“—ia, Lia!” Something touched my face and made me recoil and scream louder. “It’s me, it’s Amy!”

  I stopped screaming, heaving rapid breaths through my throat, wincing at the pain it caused. My shirt was stuck to my skin, sweat dripping down my back. I blinked stinging drops from my eyes, trying to catch my breath, to stop the intense pressure bearing down on my skull. My heart hammered against my ribs, hard enough I was worried they’d break.

  “Uhh,” I croaked, pulling my clammy hand away from Amy and wrapping my arms around myself. “Um, uhh, we’re not—”

  “Doing that again,” Amy finished in a rush. “What the fuck?”

  “I don’t—” I choked as my stomach convulsed, then swallowed my rising bile. I was shivering badly, barely able to keep my teeth from chattering. “I don’t know.” I shut my eyes and tried to breathe like Yamada had taught me. It took a minute to get it down, but soon I’d stopped my panic and remembered what we’d done and why. “Fuck me I hope that was worth it.”

  “I’m...not sure,” Amy said hesitantly. I glanced over and saw her staring at the floor. “I don’t… Lia, you remember how I said it’s not connected to your pollentia and stuff?”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “Well, apparently I was wrong,” she said, her face ashen. “I...when I stopped your heart and your hippocampus lit up there was, I don’t exactly know how to describe it. Not neural pathways, they weren’t that structured. It was more like...mycelia.” I cocked my head.

  “And those are…?”

  “Root structure of fungi,” Amy explained. “It was everywhere, all through your grey matter; and all wrapped around your pollentia, but that wasn’t its source.” I bit my lip. That sounded...pretty bad.

  “So where was it coming from?” I asked.

  “Good question,” she sighed. “Your hippocampus had the densest network, but it wasn’t exactly centralized. It wasn’t growing, there was no direction of flow to or from somewhere it just...was. Sorry, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I really don’t like the sound of that,” I said tensely. “And no way we’re going in for a second look.”

  “Bad idea,” Amy agreed, nodding her head sharply. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t want to know what happened, but at least we got something out of it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, letting out a breath and mopping my brow. “Now I know I have something in my brain that’s fucking with my power or...or my power is fucking with. But you said it didn’t do anything?”

  “Well…” She took a deep breath and turned to me, finally meeting my eyes. “You didn’t totally die, remember. I think maybe, um, considering how spread out it was maybe it was supposed to somehow bring the information stored...everywhere, back in time with it. I’m not totally sure, that connection to the pollentia felt...off. It wasn’t penetrating it, just wrapping around it like a cocoon, the whole structure.”

  “What was it doing?” I asked, stomach twisting.

  “I told you, nothing,” Amy said. “But...well, considering how dense it was compared to the rest, maybe it was isolating it.”

  I scratched the back of my head, considering. Why would something that seemed related to my powers try and section off the thing responsible for them? Maybe it wasn’t related. That could be why Scion did...whatever to me, he was trying to fix my passenger. So if it wasn’t that, then what? Well Amy always said she wasn’t the expert in the family…

  “Do you think Vicky would know?” I said.

  “Doubt it,” Amy said, shaking her head. “If she’d heard about something like this, she probably would have talked my ear off at some point. No guarantee I’d remember, but still. Whatever this is, it’s unique.”

  “I fucking hate being unique,” I said bitterly. “Why couldn’t I have got a fucking Alexandria package, or at least god damn flight.”

  “Bad luck?” Amy said lightly, getting a huff of empty laughter. “Sorry, I wish I could tell you how it worked. It felt...big.” I remembered the feeling of pressure on my head.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Felt like when Scion was chasing me.”

  “Sorry,” she said, wrapping an arm around my back. I sighed and leaned against her, shutting my eyes. “Sorry we couldn’t figure it out.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, trying to not feel too disappointed. “It didn’t look like, dangerous or anything?”

  “It’s a foreign structure in your brain that I’ve never seen in another patient,” she retorted. “It’s not actively killing you, that’s about as much as I can say.”

  “You know maybe if you’d given me some warning I—”

  “I couldn’t,” Amy cut me off, biting her lip. “I… If I didn’t do it then, right when I’d thought of it, there was no way I’d have worked up the nerve. I’m sorry, just...sorry.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, shaking my head. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  “No problem,” Amy said, grabbing the remote. “Let’s not make a habit of it though. Black-eye Girl?”

  I nodded and settled next to her, knowing I wasn’t going to learn any more today.

  “Hey, Mrs. Redwell, do you have a sec?” I asked, walking up to my biology teacher’s desk.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Certainly Lia,” she said, offering me a smile. She was the only one of my teachers to called me that. “How can I help?” My eyes flicked up to her degree, framed behind her.

  “You, um, you studied parahuman sciences right?” I said, glancing again at the degree.

  “Sure did,” she replied, leaning back in her chair. “If it’s about getting a master’s, no I don’t recommend it.”

  “Got it,” I said. “But, uh, did they ever talk about like, the effects powers have on brains?” Her smile widened slightly.

  “Interested in parascience?” Mrs. Redwell asked.

  “I guess a little,” I hedged.

  “Well, take a seat,” she said, gesturing to the chair beside her desk. Once I was seated, she cleared her throat. “So, there’re two structures in the brain related to powers.”

  “The pollentia and gemma,” I said with a nod.

  “Coronas, but yes,” she said. “People who have the potential to become parahumans have a corona pollentia in their heads, and it’s a binary yes or no; no nodes, no powers. But not everyone has a gemma, only empowered parahumans. Working theory is it’s some kind of control structure that grows in when the pollentia expands after a parahuman gains powers.”

  “Expands?” I asked, grimacing. “Isn’t brain swelling like, really bad?”

  “Extremely,” Mrs. Redwell said with a nod. “But not deadly in the case of parahumans. Each pollentia is unique in its structure, touching different parts of the brain. There’s a theory it’s tied into the kind of powers capes have, but not an ounce of proof for that yet so pinch of salt and all.”

  “How much of the brain does a corona pollentia usually take up?”

  “Inches,” she said, holding her fingers a little bit apart. “That’s part of the puzzle really; how can all that power flow through such a tiny conduit?”

  “But you said it’s connected to different parts of the brain, right?” I pursed my lips. “What if it spread, like uhh, mycelia?”

  “Interesting comparison,” Mrs. Redwell said, leaning forward. “I haven’t read of any cases like that, but it’s been a while since I wrote my thesis. Are you thinking of a topic for your final paper?”

  “Yeah maybe,” I said with a nod. Better cover story than ‘I’m interested just because’.

  “There’s an old, discredited theory that parahumans were caused by some kind of virus,” she said. “But I definitely haven’t heard of either node growing, or ‘spreading’ such as it is. Have you read about it somewhere.”

  “Umm,” I hummed. “Just uh, PHO, you know? I thought I’d ask a science teacher because, well, you know. It’s the internet.”

  “It is indeed,” Mrs. Redwell said with a chuckle. “Good thing you did ask. If it’s something you read on a forum and it wasn’t well sourced, you can almost certainly bet it’s a load. Never be afraid to ask questions though, the worst thing you can be is wrong.” Yeah that was the worst…

  “Okay, thanks Mrs. Redwell.”

  “Anytime, Lia.”

  When I actually did search the internet that evening, it didn’t turn up anything better. Mrs. Redwell had been right about the virus theory, something that I didn’t remember from the story; but there was plenty I didn’t remember. Amy shot it down right away, so it was obvious my teacher was on the right track.

  Not that it actually helped me come to a conclusion. Still so many unknowns, though mostly only unknown if it really wasn’t related to my power. I knew where powers came from, the real answer no scientist on Earth would figure out until Scion went crazy: the Entities. Could it be something like that?

  Seemed unlikely, Scion definitely would have noticed another impossibly, multiversally titanic creature swimming around in my tiny little head. Wouldn’t he? He wasn’t infallible by any means, if he had been we’d be screwed six ways from Sunday. But missing something that big...unlikely.

  No closer to an answer, I shut Amy’s laptop with a frustrated huff. She’d gone to help with some emergency or another for the PRT, leaving me to myself and my research. Since it wasn’t going anywhere, maybe I could make dinner for us. There wasn’t a lot in the fridge, but Amy had pasta, sauce, and a little ground beef; I could put something together maybe.

  My phone rang, interrupting my plan to do something nice for Amy instead of just mooching. I checked the call display and frowned; ‘Unknown Number’. Could be a scam...could be someone from the Protectorate. I licked my lips and stabbed the answer button, then brought it to my ear.

  “Hello?” I asked. I didn’t want to volunteer anything, just in case.

  “Hello, can you hear me alright?” a man’s voice answered. The line crackled slightly, adding an odd, tinny quality to his voice.

  “Yeah, who is this?” I said.

  “My name is Samuel Bedford, I’m an attorney.” Oh shit why was a lawyer calling me? “Am I speaking to Amelia D’souza?”

  “Um, yes, why—”

  “Thank god.” The exclamation startled me into shutting up. “Apologies, allow me to explain. I was your mother’s executor, that is the person handling her estate. My god, are you alright Amelia?”

  “Uhh, fine?” I said hesitantly. “Wait, estate, you mean like all her stuff because she’s dead?”

  “Yes, and I’m so, so sorry for your loss Amelia.” Well that made one of us at least.

  “Thanks,” I said flatly.

  “I apologize that it took so long to contact you,” he continued. “As you can imagine, my offices were...rather swamped. I’ve only begun reorganizing my cases in the past two months and— I’m sorry, you don’t need more grief. Are you still living in Brockton Bay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, frowning. “Why?”

  “I’d like to schedule a meeting,” Samuel said. “Right now your mother’s estate is in limbo, has been for some time, and I’d like it settled before the city relaxes its property tax relief.” My frown deepened.

  “Okay,” I agreed. If it was a trap, I could handle myself easily enough; I’d just bring my weapons to make sure. “Why now though? I mean, I know what you said about your cases or whatever, but…”

  “It’s the darndest thing,” he said. “I put ads in the paper for a few of my clients’ next of kin, or for any information pertaining to them. A classmate of yours gave me your phone number. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical, but here we are. Are you free tomorrow?”

  “I have class,” I replied, heart beating a little faster. One of my classmates? Was this a surprise from Amy? Or maybe one of the Wards had seen the ad and wanted to send some help my way. Neither explanation made much sense, but neither did his.

  “Ah yes the school system.” Samuel sighed. “I won’t have an afternoon free until Friday, would that be alright?” Only a couple days.

  “Sure,” I said. Either this was the real deal and all my bad luck was finally turning around, or I was walking into an ambush. If it was the former, great, if it was the latter...good luck to the assholes planning it.

  “Do you know Robertson’s Tea Shop by the Waterfront?” he asked.

  “No, but I can probably find it,” I said, making a mental note to check it out beforehand. “I assume there at what, four?”

  “Four would be fine,” Samuel agreed. “I’ll wear an orange, pinstripe tie and have my right thumbnail painted black.”

  “Uh, okay.” Weird, but whatever dude. “So...see you then?”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” he said. It sounded like he may have been smiling. “Have a good afternoon Amelia, thank you so much for taking my call.”

  The line clicked and I stared at my phone, mulling over the call. That was...interesting, if a little nervewracking. Who the fuck gave that guy my number? I didn’t like that there really wasn’t a good explanation, like there wasn’t for anything in my life right now. I’d have to consider changing it now, at least after I’d found out what this guy was about. The lock rattled and I turned my head, smiling when Amy came through the door.

  “Holy shit,” she swore, running her fingers through her hair as she kicked off her shoes.

  “What’s up?” I asked as she joined me on the couch. She grabbed me and pulled me onto her lap, forcing a startled squeak from my throat. Her arms wrapped around my belly and she held me tight. “H-hey, everything okay?”

  “Just a hell of a day,” she muttered. I smiled and put my hand over hers.

  “Tell me about it.”