle fired off anywhere inside that he could feel. At last he relaxed with a sigh and massaged his forehead. A surprisingly sharp pang of disappointment twisted in his stomach.

Penny bit her lip. "Oh, Leonard, I'm so sorry."

"No, Penny, please, don't be." Leonard took a deep breath, then gripped Penny's hands firmly in his. Disappointment notwithstanding, he knew what really mattered. "If it was only ever going to work once, I'm just grateful it worked when it did last night."

"Well, yeah, me too, right?" Penny agreed. "Considering I'm the one who would've been a pancake if it hadn't." She grinned. "And for what it's worth, that was a seriously awesome moment there. I watched about half a dozen different clips of it on YouTube last night before I fell asleep." She waggled her phone at him.

Leonard blinked. "Wait, what? It's on YouTube already?"

"And Dailymotion, Vimeo, LiveLeak and Metacafe," said Penny, ticking the names off on her fingers. "There's a whole bunch of stuff with me fighting Sammy and Sammy chasing Howard as well. Oh, speaking of which, by the way—" Her smile faded into a sober look. "There's a buttload of things the government people want to talk to us about. First thing being, is there any way to take powers away from somebody once they've activated? 'Cause otherwise the only way to keep people like Sammy confined is to basically put them into a coma, which is like seriously gross." She grimaced and shuddered.

Leonard nodded slowly. There really wasn't a much better way to put that. "I suppose . . . if you could generate another oneirion pulse at an exactly reversed oscillation frequency, it might suppress any standing fields in the exposure area, or even permanently erase them . . . but we'd need to build another accelerator, we'd have to figure out how to control the exposure, and all that's assuming we can figure out what went wrong with the JPL accelerator that caused the Power Pulse in the first place. And it would probably have to be customized to the individual person, which sort of begs the question of their cooperating to begin with—not to mention all the legal issues, since that might well qualify as coercive medical interference . . . ." He trailed off, realizing that Penny's eyes had glazed a little, and poked her arm; she started, then returned his rueful smile. "But all that can wait until we get some coffee, I think," he finished.

"Coffee." Penny closed her eyes, looking as if she'd just smelled something heavenly. "Yes. That is the absolute best idea. I love you, you know that?"

"Yes," said Leonard softly. Something in his voice caught her attention; her mouth opened, and her eyes widened. "Yeah, you know, I really think I do. You came to save my life last night." He lifted one hand to caress her cheek. "And if I saved yours, that means we belong to each other. For good."

Penny's lip trembled and her eyes abruptly looked watery. With a snort, she visibly mastered herself, but couldn't repress a grin. "Well, good. No more insecurities about us, then, ever again. Right?"

"Well . . . I can't make any promises, hon." Leonard decided he couldn't resist the joke, and adopted his best deadpan. "I'm not Superman, you know."

Penny hit her forehead, squeezed her eyes shut in mock pain and made a sound that was half groan, half laugh. "Oh, God, and you were giving me crap for my bad jokes last night?" She grabbed his head and pulled his face to hers, and within seconds Leonard had gladly forgotten about everything but the movements of her mouth and tongue upon his. He pulled her back onto the mattress with him, ignoring the twinges of pain from his arm, their limbs entangling and their hands sliding in beneath fabric to find skin. The wordless sounds they made dropped to a deeper, more urgent register.

Annoyingly, however, one of the things Leonard had forgotten, or perhaps failed to notice in the first place, was the fact that the hospital staff had stuck sensor pads on him again. Without warning, a bedside monitor broke out into a painfully loud and high-pitched beeping, probably triggered by his galloping pulse; he and Penny both yelped and sprang apart, the erotic haze shattered like a dropped champagne flute. As they paused, getting their breath back, the door opened and a nurse, a black woman in her early forties, hurried in.

She stopped dead at the sight of them; then her worried look slid into a wry half-smile. "So I'm guessing I can cancel the Code Blue, then," she deadpanned. She went to the bedside monitor and hit a switch, silencing the alarm. Her name tag read Althea. "Unless somethin' else in here is blue enough to need help?"

Penny coughed a giggle into her palm, blushing brightly. It took Leonard a second to understand, but when he did his own face went hot. "Thank you, I think we're fine," he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

"He said . . . stiffly," said Althea. Penny spluttered and laughed even harder. Leonard groaned and covered his face. The nurse smirked. "I'm sorry, Dr. Hofstadter, we're just all glad you're okay."

Leonard blinked at her. "You know me?" Then he frowned. "Wait a minute. Don't I know you? Have we met?"

"Well, everybody knows you now, honey," said Althea. "But we have actually met already, as it happens. It was when I was on duty in Emergency, a few years back; you and your friends came in, and one of 'em had a robot hand stuck grasping his penis."

"Robot hand grasping what?" Penny's eyebrows shot up. "What the hell did Howard do?"

Leonard cleared his throat. "We never said it was Howard . . . ."

"Oh, Leonard, please." Penny waved a hand at him and leant towards the nurse, eyes bright. "Tell me more!" Leonard winced. Grinning, Althea obliged, reducing Penny quickly to a guffawing puddle on the bed. When she finally got her breath back she sat up and smacked Leonard on the arm. "I can't believe you never told me this story!"

Leonard sighed. "Howard asked us not to. He figured you'd never let him live it down, and after he got back together with Bernadette he didn't want you telling her about it."

Penny looked indignant. "For God's sake, doesn't anybody think I can keep a secret?"

"Honey, gonna stop you there," Althea interjected, raising a hand. "That's one of those questions like, 'does my butt look fat in these pants?'—it don't matter what they say, nobody ever really wants an answer." She turned to Leonard. "I just need to check a couple of readings and ask you some health questions, Doc."

"And then I can go home?" said Leonard hopefully.

For the first time, Althea's face lost all trace of humour. Seeing it, Leonard slumped. "That's . . . not really up to me," she said, looking at her clipboard. "I think there's a few more people wanna talk to you. Both of you."

Penny took Leonard's hand firmly. "Yeah, the 'both' goes without saying. So who is it this time? We already had a Senator trying to browbeat us into joining the Justice League. Who's gonna rag on us next? The President? The United Nations?"

Althea cleared her throat. "Well, let's get the paperwork out of the way first . . . ." She checked the machines beside Leonard's bed, ticked some items off on her clipboard, then took Leonard through a standard symptomology check which Leonard answered as precisely and impatiently as he could. Penny squeezed his hand in sympathy. When they were done, Leonard opened his mouth to ask again who the incoming questioners were, but Althea hurriedly exited before he could get the words out.

Leonard exchanged a frown with Penny, then deliberately sat straight upright and straightened the johnny as much as seemed practical. There wasn't much dignity to be had in hospital clothes but he wanted what he could get, if he was going to be talking to truly high-up government officials. Authority figures had always made him nervous, however much he liked to think he'd gotten to the point in his life where he could at least convincingly fake being a mature intelligent adult—

"Hello, Leonard."

The bottom dropped out of Leonard's stomach.

In the doorway stood Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, her arms folded, her burgundy suit jacket draped over them. Her face bore no expression any different from her usual impassive, serenely unimpressed look. But the room suddenly seemed colder than the Arctic cabin six years ago on the night the heat went out, especially as she shifted her eyes slightly. "Hello . . . Penny."

Beside him, he heard Penny, the woman who'd unhesitatingly taken on an inhumanly powerful monster and an entire squadron of riot cops, loudly gulp.

9:41 A.M.

As milestones in sexual development went, it wasn't perhaps the most spectacular, but Lucy clung to it in her memory like a treasure as she sipped her coffee. Last night when she'd curled up with Raj in his bed, they'd made out a little, but hadn't even reached what she was pretty sure was second base before sheer exhaustion had dragged them both into sleep. She'd woken to find him bustling around his kitchen, making breakfast (and the amazing omelet he'd dished up had actually made her wonder aloud why he was an astrophysicist and not a chef, to which he'd given her a smile so smug it really shouldn't have been as endearing as it was). But the milestone was this: For the first time in her entire life that she could remember, upon waking and realizing nothing beyond a certain point had happened, she'd been disappointed, instead of overwhelmingly relieved.

Well, there was still some relief, she had to admit. But it was far less than it had been. Still, if Raj had expected or wanted something more, she might owe him an apology. She cleared her throat and put her coffee mug down. "Raj—"

Raj held up a hand without even looking up at her, his gaze focused on scooping up his last forkful of omelet. "It's perfectly all right, Lucy." He popped the last bite into his mouth, swallowed, then looked at her seriously and took her hand. "Don't feel like you have to apologize for anything. I was wiped out last night too. We can take this as fast or as slow as you want to."

Lucy flushed, half relieved and half irritated. "No fair. How the heck are we going to have meaningful conversations if you know exactly what I'm gonna say all the time?"

"Oh." Raj blinked. "I'm sorry, I just—I could tell you were feeling awkward and apologetic about something, and it didn't take a lot to figure out what it probably was. I'll try not to do that so much."

"No, no, it's okay—well, no, it's not okay, exactly, but—" Lucy blew out a breath and sat still for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts. Finally she looked up at him, summoned a burst of courage, and reached out to take his hand; it was still hard to initiate contact like this, without the adrenaline of crisis or the charge of Raj's own emotions to help overcome all her old aversions. "I know you're still figuring out how to use your powers, Raj, same way I am. And I don't wanna put pressure on you either, specially since you've been so understanding about my . . . my issues. Just—I'm kinda starting to worry about us having a, you know, balanced relationship."

Raj bit his lip. "Lucy—you know I can't actually read minds, right? If you're worried about your privacy, believe me, I'm not going to be able to pick your computer passwords out of your brain or know where any hidden diaries are kept."

"No, I know, but—" She managed to meet his eyes without flinching, though her stomach knotted. "But being able to know exactly what I'm feeling, in an instant, no matter how hard I try to hide it . . . well, you combine that with being as smart as you are to start with, and it strikes me it's pretty darn near the same thing, with a little work. I mean, think about it, Raj." She let go of his hands to gesture emphatically: "I'm never gonna be able to lie to you, even the nice white-lie sort of lies. Nobody is ever going to be able to lie to you again. You'll always know who's keeping a secret from you, even if you can't tell what it is or why. And I had a hard enough time being with you back when both of us were kind of flying blind about it. Now you've got this overwhelming advantage. And I . . . I think I'm gonna need a lot of help getting used to it."

Raj swallowed. His voice was a little rougher than it had been. "Are you, uh, are you planning to lie to me about things, Lucy?"

"No," Lucy said. "No, of course not. But—I'd kinda like to have the option, you know? I've just had to come up with polite fake excuses too many times. How would you feel if it was me with the empathy and you knew you'd never be able to lie to me?"

After a moment, Raj nodded slowly. "Point. Though perhaps I should not have admitted that." He gave a wry smile, which she returned in relief. He leaned forward and took her hand; she let him. "Lucy, have you ever read The Chrysalids? By John Wyndham?"

"Uh, no, don't think I have."

"Ah. Well, it's an SF novel set in a post-nuclear war North America, where the only way for towns to survive is to religiously stamp out genetic mutations wherever they occur—in crops, livestock . . . even people. In one of these towns, a small group of children discover they have the power to speak to each other telepathically, and even read normal people's minds to a small degree, so they immediately promise to keep each other's secret with utter loyalty, because they'll all be killed or banished if this is found out. Unfortunately, when the children grow up, one of them, a girl named Anne, decides she wants to marry a normal man, and she vows that she'll cut ties with the other children, never speak of or use her telepathy again, and live like a normal person as best she can—that she'll pretend to be normal, all the way. And her friend David says of this idea, 'It would be like trying to pretend you've only got one arm because the person you want to marry's only got one arm. It wouldn't work—and you couldn't keep it up, either.' And he's right. She can't. And bad things happen."

Lucy moistened her lips. "What are you saying, Raj?"

Raj patted her hand reassuringly. "I'm saying you're absolutely right. I'm not going to make you a grand sweeping promise about never using my powers on you again, Lucy, because I'd almost certainly never be able to keep it. What I can promise you is: I will never use my powers as an excuse to be a jerk to you, however curious I get. If you need to lie to me, well, I may know you're doing it, but I'll take the lie as shorthand for, 'I don't want to talk about this,' and I will never ask. You still have a right to your privacy." He leant forward, then hesitated. "Um—I was going to kiss you, to prove how serious I am, but I thought I'd better check. Are you okay with that?"

Lucy felt herself misting up. Her stomach knotted again, but more and more, there was so much else in that knot now besides fear. She smiled. "Uh, yeah, I think that would be appropriate." She closed her eyes and leaned forward.

Raj's lips had only just brushed hers when a series of loud pounding thumps rattled his front door. Lucy surprised both him and herself by whipping around to yell at it, completely involuntarily, "Oh for God's sake go away!" Then she looked back, they caught each other's eyes, and a moment later both had dropped back into their seats, laughing helplessly.

The pounding on the door continued. "Rajesh!" yelled a high-pitched feminine voice from outside. "Rajesh, if you can hear me, open this door! Rajesh!"

Raj's eyebrows shot up. Lucy felt his shock of surprise like a cup of cold water being dashed in her face, and started in her chair. Before she could yelp, Raj was up and striding to the front door, which he hauled open to reveal a beautiful young Indian woman in a dark navy pantsuit standing with folded arms. Lucy's stomach sank. Oh, no, was this another one of Raj's exes? Was this going to be the clash with Emily all over—?

The woman slapped Raj hard across the face. "That's for not calling either of our parents for two days!" she shouted at him. "Who do you think they've been calling every hour to find out if I've managed to get in touch with you yet?! And what have you done that the federal government's been hunting you?! Do you realize our parents have been trying to get both me and your cousin Venkatesh to agree to be your lawyers?! I'm not prepared to deal with the United States government! And Venkatesh isn't prepared to deal with a garage sale! What have you got to say for yourself?!"

Raj cleared his throat and massaged his cheek. "Uh, Lucy," he said, glancing over his shoulder at her, "this is my sister Priya. Priya, this is my friend Lucy Armbruster." His sister?! Lucy almost fainted from the rush of relief. "Lucy, I'd like to reassure you that Priya isn't always this, er . . . imperious."

Priya's eyes narrowed at Lucy as if sizing her up for a quick flaying. Lucy gulped. "Armbruster," Priya repeated. "This wouldn't be the same Lucy Ann Armbruster who was also on the news as a federal fugitive?"

"Federal fugi—oh, no, no no no! No, no, no, that's, that's all been cleared up now." Raj waved his hands as if clearing away smoke, with an exaggeratedly nonchalant look and a firm nod that he spoiled by continuing it just a little too long. "For the most part. I think. No, really, honestly, for sure. Mostly. I should have stopped a few clauses ago, shouldn't I?"

"Yes," said Priya, at the same moment Lucy said, "Yeah, probably." Both girls blinked, exchanged a look, and Lucy abruptly found herself smiling. Priya's return smile was hesitant and a little bemused, but it still made her look much friendlier all of a sudden.

It was Raj's turn to give his sister a narrow-eyed look. He clapped his hands together. "Well, Priya, if all you wanted was to confirm for our parents that I'm fine, maybe you and I should give them a Skype call, tell them they have nothing to worry about, and then you can be on your way to wherever you were originally going?"

Priya's smile disappeared promptly back into a glare. "Oh no, Rajesh, this is not over that quickly." She strode in past Raj without hesitation, dragging a black rolling travel suitcase behind her. Raj scowled at her back as she threw her purse onto Raj's coffee table and dropped onto the couch, folding her arms. "First and foremost, I need to know. Is it true? Are you one of these metahumans now, like the people in all those comic books Leonard used to read?"

Raj opened his mouth, then hesitated and gave Lucy an uncertain look. Lucy frowned. Was he asking for her permission? She shrugged helplessly. Raj sighed and turned back. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes, I am. I've become a psionic empath—able to sense and transmit emotions telepathically . . . ." His voice slowed, and he frowned at his sister; then, abruptly, he straightened up and put his hands on his hips. "Which is exactly why I've just now realized one of the other reasons you volunteered to come after me, Priya. You found out Leonard was behind the experiment that kicked all this off, and you thought you'd check up to see if this made him worth pursuing once again, didn't you?!"

Priya's mouth dropped open. "What—I—no!" she sputtered. "What kind of outrageous insinuation is that?! I've been back with Sanjay for years now!"

"No, you've been going back and forth with Sanjay like a tennis ball at a Wimbledon rally," countered Raj. "And whatever you feel for Sanjay, Priya, it isn't love, I can tell that now just from the way you said his name."

Priya frowned. "Really?"

"Well, that and the fact that you only told me a month ago not to mention to Mummy or Daddy that you'd dumped him again! Remember?"

"Oh. So I did." Priya looked momentarily subdued, then rallied. "Well, so what if I am thinking about Leonard again? You can't exactly point fingers at people for their relationship choices, Rajesh."

"God, Priya, Leonard's back with Penny now! They're in love! They were going to get married!"

"Oh, please," Priya scoffed. "I was with Leonard long enough to see those two had nothing in common. And you told me a month ago you were worried about them, remember? Can you blame me for reconsidering my options? But none of that is the point." She sat up, leaned forward, and patted the couch beside her. "Sit down, Rajesh. We have to talk."

"About what?" Raj glowered sulkily, but sat down anyway. Lucy wondered for a moment if she'd somehow gone invisible without realizing it, and was startled to realize how annoying the thought was. Then she thought about making her excuses and leaving, and was even more startled at how little she wanted to do that.

"Well, for starters, about the fact that your primary citizenship is still with the Republic of India, and if you're going to be working for any government, it should probably be ours," said Priya. "I have a contact in the Ministry of Defense who says the high-ups are already arguing with the Ministry of Science and Technology over who gets to call the shots on metas, and they're drafting proposals in Labour and Employment over whether metas get to unionize. Then there's the fact that if you live in the public eye as a meta, our whole family's going to be affected by that—"

Raj snorted. "Right, because there aren't any other families named Koothrappali in a nation of over a billion people."

"—and Daddy feels he and Mummy are owed a little heads-up on just what you plan to do with your life, now that it might actually matter."

Raj's jaw dropped. "Excuse me!" he demanded, leaping to his feet. "Didn't they think it mattered before?! I was the discoverer of Kuiper Belt Object Two-Zero-Zero-Eight-NQ-sub-Seventeen! I was one of People Magazine's Thirty Under-30s to Watch! Don't they think those things matter?"

Priya arched an eyebrow. "Is this Kuiper Belt object Two-Seventeen-whatever going to smash into the earth anytime soon?"

"Well, no . . . ."

"And are you still under thirty years old?"

"No," Raj muttered.

"Then no. They don't. Because they don't."

"Excuse me!" Lucy was flabbergasted to realize it was her who'd burst out with that, but by the time she did she was already on her feet. "Look, I, I'm sorry to interrupt, but—do you have any idea what your brother and I have been through, in the past forty-eight hours? We were, like, federal fugitives! I got chased by real FBI agents, who were trying to Tase me! We had to fight actual Russian gangsters, I mean the really mean ones, who kidnap and sell people and shoot at them, and get, like, really frightening tattoos! And I completely missed out on the chance to be a bridesmaid!" She stomped towards Priya, or tried to; it felt like more of a stumble, but the other woman's eyes had widened all the same. Raj was staring at her too, but Lucy tried to ignore that. "Now, now maybe these are things Raj has got to think about, and maybe since you're his sister you get to give him a harder time than anybody else does. I don't have any siblings, I don't know how that works. But the very least you could do is just, maybe, back off a little . . . and give him a chance to make up his own mind."

She didn't take her eyes from Priya. But she didn't need to look at Raj to feel the sudden wave of emotion surging out from him, like a tide so warm it was just on the edge of painfully hot, yet soothing and supporting all the same, as if she'd fallen into a hot tub without realizing it . . . and yet there was a great deal more than mere soothing to it. She flushed, now uncomfortable in places she wasn't used to being uncomfortable in. As if pulled by magnets she found her head turning so she could meet Raj's eyes. Helplessly, she smiled.

"Oh my God." Priya had covered her mouth with one hand and her stomach with the other, as if she couldn't decide whether to burst into tears or be sick. Her eyes were wide, like a horse's about to bolt. "Oh, God, Raj, is that you doing that?! Raj, God, stop that! You're my brother, I don't want my brother to make me feel like—like that!" She dropped her head and shook it, bending over and covering her head with her arms as if bracing against having water tipped over her. But Raj ignored her, only stepping forward to take Lucy into his arms; she turned her face up to him and kissed him, happier than she'd ever felt in her life, and for just that moment she didn't care about Raj's sister or about empathic induction or about anything in the world except feeling Raj's mouth and body against hers—

The vision smashed into her utterly without warning, in a wall-of-water tsunami of shock.

9:44 A.M.

It is like seeing the world as a Monet painting, all blurred lines and sketchy impressions whose shapes are nonetheless clear: in a square, cavernous, echoing space of dust and shadows, blazing lights stab down out of the ceiling in a grid of columns, surrounding a brilliant white circle laid out upon the floor. The circle may be paint, or metal, or light itself; she can't tell. A dark figure, hooded, stands before the circle, arms outstretched in either welcome or command. The floor inside the circle seems to be rippling, as if it is water into which a stone has been hurled. All around, there are dimly visible figures standing, some in uniforms and carrying black metal devices that bleed malice into the air, others in all manner of elegant clothing that sparkles richly. But they are backing away, all of them, and the terror in the air grows thicker by the moment as she runs towards the dark figure, which does not move. Heartbreak and grief and loss are like a sword in her breast, the anguish only making her run faster. She feels that she is screaming but cannot tell what it is; she knows only that she loves the figure under that hood and is in terror for more than his life, and knows only that everything she is saying amounts to a single command: STOP! STOP! STOP! STO—

The floor inside the circle tears apart like tissue paper, if tissue paper could bleed fire. Something massive and horrendous erupts through the gap and smashes upwards into the ceiling of the chamber. She does not hear the screams so much as feel them, like a forest of electrified wires slashing down her skin. The shapeless, faceless monster bellows, its roar loud enough to bring down more of the building. Yet she has no choice, only continuing to bolt towards it. The dark figure stares up at the monster in what feels more like stunned bewilderment than anything else, and she reaches it and flings it aside by sheer force just as the monster opens its jaws.

Fire billows down upon her. For one instant, there is mind-bursting agony, and blinding light.

Then dark.

9:45 A.M.

"—gyaahhh!" For half a second it was even odds whose legs would give out first, Raj's or hers, but somehow they managed to brace against each other long enough for the strength to return to their knees. Raj's gobsmacked face told Lucy as surely as any empathic blast that he had absolutely no idea what had just happened either. He put one hand to her cheek; she could feel the wetness of the tears under his palm. "Lucy, my God, are you okay? You're not hurt—?"

He was cut off by a high-pitched yelping as Cinnamon burst out of Raj's bedroom, shot across the room like a furry brown guided missile and out the door, which Priya had never closed. Raj clapped his hands to his mouth. "Oh no! Cinnamon! Cinnamon, come back to Daddy!" He sprinted out the door after the dog, leaving Priya and Lucy to gawp after him.

"He still has the dog," said Priya after a moment, sounding bemused. "I'd really hoped he'd gotten rid of the dog." She pointed at Lucy. "You knew he still had the dog, right? No chance this is a dealbreaker for you, or anything?"

Lucy frowned. "Are you asking because you actually care about who your brother is seeing, or because you're trying to think about anything except what just happened?"

Priya thought that over. "I suppose it's kind of a 'two birds' approach," she conceded. "Since you ask, though, what the hell was that?!" She leapt to her feet, her voice shooting upwards without warning into a yell that was very nearly a shriek. Lucy jumped back a yard in sheer fright. Priya pointed out the door after her brother. "Is that what being a psionic empath means?! Is he going to be doing this on a regular basis from now on?!"

"Why the hell are you asking me?!" Lucy shouted back, half furious and half terrified.

"Because he obviously loves you, you little dolt, and if you can't tell me, who can?"

Lucy's jaw dropped. At the sight, Priya blinked; then she groaned and put her hand over her forehead. "Oh, no, he does, doesn't he. Oh, Mummy is not going to like what this does to Rajesh's marriage prospects. What the hell else is going to go wrong today?"

A flicker of light shot down Raj's front door and suddenly the doorway opened on another scene altogether: a different apartment, one Lucy didn't recognize, rather than Raj's hallway. Wearing pajamas and a tartan robe, Sheldon stepped through the doorway and into Raj's living room. "Raj!" he called. "Get out here quickly, Raj, I need to check—oh. Hello, Priya."

It took Priya a few tries to get her jaw working right. "H-h-hello, Sheldon," she finally said faintly. "I take it you're a metahuman too?"

Sheldon brushed down the lapels of his dressing gown. "I prefer to think of it as the manifestation of a latently potential Homo novus status that's been present all my life," he said. "Good morning, Lucy, I trust you slept well?"

"Uh, well, I, uh . . . ."

"Good, pleasantries concluded, on to business: where is Raj?" Lucy tried to find words, gave up and just pointed out the door; Sheldon glanced back at it and frowned. "No, I know he's not in Amy's apartment, I just came from there."

Priya's eyes went wide. "You spent the night at Amy's apartment?"

"Yes, yes, and coitus ensued, I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to dwell salaciously upon it later," said Sheldon. He turned back to Lucy, ignoring Priya's stunned look as she dropped onto the couch. "Or do you mean he left the apartment before I opened a contiguity here?"

"Uh, yes. That."

Sheldon frowned. "Drat. I don't suppose you know if he told you about having an unusual dream?"

"Told us?!" snapped Priya. "He practically melted our brains with it!"

Sheldon looked delighted. "Excellent! Confirmation, at last! Very well, then. Lucy, once Raj gets back, could you tell him to get dressed as soon as possible? We need to go see Leonard at the hospital."

"We do?" Lucy blinked. "Why?"

"Because now I have a second piece of the sample set to share with him." At the girls' bewildered looks, Sheldon sighed. "Yesterday morning I had a terrible nightmare which I was afraid constituted a precognitory warning. Leonard pointed out that with only one data point I couldn't know if it was a trend or an anomaly. Well, just now, I had a second horrible dream. And Amy, with the last traces of the empathic powers she copied from Raj yesterday, picked it up and blasted it all over her apartment building. I was hoping that Raj still had enough connection to her to pick it up even at this range; now that I know he did, I think I can safely confirm my preliminary conclusion about the nature of these dreams."

"Which are?" Lucy husked.

"Oh. I think they're warnings about the end of the world." He turned, headed back to the doorway into Amy's apartment, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Oh, Lucy, you wouldn't know if Raj has any Yoo-Hoo in his fridge, would you? Amy's out."

"Sheldon—Sheldon! Hold on a moment." Priya stood, wavering a little unsteadily. "You're worried . . . about the end of the world . . . and you want to know if Raj has Yoo-Hoo?"

Sheldon put his hands on his hips. "I'm sorry, did a nutritious breakfast stop being important just because we have a problem? Sheesh. And people complain about my priorities."