We both just sat in the truck for a several minutes. Mike trying to steady his breath while I tried to straighten myself out, having curled up from the pain.

"Damn. What was that?" Mike slumped back into his seat.

I had to nearly peel my fingers off of his arm, clear impressions of my fingers left behind. Internally, my dantian cycled slowly, scraped raw and clear but slowly starting to fill again. "The alien. Did something."

A ringing started up, and caller ID picked up on the dash of 'Station.'

"Hold on." Mike reached out and tapped answer. "Go for Mike."

"You ok?" A voice immediately asked, voice a little wheezy. "I don't know what just happened, but it trashed everyone here at the station, and now we're getting overwhelmed with 911 callouts. If you're good, I need you to come in, shifts be damned."

Mike gave me a look. "Better than the guys there, it sounds. I've got someone with me, give me thirty to drop her off and get back. We're on the conservatory and I don't think I'm going to trust Uber right now."

A pained laugh. "I wouldn't either."

"See you soon then. Out." Mike hung up without waiting for a reply and shifted the truck back into drive. "Sorry Nicole. I'll get you back to your dorm, but..."

I shook my head. "No, I understand. I need to call my parents, check on them. Where's my bag."

As Mike started driving out, I unbuckled and turned around, trying to fish my bag out from the back. Grabbing it, then my tablet out of it, I quickly hit call.

The signal dipped weird and didn't connect for a very long moment, before finally placing the call. A female face showed up on my tablet. "Mom! Where's Dad? Are you guys ok?"

Her face was pale and shaky. "We're at the store, your father plowed a cart into a soda display. Thankfully, it didn't all fall on him. We're going to go get checked out at the clinic here shortly. What happened, are you ok?"

"I'm fine. You guys are ok though? You heard the breathe thing too?" Mom nodded and I winced. "That probably happened everywhere then. There's probably going to be some really long lines at the clinic."

The scene shifted and Dad's face appeared. "You okay honey?" I nodded, but he frowned for a moment. "Are you in a car? Are you sure you're ok? You're not on the way to the hospital yourself, right?"

"No, no. I'm fine." Mentally apologizing to Mike, I tipped the screen in his direction for a moment. "I wasn't driving, and we were going slow when it happened."

"Huh." Dad gave me a look.

"Can we do that talk later?" I asked plaintively. "I just wanted to make sure you guys were ok. I need to call and check on Karen and the others back at the dorms."

"Sure, sure." Mom's voice said. "Call your friends, check on them. I hope they're ok too."

"Stay safe." Dad said, and then ended the call.

"Sorry about that." I apologized to Mike. "I didn't want to do the whole parent intro that way."

Mike laughed, swinging back onto the county road off the trails. "Nah, you're fine. Could be a whole lot worse."

I tapped Karen's contact info next and waited. And waited with no answer. "Shit." I clicked Melissa next, who thankfully answered after a moment.

"You ok?" I immediately asked, looking between her and trying to see the background behind her.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It didn't hit me nearly as hard as anyone else I've seen." Melissa paused. "Karen's been running around checking on the other Seekers. They actually took it really hard."

I nodded, thinking. "Alright, I'm only a few minutes away, Mike's bringing me back."

"Mike? Who?" I tilted the tablet again. "Oh, hi! Good on you, Nicole!"

"And now I'm a hunk of meat." He was watching the road though, and everything did seem quieter than normal. "I don't dance on firepoles."

I giggled, echoed by Melissa on the call. "Alright, see you in a few. Meeting you at the Seeker building?"

~~~

Mike didn't waste any time dropping me off, taking a kiss and running.

The campus felt off. It wasn't always loud, but there was almost always people going around. Now, there was almost no one. It really felt eerie. I let myself into the building and headed for the lecture hall.

Once in, I found Melissa and several other people milling about. If the campus felt eerie, this room just felt off.

"Hey." I pulled up a seat next to Melissa, who was making some sort of document on a tablet. "OK?"

"Yeah." Melissa turned the tablet towards me. "Apparently, any of the Seekers with power are all reporting they feel like absolute shit. I started doing an informal poll."

I looked the document over, it looked like a cross-referenced short questionnaire. Power yes/no, Number of breakthroughs, scale of 1-10 how bad did it feel. If 10, what previously was a 10 and what would it be now.

Huh, someone reported four breakthroughs. Felt like a ten, previous ten had been a multiple compound leg fracture. Now a four. I had a full body wince. "How are some of these people still standing?"

"Whatever it was, it didn't linger Ms. Firen." Danny walked up and sat down. "But for myself, I would liken it to trying to breath around a bat shoved into my lungs. Ten out of ten, would not do again."

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It was rude of me, but I stared. He looked perfectly fine, but he gave off a sense that felt like he'd gone several rounds with Mike Tyson. "I think it did."

"Well, seeing that is likely a difference between whatever your research uncovered and the rest of us. Though, I don't think Ms. Belle has noticed anything off." Melissa frowned but shook her head. "Which brings me to the crux of my problem."

He picked up one of the other tablets nearby and logged in. "Obviously, you're doing something right. And far be it from me to stop you from doing so." He started pulling something up. "I, on behalf of the Dantian Seekers organization, am willing to pay you whatever amount either of us can come up with that zeroes out any possible money you might owe the Seekers up to this point. Including any penalties if you were to leave the Seekers right now. In return, I get whatever research you've done up to this point."

That...wasn't a bad deal? "And what if my research is bad?"

"Just based on your medical scans? And that you can somehow sense what happened or similar? It's at least not as bad as anyone else." He coughed, and I could nearly watch the jerking action reverberate through that invisible wound.

"Additionally, if your research is in any way repeatable, I'd like to officially hire you. So instead of the Seekers doing you favors to be repaid, your research is funded." He offered me the tablet.

Hesitantly, I took it and read it over. It was short and already signed by Danny on behalf of the Seekers. Still, I read it over quickly. It was an agreement that all costs associated with my membership of the Seekers was waived and, "Wait, you're just going to give me fifteen thousand dollars as research dues?"

"It's easier for both of us to just use the exit clause of your Seekers membership. You then turn around and hand the Seekers their dues right back. Then you either rejoin the Seekers as a member again without the same contract, or I just give you a job offer." He smiled. "The extra five grand is a bonus either way. But how does seventy thousand a year sound to start with for a job?"

I'd been doing it basically as a part time job anyways, but to be paid that much to just continue? "Why?"

"Nicole, if I may," Danny paused and I nodded. "Nicole, seven months ago was a terrorist attack by something that makes the human race look like we're playing with sticks and stones. Today, he chose to attack us again and only by the grace of God did the alien decide to relent and not choke to death every person on the planet."

There was that feeling of unease. I'd almost pushed it aside earlier.

"You? Your CAT scans and probably your research? I think you've got fire from the gods."

I smiled weakly. "Didn't Prometheus get chained to a rock for doing that?"

"Bah." Danny waved that off. "Metaphor extended too far. Serious though, at least let me clean the slate about the money."

"Alright, fine." I read over the document one more time, then signed. "I guess my last act as a Seeker member is going to be to upload my research notes, huh?" I pulled out my own tablet, pulling up the Seeker app.

"I guess so."

I looked across the room. Danny's issues were much easier to sense with him sitting right there, but with him as a frame of reference, most of the people in the room were easy to recognize as little pockets of damage that echoed and pulsed their issues. Curious, I tried to cycle my own dantian for additional power to see if it'd make any difference, and felt my own internal twinge as I forced an overflow before I had filled up to normal levels. It cycled, but not nearly as easily or generated the same amount of extra power.

Danny's damage sharpened though for a moment. Rends in his chest, but a weight on top of it, pressing down and smothering it.

I realized something and looked at Melissa. I couldn't sense her. "Melissa? I can't feel you?"

She frowned. "I can still feel you. And I'm not hurt. Hold on." And then I felt her power move, flowing above something to be noticeable. "I'm cycling it, can you feel it now?" I nodded, then it vanished again.

"Weird. It was as if you had background noise hiding you?" I thought outloud. That sense of heaviness in the air was somewhat sitting around everyone.

"See? This is the kind of thing I want to hire you for." Danny smacked his hand on the table. "New things, not just putting together a freaking database of random shit."

I dropped my notes, recordings, and spreadsheets into a 'For Review' bucket in the app before closing it. "Don't do anything stupid with my notes, Danny. Especially after today, I have no clue what your dantian would look like if what Melissa and I did is repeatable."

He brightened. "If you've documented it, I can always get a CAT scan after I do the same thing." He then slumped slightly. "The hospitals are going to be swamped, aren't they?"

"Let's see if we can find Karen. Melissa, you figure you have at least three hours worth of cycle stored up, right?" She nodded. "Then we may still have a date with a plastic dropcloth and a kitchen floor."

Danny and Melissa stared at me, though Melissa laughed crazily.