San Diego Comic Con. A sprawling sea of fanatics all gathered to worship at the altar of pop culture. The major players were there, of course, Marvel in one hall, DC in another, with a sizable Disney presence augmenting the Marvel region. Costumed Fans wandered from booth to booth, as costumed staff proudly displayed their merch and strove to seperate them from their money. Sophia was in awe. Few of her missions had taken her to fan conventions. Most times she was in a large gathering of people, it was in a transportation hub or an entertainment venue, only briefly visited. Crowds were a great place to shank people, after all. She'd managed to convince her handler to mail her a kevlar bodysuit and some yellow paint, which, after a few hours and several internet videos, had formed what Sophia deemed an adequate costume. She wouldn't be bringing guns with her- the convention had security, even if it was atrocious by her standards- but several knives and wires found their way into pockets on the costume. Over-top of the kevlar, she layered a jacket with lots of pockets. Comicbook costumes never had enough pockets. Probably because it would mess with the clean profiles the artists were going for. Half-mask and wig in hand, Sophia locked her door and carried her backpack out to the waiting car. Cass grinned, raising her enormous pink shades.

"Looking good, Sophie," Cass said, and gestured to the backseat. "Get in, and let's get this show on the road."

Cass slid in next to a skinny-looking kid, probably seth, who dressed like Gambit. Rose was riding shotgun, her hair dyed black with a few white extensions clipped in. Sophie noted everyone in her group- it was so easy to call the people she was riding with her group- had opted for a costume with a jacket or coat of some sort. Pockets sure were popular.

"So, I hear you're new in the neighborhood," Rose turned in her seat and addressed Sophia.

"Yeah. I just moved in a few weeks ago. So how did you all meet?" Sophia quickly moved to turn the conversation away from herself. She had a cover, all set to roll off the tongue, but it was safer not to volunteer information. People had a habit of coming up with their own explanations to fill in the gaps in her story, and it was much easier to let their misconceptions persist than to implant her own.

"We all work together. Seth is an intern in Cass's department, and I see her every week or so for the cross-department meeting. It never ceases to amaze me how many times input from the maintenance department ends up solving a problem R&D can't seem to wrap their head around."

"Cool. What all do you do?"

"Genetics research." Rose replied.

"Astrophysics." Cass piped up.

"Math," was Seth's contribution, when Sophia made eye-contact.

"Seth's a bit shy," Cass announced. "It took me months to get him to open up. But get him going on the lore of the marvel universe, and he'll go for hours."

"Oh? I've read a few comics here and there, but I've never really dug into the lore. Could you give me the rundown on the character I'm cosplaying as?"

"You want the history of X-23?" Seth asked, a little tentatively.

"Sure. What ya got?"

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Cass's assertion that Seth could talk for hours proved well-founded. He was still going strong when she pulled into the event parking, with only a few comments from Sophia and Rose about the mechanics of the claws. They seemed to agree that it made little sense to compromise the integrity of the wrist-joint for additional length. Instead, deploying a bone-spike from the lower side of the wrist for stabbing/blocking and shorter claws for slashing would be much more biomechanically sound. They had no complaints about the design of the claws that extended from x-23's feet, however. The general consensus was they were amazingly versatile. Sophia let slip that she was interested in learning more about genetic research, and Rose said- "Then you should totally apply to be my intern. Cass gets an Intern, I should get one too, right?"

Cass was a bit suspicious of that comment. Rose was super-organized, and she hadn't shown the slightest interest in an intern till now. All three of the Daedalus employees had an earbud in with a direct line to Alice, and Rob had said he'd have someone from security keep an eye on them. Rob hadn't been as quick to suspect Sophia, even if he did think it odd that she went for jogs heavily armed. After all, he knew quite a few of his employees had similar habits.

The group stayed mostly together, posing for a few pictures with other cos-players dressed as members of the x-men franchise. One of the wheelchair kids had shaved their head to match professor X, and managed to snag over a dozen cosplayers portraying members of the team.

It was when the group was filing out of a trailer reveal for the latest marvel movie that they ran into Hood. He was, to Cass's astonishment, in a spacesuit. One of the spacesuits that had been developed for the martian expedition. Any doubt that it was the real deal immediately left her mind when the group reached him. She could tell, from the indicator lights on his chestplate, that he was using the onboard cooling system. She knew what the indicator lights meant because she'd spent hours going over the equipment with Lorian before she'd left, nearly a year ago.

"Ah, Rob, you made it!" Rose greeted their boss. Well, one of their bosses. Bill was the other Big boss. And Mercy from accounting signed the checks. Rob was the boss of security stuff. He was the one who made sure nobody stole from the company. The rumor mill said he knew all the ways it could be done because he'd done them, but said rumor mill had been quite noticeably silent whenever specifics were requested.

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Sophia tensed, almost unsheathing her claws before she managed to get her racing thoughts under control. Her target, Rob Hood, was here. In a spacesuit. Sophia noted the three men and two women loitering nearby with concealed weapons, likely his guards. Hood wasn't the type of man to walk around alone. Still, he seemed remarkably relaxed. Sophia puzzled over whether the spacesuit was the real deal or one of the better reproductions, before dismissing it as irrelevant. Her claws might be able to penetrate it, but without lacing them with a poison, she wouldn't be able to score any lethal hits. And she still had to confirm that this was actually the Hood she was tasked to eliminate. It wasn't like Hood was a unique name.

"Who's this you've got with you?" Rob asked, making eye contact with her. The glossy surface of the helmet distorted his appearance slightly, but Sophia could still detect the steady gaze of a formidable warrior behind the domed acrylic. He was relaxed, but not carelessly so.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I'm Sophie," Sophie asserted, extending a hand. "Wicked cool costume," she added, as Rob shook it firmly.

"Isn't it? I'm glad it comes with a built-in heat-exchanger. The suit was designed for Mars, which is cold all the time. I do not want to imagine the sweaty hell I'd find myself in if the suit retained all its heat."

"You mean you're wearing an actual spacesuit?" Sophia let incredulity play across her face- one of the things she'd learned from her handler had been regulating displays of emotion.

"Yeah. Rose here suggested I 'dig up a costume' and I recalled when all our execs got scanned for the prototype suits. Lucky me, it still fit."

"That is so cool!" Sophie exclaimed.

"So, where are you lot headed next?" Rob addressed Cass, the lead wanderer of the group.

"Well, It's getting on towards lunch. Food court or a nearby restraunt?"

"Mind if I tag along?"

"Not at all."

#

Rob considered 'Sophie' with an appraising eye. Alice had managed to backtrack her arrival from first contact with Cass all the way to the Russian airport she'd come to the states from. Her financial accounts hit a laundry block after about three exchanges, which gave a bit of weight to Alice's hypothesis that Sophie was linked to the Competition. Rob resolved to have a few of his henchmen pay her a visit after the convention. The girl had dressed as one of wolverine's clones. It definitely reminded Rob of the claw-marks that he'd found on his men in Russia. Was the monster responsible for that carnage hiding in plain sight? She certainly didn't seem like a killer, chatting with the two women and the intern he was sharing a crowded food-court table with. But of course, neither did he, and he had quite a lot of metaphorical blood on his hands. She hadn't made a move yet, and Alice was confident in her tracking algorithms. Rob could wait to see what her next move was.

#

Sophie's next move was to run for the bathroom and puke her guts out in the toilet. She'd started to feel nauseous about a half-hour after they left the food court, and she suspected it wasn't a result of the food. Sophie pulled out her portable blood-analysis kit and pricked her finger, waiting impatiently for the system to run its tests. When it beeped the results, she cursed. Her meds were out of balance. She didn't know what half the chemicals on the list the device spewed out were, she just knew that they were never supposed to reach those extreme levels. Sophie tried the only solution she knew, downing a couple of pills from the stash she carried with her. Instead of clearing, her nausea increased. Sophie retched, and now blood was coming up, not just stomach bile. This was bad. Sophie dialed her handler.

"Hey, Sophie dear, what's going on?" Her handler answered the phone, concern in his voice that Sophie knew had nothing to do with compassion.

"Meds aren't cutting it. I'm puking in a bathroom at comic-con. I need a soft extraction," Sophie gasped between retches.

"Ok. I'm on my way," He hung up, leaving Sophie alone with her pain. Alone, but only for the moment.

"Sophie, are you okay?" Rose asked as she entered the bathroom. "You don't sound so good."

"I'm just a bit sick. My Da's going to come pick me up in a bit," Sophie gasped out.

"You sound more than a bit sick. Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"I'll be fine," Sophie wheezed, just before a pain like a thunderstorm went off inside her head, and she put her fist through the wall of the bathroom stall. And her unsheathed claws, but she was in to much pain to pay any attention to that at the moment.

"Sh--, Alice was right. I need a containment team up here stat, and medics. Definitely medics," Rose spoke to the air, and Alice replied.

"Team inbound. ETA fifteen minutes. Two of Rob's detail are former medics."

"Get them up here, and tell them she's having a siezure of some sort," Rose clipped out her instructions and leaned against the sinks. Her face was pale, a mix of horror and fascination in her eyes. "Rob, I think I found my missing research," she said over coms.

"Be careful. I'll be up in a minute," Rob replied.

#

Sophie's handler fought his way through the crowd, a bulging backpack slung over one shoulder. Sophie had said a soft extraction, so he'd left his guns in the van with the bulkier medical equipment. Sophie's status as an experimental bioweapon had necessitated numerous emergency surgeries and procedures over the past two years of operation, and his job had morphed from fixing the mess she left the area around her target to fixing the mess she made of her biochemistry. As he neared the bathroom where Sophie's tracker was transmitting from, he spotted the 'temporarily out of service' sign plastered across it. What he didn't spot was the fact that the man dressed in full combat gear next to it was a guard, not a cosplayer. As he moved to open the door, he found himself staring into the barrel of a very real smg with a few bits of plastic duct-taped to it to hide its true nature.

"Mr. Pietrov, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me," said a voice from behind him, and the man felt the muzzle of another weapon press into his back.

"I don't know who you people are, but my daughter is in there. She needs medical attention."

"And I'm going to need you to come with me to make sure she gets it. Now, if you'll just step into the men's room with me..."

#

Sophia woke up to a dim glow of overhead lights. She wasn't in the bathroom anymore. No, now she was strapped to an examination table in some sort of surgical suite. And her claws were all extended, and locked in place with some sort of armature. Even her jaw was held in place with an armature, so there was no way she could bite her tongue. Not that Sophia would do something so stupid, but she could appreciate that they were taking precautions. She was entirely imobile, except for her eyes, tongue, and the slow rise and fall of her chest.

Sophia lay there for what felt like eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, before she heard a door open and someone entering the surgical suite. A masked face leaned over, and Sophia locked eyes with Rose.

"Ah, you're awake. That's good. It was a bit touch and go for a while there. Honestly, I'm astonished you've lasted this long with all the junk in your system. The fact the serums those idiots fed you were incomplete and nearly incompatible didn't help matters. If it's any consolation, the mess that formed actually has several valuable mutations that arose from the splice. They'll be especially helpful in reducing the risk of bone cancer on the next Mars mission. The downside is we're going to extracting a lot of your bone marrow over the next few months to help treat the returning astronauts."

Sophia did her best to force a sound from her imobilized jaw.

"Ah, yeah, the restraints. They're for your safety as much as ours. We had to reinforce and replace several parts of your skeleton where the last team to work on you did a shoddy patch job. And I ended up formulating a new catalytic serum to burn out the old junk. It's not something a vanilla human would survive, but it saved your life. I look forward to seeing how you develop."

Sophia tried to scream.

"Don't worry, we'll get you out of these restraints in a few days. It'll take some time for the nerves and muscles to reaclimate to each other. Wouldn't want you dislocating your joints in the meantime. Especially the claws. I totally get what you were talking about in the car, by the way. Tieing the dewclaw to the Ulna instead of trying to slide it out beween the metacarpals is way simpler and more stable. And we added intercarpal claws as well. Made for an interesting circulatory structure in the hand. It's a good thing you're already used to wearing gloves everywhere, because there's no hiding the slits where they retract."

Sophia realized screaming wasn't getting her anywhere, so she decided meditation was probably her best bet. Would her handler be coming for her? Or would Vladimir cut her loose. From the way she was trussed up at the moment, she wasn't sure if that would be an improvement, or an out of the frying-pan and into the fire situation.

"Oh, yeah, there was this guy claiming to be your dad. No blood relation, forged IDs, really sketchy. Rob took care of him after relieving him of a bunch of medical equipment."

Well, so much for her handler. Though depending on how Rob had 'taken care of' him, he might show up again eventually. Euphemisms were never a good way to ascertain someone's medical condition.

"Oh, and if you're wondering, I was serious about the internship thing. When Rob clears you as no longer being a security risk, I'd be happy to teach you how your biology has been modded. Until then, I'm afraid you'll have to stick to learning what you can from the lab rat side of things."

Sophie groaned, and tried to meditate. Going insane would negatively impact her chances of escape.

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