When I saw my parents’ car in the driveway, I knew there was no possible way this wasn’t going to be extremely awkward.
“Would you mind if I came in with you?” Asked Summers before clarifying. “I would like to quickly bring everyone up to speed as to how we expect this to unfold in the news, I hate to say it but this one won’t slip unnoticed.”
“Yeah, sure.”
As I walked up towards the door I wondered if I should have been planning what I was going to say. Should I have thought up a defense of my actions or something?
Too late now.
When I opened the door there was that heavy silence from the absence of conversation, the kind when it stops in anticipation of something. I kicked my damaged shoes off and I could hear Summers taking his off behind me with a bit more care. After a long hesitant second, I started towards the front room.
“Hi, I’m back.” I said about as lamely as possible, the following explosion of voices made it difficult to tell what people were saying. Before I got a chance to get them straight, I was grabbed in a hug by Kat who I guess had been leaning against the dividing wall next to me.
“Summers said you were safe, but that you were kidnapped…” She choked out into my ear.
She pulled back a bit and started examining me closely.
“Were you hurt at all? I can’t see anything but…” She said concern etched on her face.
“Just a bit of skin damage, uh you shoulda seen the other guys.” I said with an awkward not quite chuckle.
“What happened? The first we learned you had been snatched was when we were told that you were ‘apparently safe’.” River asked having come over to put a hand on my shoulder.
I recounted the whole thing from when they initially grabbed me, it took a bit to get past talking about the time I spent in the back of the van. It turns out spending an indeterminate length of time being unsure if someone is alive is not a great thing to have to talk about.
Once I got to the bit about being stuck in the closet, I had to do a small round of introductions for my repair buddies, getting a mix of reactions to their appearance but appreciative of their contribution. Talking about the escape of course led to the topic I was most uncomfortable about, the grievous injuries I commented.
I tried to describe the action clinically, but my voice was quivering. I kicked a door into that guy probably smashed his arms and broke some ribs, took that guy’s gun injuring his hands in the process. So on and so forth. There were a couple of sharp intakes of breath when I mentioned getting shot but showing an uninjured shoulder assuage their fears somewhat. I didn’t leave any space before moving on to tearing the power cable out of the machine, quietly mentioning the two on the other side as I stared at the floor between my feet from my seat in the armchair I had been given by Jake.
There weren’t any immediate responses, so I continued with sputtering burners to describing helping Roger and the tentacled people, summoning help, and treating the kidnappers as best I could. Ending the story with waiting for Summers and the convoy.
I had been expecting more interruptions or comments. Instead, I was just sitting here waiting for someone to say something, for them to judge me for having fucked up some people. Possibly permanently depending on what the EMTs could do, I didn’t know if fingers could be reattached after that long even if I had stuck them in the minifridge in the office. Let alone any of the complex broken bones. There are also those people I stranded, who knows what happened to them.
I think my thoughts were starting to thrash again when I felt Kat pull me into a hug from the side of the chair.
“It sounds like you tried your best to save your friend and minimize harm, that’s a win in my books.” She said as tears started rolling down my face.
Summers had remained quiet throughout my story, only the occasional sound of scribbling a quick note, I had given him permission to do that though when he’d asked a few minutes in. Once I’d recovered a bit, he cleared his throat to draw attention.
“I will warn you that this incident will end up in the news, despite this being a quiet neighborhood someone probably saw it happen and at the very least I am going to have a random garage drowning in military and government personnel. Not to mention the injured kidnappers in the hospital or whoever potentially has picked up Sam’s bag from where she left it.” He began then paused for a second.
“Nor do I believe it realistic that none of you will talk about this, but I would suggest letting whatever appears in papers be the extent of what you will admit at least for a while.” He continued. “The official statement will be that two unspecified changees were kidnapped for reasons unknown and the government was able to recover both hostages and secure the kidnappers.”
He smiled.
“Not quite a lie, no?”
----------------------------------------
After a few mundane questions, Summers decided to excuse himself, saying he needed to get back home himself. He asked me to check my email regularly in case my stuff turned up or if he otherwise needed to contact me.
“That guy isn’t ‘just’ a doctor,” Mike said in the quiet that followed. “He was stating all those things as his choices, not what his boss said or something “
‘Yeah.” I agreed with a smile. “I am incredibly glad he’s on our side in this.”
“You can say that again.” He snorted out in response.
“I’m glad your safe Sam, but I would like to sleep in our own bed, so your mother and I are gonna take off before I’m too tired to drive,” Dad said standing up after whispering with mom for a bit. “I expect we will be talking on this subject again, but we will leave it be for tonight. Do you want a ride back Katherine?”
“If it’s OK with them I might just crash on the couch here, I would like to talk to them some more.” She asked looking between my roommates and me.
“Yes, of course.” River spoke for us.
There was a round of hugs and goodbyes with my parents as Kat and I saw them off. After returning to the living room, Kat sighed while flopping onto the couch.
“Shit Sam, busy week, eh?” She asked with a crooked grin.
“You can say that again.” I agreed while settling into an armchair.
“So, the battle part of the Battle-Maid thing wasn’t fucking around then?”
“Nope, I didn’t know what I was doing though.” I admitted.
“I’m glad Roger will be ok.” River said quietly. “He seemed nice.”
“Yeah.” I said glumly.
“Sam, to confirm you said the portal was using a changee in some way, right?” Kat asked seriously after a few minutes of silence, then continued when I nodded. “That sounds an awful lot like one of the ideas my supervisor pointed out in a journal recently.”
When I looked at her in confusion, she started to give a rough overview.
“Ok, so you know how when things get changed out, they usually are just subjected to expected laws of physics, but that are exceptions right?” she asked to confirm.
“Yeah, supers and the like right? Summers was also curious if I had some degree of weirdness as I’m not as heavy as I could be.”
“Right, it seems like if something wouldn’t function or live otherwise then it’s just subjected to whatever physics it would have originally had.” She continued. “Well, this has obviously been a subject of much speculation and curiosity, my work-in-progress dissertation is actually on a pretty mundane part of it.”
“So the currently popular theory is that those people and things get like a little pocket of the dimension that’s needed to sustain their abilities and possibly some even if it’s not needed.“ She continued. “Here’s the thing that paper I was talking about suggested, essentially it could be possible to bridge the gap between that pocket and the original. They had a few possible ideas they had sort of brushed up against, but they didn’t want to trigger a second incident so backed off before they confirmed it would work.”
“I guess someone less… sensible brought their work to a conclusion. As for using people, those are probably the easiest identifiable thing of another dimension that can be found, what with everything else being held by some government or university.” She finished with a grimace.
“Some of the clashes brought some pretty wild and unreproducible artifacts, maybe someone wants more?” Mike started to speculate. “If you had access to a screamgate and no morals-“
“I’m sorry but did you call it a screamgate?” Jake cut in.
“Yeah! Stargates powered by screams!” Mike said with a grin before continuing grimly. “Anyway, if you didn’t mind killing people and what or who you get from there also worked to power the gate then you to get more of whatever artifacts you wanted.”
“Fuck. Here come the glorious conquistadors to murder people for fun and profit.” Jake said.
“Yep.” Agreed Mike.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said into the silence that followed.
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After the initial impact calmed down, we aimlessly speculated a bit on what kind of things they might be looking for, but there were so many random artifacts or people with unique abilities that we ended up calling it for the night.
----------------------------------------
After I rolled out of bed and got dressed in the morning I lamented the loss of my cell phone for a few moments, before bringing up my desktop to see if there was anything in my email from Summers.
Oh, there was.
They have all my stuff!
Someone on the street had picked my bag up and given it to the police after seeing what was in it. Apparently, it was some old lady whose daily walk just happened to be about five or ten minutes after I was grabbed, so I got everything back as far they knew. I would need to go and pick it up though, I will admit without my bus pass it would be a bit of a long walk but that’s a small price to pay.
After that, I checked the news to see if anything had popped up yet, there was an initial article on the changee interest section of the CBC with just Summers statement in it. The local news mentioned that same statement and noted that there was a pile of military and government vehicles around the garage but otherwise didn’t know anything else.
Well, I guess we will see what happens.
Kat's place was roughly in the same direction as the station, so she joined me for the walk there. They basically glanced at me for two seconds before handing my stuff over, I was recognizable enough that they had no trouble believing I was who I claimed to be. I think the lady had taken some of my pens, but that is such a small-time loss I would happily give her as many as she wanted for getting everything else back.
The rest of the weekend was honestly mundane. I had a call with my parents that seemed to avoid the kidnapping as a subject at all, more just seeing how I was doing in general and if I needed anything for their next visit. I helped with meals a few times, which resulted in Jake declaring that watching me chop stuff was ‘utterly terrifying’. It’s weirdly anti-climactic, I don’t know what I was expecting after being kidnapped but a quiet weekend of assignments and video games wasn’t it.
“Good morning!” A chipper Anna called toward us on the way to class Monday morning, and I fell back a bit to let her catch up.
“Hello Anna, how did the con go?”
Please don’t let the kidnapping come up.
“Fantastic! I got everything ready in time and it turned out great!” She said beaming.
“I know there are usually pictures associated with these, did you get any good ones of yourself?”
She turned bright red.
“Ah uh, probably, they will be r-ready later in the w-week.” She stammered out.
I raised an eyebrow
“Oook?”
“Ah, did you see the news!” She said obviously changing the conversation. “There was a kidnapping of some changees locally, apparently one of them was a student here!”
Ah dammit. I wonder where the news picked up the student thing as it wasn’t in the initial statement, maybe the university had to say something.
“I uh think I saw that, yeah.” I said this time it is my turn to be squirrely with the subject, at least she didn’t seem to pick up on anything immediately.
“I will admit I was worried that maybe it was you, but you’re here today and I know there are at least a few other changees on campus.” She continued.
She was of course correct, but I decided not to let her know, as that would have opened a barrel of worms. I latched onto her second point to try and distract her, I didn’t really want to lie but I didn’t feel like talking about it either.
“Yeah, I know a few of them, one is in bio so I’ve never met her on campus.” I paused with a frown. “Unfortunately, I can’t actually hear her directly, she’s a telepath and it doesn’t work with my mechanical brain but at least she’s still got ears and so can hear me.”
“That kinda sucks, but it sounds like you’ve at least talked to them somehow.” She said with a frown of sympathy.
“Yeah, she’s nice. Some friends relayed for her.” I said bobbing my head a little. “There’s another two in other courses that can mostly fly under the radar if they don’t say.
“It’s so cool you know them all then! It’s like their secret identities or something!” She said eyes glittering.
“Ha, if anything It’s because they don’t want to be seen as potentially being superheroes from how they said it.”
“Really? If I had superpowers, I would probably be running around getting myself in trouble.” She said while doing a couple of air punches.
“Yeah, but then you might have to risk injury and death for yourself or whoever you are fighting,” I said grimly, then I added to my statement realizing it was a bit too on the nose. “I imagine.”
“True, it’s not like anime or comics where people punch each other for hours and walk away buds.” She said thoughtfully, then sighed. “It’s one of those things that seems cool to imagine but I don’t know how I would handle it; it could be so confusing.”
“You don’t need to tell me that one!” I said with a chuckle, her innocent thought being more amusing than hurtful.
Her face turned to horror.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think…” She said in a rush.
“Don’t worry about it.” I said dismissing her concerns.
“But, but… like it’s been a week and a half! I’m talking about it as if it’s something cool!” She said anguished. “The entire reason I started talking to you is that I thought you looked-“
She clamped a hand over her mouth, her face turning red again.
“I looked like what?” I asked with a hint of mischief in my voice, I can’t imagine whatever it was is anything too bad by how red she had gotten.
“Like one of the characters I love to cosplay.” She whispered with renewed horror.
“Ooooooh?” I asked a mischievous grin on my face “I had some inkling that maaaaybe it was something like that!”
“You aren’t mad?” She asked quietly. “You would be right to…”
“Nah, you aren’t being mean about it, and hey whatever the reason it’s been nice to get to know you!” I said cheerfully.
“Really?” She said perking up.
“Yep!” I confirmed.
She smiled at that, then turned sheepish.
“Would you still want to do the cosplay stuff?” She asked a bit hesitantly.
“Sure, I have an appointment on Thursday but otherwise I am free after classes this week.”
“Would Tuesday night work, sometime after seven? I’m a bit busy tonight.” She asked a bit more confidently this time.
“Sounds good, send me where to go on discord and I will be there.” I said with a smile as we reached the lecture hall.
“Seems like you’re hitting things off well with Anna.” Mike said with a grin at lunch.
“Something like that,” I admitted. “I still don’t know her that well.”
“So?”
“Not everyone is you, Mike.“ I pointed out.
“Bah, that’s just because they don’t know better.” He said while making a dismissive gesture.
“If you are asking about with regards to going out with her or something, it’s not like I know if either A she’s single or B gay.” I pointed out.
“Well at the very least she’s into robots!” He countered.
“That seems to be the case.” I admitted with a smile.
“She’s even inviting you to her place before the first date, mayhaps she wants to jump your robo bones.” He while making suggestive eyebrows.
“Come on Mike I wouldn’t even be into it for that.” I pointed out.
“Oh right, sorry.” He said with a grimace.
There was a short awkward silence before a thought crossed my mind. “Weird possibility what if it’s like cooking?”
“What?” He asked confused by the sudden topic change.
“Um well, I don’t enjoy eating human food, but I like it when you guys do. I was wondering if similar might apply to uh, well…” I was unable to finish the sentence and started steaming with embarrassment.
He let out a roar of laughter at this startling River out of their textbook.
“Well, only one way to find out.” He said with a grin.
“I uh, well I will see where this goes.” I said avoiding eye contact.
“Don’t let Mike push you into doing anything too fast.” River pointed out.
“Honestly, yeah what they said,” Mike said while leaning back. “You shouldn’t force this somewhere it doesn’t go naturally, if nothing else there will be more opportunities for self-exploration but maybe only one chance for a friendship with Anna.”
“She’s been nice, and it sounds like she’s got you interested in trying something new, that’s totally worth it alone.” He said with a gentle smile.
“Who are you and what did you do with Mike?” Jake asked with a snort.
“Hey, I don’t try to get in bed with everyone I meet! I live with you three and I’m pretty sure I haven’t hit on any of you.” He countered and then paused. “Probably?”
----------------------------------------
“Hey Sam!”
I looked up from my bag in surprise, not used to being greeted in math.
“Hi Molly, how’s it going?”
I will admit with everything going on it had somewhat slipped my mind that she had said she was in my class.
“Good, but how about you? I heard some of what happened.” She asked while giving me a quick look as if checking for injuries or something.
I shrugged and dropped my notebook on the table.
“Eh, I am mostly fine. Do you know anything about Roger? I haven’t heard anything since then.”
“I think they were letting him go today if all his blood work looks normal again. They probably could have discharged him before, but they were worried about anything else popping up.”
I felt some tension drop out of me at that, and she gave me a smile evidently having noticed.
“Thanks for getting him out of that, he’s a close friend and I don’t know what I would have done if…” She let it trail off, the possibility better left unsaid.
“No problem, I am glad I could help him.” I said feeling a bit uncomfortable, trying to hide it by settling into the seat and moving my bag off the table. I noticed ever since the change I don’t think I have just dropped my weight onto any chair, I guess I am unconsciously avoiding damaging them.
Once she was unpacked but before Bagshaw started, she leaned over a bit.
“Do you want to learn how to fight? I heard you felt inexperienced, but I could probably show you a few things I know.” She asked quietly.
I looked at her in surprise, that was definitely not something I had been expecting.
“Colonel Brant mentioned it to me” She continued.
Isn’t that the name that was on the blond soldier’s uniform? How does Molly know her?
“Uh sure.” I just sort of automatically replied too shocked to consider my answer then another thought arrived. “Wait isn’t Colonel pretty high ra-“
My confused question was interrupted by Bagshaw starting the lecture, forcing me to change focus to the lesson. With how loud my brain is it would make it very, very obvious that I wasn’t paying attention, I managed to make it to the first break without my brain wandering too much somehow but it took an effort of will.
As Bagshaw started answering questions from students that went up front, I turned my attention back to Molly who seemed to be giggling.
“What.” I asked flatly guessing the reason.
“I think I am starting to recognize the sounds different operations make, so I can literally hear your thought process.” She said not quite laughing. “It’s cute.”
“Uh-huh.”
She didn’t seem too bothered by my response but switched subjects before I could add to it.
“Hey, give me your number so I can coordinate meeting with you.” She asked then after getting our numbers synced. “Would a few hours on Sunday be fine?”
“Should be yeah.” I nodded. “I will warn you I know next to nothing, that was all instinct and going fast.”
“No worries, I am sure we can get you something to work off.”
---
“Mind watching my stuff while I head to the washroom?” I asked Molly having survived another fifty minutes of math.
“Wait, why do you need to go?” She asked confused.
“Well, I’m burning stuff all the time and you don’t see a big cloud of soot around me, right?” I responded while standing up.
“Huh, neat. Sure, see you soon!”
As usual, there were some confused stares in the washroom, but I was starting to get used to that. When I returned another person had joined Molly in the free seat beside her and when they turned to face me, I realized it was Peter.
“Hello, Peter. I didn’t know you were in this class.”
“Wazzup. I’m not, I don’t have anything right now so just came to chill.”
“In a math lecture.” I said while giving him a stare.
“Hell yeah, if I don’t have to pay attention it’s just noise and then I get to spend it with my lovely Molly.” He said grinning over at her as she laughed in response.
I am presuming they are a couple, but I didn’t really know them well enough to tell if it was an in-joke instead.
“Well, I hope you don’t mind hearing a running commentary from my brain.” I warned him while settling down.
“Huh?” He asked confused.
“You’ll find out.” Molly said with a chuckle as she turned back to face the front as Bagshaw restarted the lecture.
I’m pretty sure my brain is overheating or something, three hours of focused almost uninterrupted math is too much for me. Peter seemed to share Molly’s mirth at the noises I made, seeing as he started guffawing as we left.
“You can’t even fob off and doodle since the guy will notice the quiet, you are so screwed buddy. I hope you don’t need that many more of these courses or that’s gonna get old.” He said sympathy tainted by schadenfreude.
“This is the last I need for minimum prereqs, I had been planning on a minor in it but uh I don’t know that I will survive that.” I admitted as we walked across campus.
The two of them paused at the intersection in the path, it looked like they were heading to one of the parking lots. We exchanged goodbyes and as they walked away Molly called out a warning or a promise.
“Ivy and I will nab you for a clothing thing soon too, so look forward to that!”
Uh oh, that sounds threatening.