I fell in an ungainly heap on the filthy asphalt but picked myself up as quickly as I could, looking around. I was almost at the intersection of three blocks of apartment buildings which towered over the street like great, grey, water-stained monoliths. I took off running towards the crossroads. Maybe I'd get away even without Armsmaster's help!
There was a clatter behind me, but I didn't turn. I was almost to the corner.
There was a sharp crack, and the world slowed to a crawl. I dived to the right, but the shot caught me in the thigh, the impact of it throwing me out of what should have been a graceful roll-and-up-again into a messy tumble. I pushed down the pain and the cold, uncomfortable feeling of the bullet lodged in my flesh and climbed to my feet.
It was Barb, bloodied, bruised and furious-looking, who had crawled from the smoking van and shot me. He advanced up the road and I could imagine the snarl on his face. Is he a brute? I wondered. He didn't look much the worse for wear for the crash, considering he hadn't been holding onto anything.
"You're not gettin' away that easy, bitch," he said, tossing the gun aside. Something like a heat haze gathered around his hands, lensing the light around them as though they were encased in jagged, shifting glass. I didn't like the look of that. "Now. You can either come quiet-like, or I can fuck you up and drag you in."
I drew myself up straighter as I felt the bullet in my leg work its way out and fall to the ground. I could feel the wound in my shoulder itching furiously and its wet trickle drying up - not healed, but not bleeding anymore. The longer I had, the better for me. I kept backing off towards the intersection. I caught a glimpse of my glowing mask in a window and an idea thundered into my head. I knew how to win this.
Concentrating, I called out to the glow that was still bound up in the Merchants' van. I'd used more than I'd really needed to, but that didn't matter now. I summoned it back towards me, keeping it dim, then commanded it to form into a mass behind Barb's hood, where he couldn't see.
I called out to him, trying to keep him focused on me. "Why does Squealer want me, anyway? I thought Skidmark was on top of your gang."
Barb shrugged. "She's a tinker. Who the fuck knows why she wants you. And Skidmark? He's a fuckin' joke. All he can do is push shit around. Now you just stop backin' off and I won't have to turn your legs to fuckin' meat."
He'd noticed, then. I pushed my intent into the glow, showing it what I wanted it to do but holding it back.
"And don't think about tryin' to run. I'm faster than you, bitch, I promise you that."
"Maybe," I said, and let my power go, blinking my eyes closed. Instantly, the dust - there's a name! - I'd gathered behind his head burst into a sphere and blazed with light. The Merchant cape yelled in surprise, cursing up a storm, but I didn't wait to see the results. Ignoring my calf's protests, I took off around the corner, sprinting as fast as I could go. I was almost a block away by the time I felt it.
I was always aware of my dust in a peripheral fashion and could tell its general direction from me. The clump I'd anchored to Barb's head seemed to dim in my awareness, then vanished like a candle in the wind. One moment there, the next just gone. I stumbled with surprise before getting back into my stride. My mind whirled. I'd never come across this problem before. Did my dust have a… battery it ran on? And it just ran out?
I pushed the thoughts away. I needed to keep running right now, and without my dust blinding him Barb would be able to chase me. My thoughts flickered to my phone, and I realized suddenly that the line to Armsmaster was still open.
I've got away from the Merchants, I projected down the line, saving my breath for running. I'm running along - I glanced up the road at the sign - Railman Street. Going, uh, southeast.
"I'm on my way," he replied, clipped and serious, and I almost giggled at how stereotypically heroic a phrase that was. "Do you believe that you have lost your kidnappers?"
I do.
"Then please remain where you are and find somewhere to conceal yourself. I will be at your location in approximately two minutes." He hung up.
I ducked sideways and behind a chest-high, graffitied wall that ran around one of the apartment buildings. It was more for show than anything, as there was no gate. I sat down in the corner of the wall on a dry-looking paving slab. My suit was already torn, bloodied and ruined; some dirt didn't really matter. I pulled out the neck to get a look at my shoulder. The wound was the dull brown-red of a scab and the itching was beginning to set in on my leg as well.
Sure enough, about a minute later I heard the telltale growling roar of the hero's motorbike. I peeked over the top of the wall to make sure it was him then, as he rounded the corner, stepped out. The bike slowed to a halt.
"Are you injured?" said the hero, holding his halberd in his hand. I belatedly realized what the blood covering my leg and shoulder would probably look like to someone else.
"I am, but they're scabbed over. I'm not bleeding," I said.
"Good," he said curtly. "Climb on behind me and try not to agitate your wounds." I blinked. He really was blunt. I did as he said, though. I mean, I got to ride on Armsmaster's bike! My younger self would have killed to be where I was, and even now, even while I was still coming down from the adrenaline high of the kidnapping, there was a part of me fangirl-squealing in the back of my mind.
As soon as I climbed on, a pair of braces clamped down on each of my legs, holding them to the sides of the bike. "To keep you on," he explained as he pulled away, the bike suddenly much quieter than it was earlier. "Panacea is currently at the PRT HQ with her sister. She has been notified that an injured rogue is coming in and has agreed to treat you."
I wasn't really sure what to say to that. Armsmaster and Panacea in one day. What did I do to earn this? Then I remembered the kidnapping. Maybe it's karma, I thought to myself, smiling a little.
Armsmaster wove in and out of the traffic as we drove into downtown. The buildings climbed higher and higher and replaced stained paint with glass until finally he pulled into a street down the side of the PRT building.
He clicked something on his handlebars and a garage door opened up for him to drive through into what looked like a small car park. The hero dismounted and once the braces retracted I followed suit, stumbling a little as I put weight on my injured leg and it reminded me that it hadn't healed yet.
A hand grabbed my shoulder, steadying me. I looked up to find not Armsmaster but a PRT trooper, her face uncovered. "Ah, thanks."
"No problem," she said, steadying me as the adrenaline finally subsided.
"I have to return to my patrol," said Armsmaster, climbing back onto his bike.
"Thank you for, uh, picking me up."
He said nothing in reply, his face still set in a grim line as he turned the bike around and drove back out of the miniature car park.
"He's always like that," said the trooper. "Don't hold it against him. Can you walk?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "It was just kind of a surprise getting off the bike."
"Best not to put more weight on that leg than you need," she asserted. "Lean on me, and we'll get you to Panacea. Glory Girl's visiting the Wards and her sister came along."
It took less than a minute to get there, riding the lift down from the car park to the Wards' base. When we got to the bottom the door binged loudly and made a loud, long, buzzing tone, but the doors didn't open.
"It's to give the kids time to put on masks if they haven't got them already," the trooper explained. I nodded in understanding, then the doors swished open.
Panacea was waiting just inside, while two teenagers sat on a sofa behind her playing some kind of video game, one guy in a domino mask and one with the unmistakable tiara of Glory Girl. The famous healer looked younger, smaller and tireder than I'd imagined her and how she'd looked on the rare occasions she came on TV for an interview. She glanced up as we approached, then pushed herself up and out of her chair.
"Aurum, right?" she said, reaching out a hand towards me. Then she blinked, seemed to realize something and pulled it back, shaking her head like she was annoyed with herself.
"Yeah," I said, then mentally kicked myself. "It's, uh, great to meet you."
"You too," she replied, not really sounding like she meant it. Now that I looked closer, she looked like she hadn't slept in a week. You could have gone to the grocery store with the bags under her eyes.
The trooper interrupted my scrutiny. "Shall we get you sitting down before Amy here works her magic?" I shrugged. "Whatever's best."
"Alright then." The trooper steered me over to a big, hard-looking dark pleather swivel-chair, which I sank down into gratefully. Panacea trailed behind. "Um, do I have your permission to heal you?" she asked.
"Sure," I said, a little confused and not entirely sure how to react to that, but offering a hand. "Thanks very much."
She ignored my thanks and reached out a hand as if to shake. I took it with my uninjured arm. As we made contact she reared back a little, blinking. "Oh. Oh, wow."
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's… it's just your biology's… quite something."
"What do you mean?" I asked, interested. I knew that my biology had changed after my trigger, but I hadn't exactly been able to get a good look at it. I'd have had to vivisect myself, and I was in no rush to do that.
"Um, OK, so my power kind of lets me 'see' the biology of what I touch, right? It's what lets me find diseases and stuff," she explained. I nodded. "Well, your physiology is weird. Not in a bad way! It's… It's like someone took the human body and asked themselves 'OK, how can I make this better?' then did it. Your muscle fibres are denser, your cells have less chance of harmful mutation, hell, even your enzymes are more efficient and hard to denature. And you've got these… I don't really know what to call them. Lumps, kinda? These little spaces I can't see, a little tiny node by each of your nerve endings, pressure sensors, everything. And when the nerves are triggered, the signal just disappears from there and appears somewhere else. You don't have reflex arcs. The signals are here," - she poked at my finger - "Then 'poof', and they're here," - she poked at the side of my head - "Then back again. It's the same thing in your brain, too. The signals just appear and disappear."
She leaned back and squinted at me. "Your power is weird."