all yours,” she said with a nod to a half dozen figures on beds down a line from me. The agents that tried to rescue me from Wolfe. “Second, if he wants it, Ron’s welcome to come over here with a mop; I suspect the janitorial department is getting quite sick of cleaning up these sorts of messes.”
“Did someone say my name?” I looked as far as I could toward the doorway and saw Dr. Sessions silhouetted in the frame.
“Yeah,” I said in a ragged whisper. “I was just telling Dr. Perugini that she should save you some of my excess blood since it’s everywhere.”
“Yes,” he said with excitement, “that would be marvelous.”
“Ron,” Dr. Perugini said in acknowledgment, with a tone that indicated some impatience. “Why are you darkening my door?”
“I came to give Ms. Nealon her test results.” His face twitched and he pushed the glasses back up into position on his nose. “Quite interesting.”
“Of course it escapes your notice she’s near dead,” Perugini muttered under her breath, sparking a quizzical look from Sessions. She opened her arms wide. “By all means, deliver your test results.”
“So what am I?” I said without preamble.
“No idea,” he replied as he crossed the floor and halted at my bedside. “You defy immediate classification.” A smile of delight colored his pasty features. “Truly bizarre.”
“He’s a sweet talker, that one,” I said to Dr. Perugini, who snorted again, this time in amusement. “Why is that bizarre?”
“I’ve analyzed hundreds of meta-humans,” he went on, “and most fall into common types – a half-dozen or so groupings depending on the special powers they exhibit. Some tend more toward incredible physical attributes, some have energy projection capabilities or—”
“Perhaps speak to the girl in English,” Dr. Perugini interrupted.
“No need for that,” he corrected her. “I gave her an intelligence test as well; I could be having this discussion in Latin and she’d pick up the essential points. The simple fact is—”
“I defy classification,” I interrupted, my words calm, coming out over the foul, acidic taste in my mouth from my recent bout of vomiting. “Even among the bizarre, I’m bizarre.”
A phone rang across the medical unit and Dr. Perugini gave Dr. Sessions a thinly lidded glare before striding away to answer it. He kept his distance, as though he were uncomfortable stepping any closer. Instead he stared at me in a way that, had any other man done it right now, would likely have set me to vomiting again. I stared back at him. “What?”
“Your physical strength is high above a normal meta’s, so you should be manifesting soon, if you haven’t already. No unique abilities to report yet?” I felt zero compunction about lying, but was relieved that Dr. Perugini had stepped away; I suspected she would see through my untruth; Dr. Sessions didn’t have a prayer.
“No. Nothing unusual.”
He turned back to his clipboard. “Well, that’s fine…it’s normal that you wouldn’t be experiencing anything yet. But as time goes by, additional abilities will materialize.” He looked down at the blood pooled at his feet. “And I’ll, uh…” He pulled a small test tube out of his coat pocket and stooped down, scraping it across the tile floor, forcing a small amount into the vial before putting a rubber stopper on it. Dr. Perugini rounded the corner just in time to see him and threw up her hands in silent exasperation.
He stood up, failing to notice her behind him. “I’ll get this analyzed and maybe it’ll give us some ideas of what you are.” He turned and started when he saw Dr. Perugini, then shuffled around her as she glared at him.
“He has the bedside manner of a goat,” she said with a hint of a European accent. “But not the common sense nor tact. That—” she pointed to the phone behind her—“was Ariadne. She and Old Man Winter are coming down to see you now that you’re awake.”
“Did they already know I was awake when they called?” I asked. I could believe Dr. Sessions would wander over and not know that I was unconscious; I’d be shocked if Ariadne and Old Man Winter weren’t spying on me.
She stared back at me, her dark eyes cool and unflinching. “Yes.” She turned away, grabbing a clipboard off a nearby shelf. “You’re going to need to start eating again soon. I don’t want to strain your digestive tract until I’m sure it’s fully healed, so I’ll be giving you another ultrasound in a couple hours to confirm you mend as