A sigh leaves my mouth at feeling the connection forming once again. I tie up all the attention and, in under ten seconds, there’s none of it left. My reaction time has improved to the point that I’m hoping they aren’t able to get anything from the tracker, which makes me wonder why they keep trying.

I kept the tethers connecting me to my entire team, so I didn’t have to recreate them every time. They are necessary. If the tracker tried to connect to any of the others but me, I would feel it happening with the tethers active, sadly I couldn’t focus on anything else but the matrixes because of that.

The endless mazes of powers being the only thing that I could look for hours on end I used the time to study and acclimatize myself with them, getting used to my own matrix and studying that of the others on my team, if I tried to copy a matrix it would take so much attention that I’d lose track of the others completely and possibly lose the tracker connecting with one of my other teammates, therefore I could only read them over as time slowly passed.

In the future, I hope to properly integrate these other powers into my matrix, although I still didn’t know how to go about it, how to fit it all together. Only putting more and more powers into my matrix will hit a limit, eventually. If I absorbed all the powers of my teammates, there would be no space left for anything, and my matrix naturally grew as it adapted, so I feared that if there was no space left, that my powers would have to resort to only the solutions inscribed in the powers I had already. The matrix does naturally grow, but it’s a slow process.

Maybe I could exchange powers around as I come across more powerful ones, but that doesn’t seem to be the most natural direction for my power, or more effective. There’s also the fact that by the time I find another power, my matrix might just have grown enough to accommodate it, which would put me further in the path of only copying powers, maybe. I still need to learn more about how it grows. And why it grows, does all powers have this capability or is it something particular about growth powers. Can’t get too deep into that now.

Rebeca, the doctor we encountered to treat Spotlight Payback, and LED had said that it was better to leave them resting off the effects of her treatment, the new tissues would slowly solidify in the course of a day, starting off as only a gooey substance. That raised some questions about how my power would integrate that. My healing was instantaneous, something that didn’t change with the addition of the new material. The mechanism stayed the same, only changing the product of the outcome, didn’t that probably mean that all powers that change me biologically, that create mutations would have a permanent effect when taken in by my matrix?

My powers needed examples to make permanent changes and encountering different transformation powers would make me able to change the necessity of a reactive response. That’s my theory, anyway. Now, with my new understanding of how to guide my matrix, I will be able to better direct the transformations.

Well, in any case that meant that we would have to stay the night here, that might lead to our pursuers closing in on our location but I was hoping my new swiftness of cutting the tracker off and the short time we would stay here would account to us not being ambushed.

Planning to copy Rebecca’s power eventually, I had left the tether I created to study her power; it was an invaluable tool that would let me help my companions, and with it together in the tether network, I could study her power even more while doing the same with the others.

I could feel what made each power distinct when scrutinizing them. Spotlights power had some fuzziness to it, maybe a representation of its effect? But now, having just cut the attention of the tracker and going by the time he takes to try again, I thought it safe to copy Rebecca’s power here and now.

In my time going over it, I had tried to identify the best way to copy it, not wanting to get any parts that weren’t necessary. There were two major parts to it, a production part divided into passive and active that created the gooey liquid that transformed into new flesh, basically a soup of super stem cells. The other part was a part that a powered normally didn’t interact with or even knew about, it dictated where the power would be produced, at what rate, and the specifics of the material, in this case the purple liquid was produced passively in her bone marrow as the same rate as blood, substituting it completely, and it could be actively produced by her skin as I’ve seen her doing.

My matrix had already copied the part of the material, the most complex part creating a substance that didn’t exist in our world before, flexible, safe and fast acting. So, I just needed to get the production part, choosing to copy only the active creation, as I wouldn’t need the bone marrow. If I had to discard it, eventually, I hoped it would be after we got to the base, so I could stockpile a good amount of it.

Deciding to take a break while it was still safe to not pay that much attention I opened my eyes to the dark waiting room, The other guys stayed in the hospital beds so I had stayed in the waiting room with Spyglass. she had been in a bad mood since her anger faded and even after all this time it showed no signs of improving, but she still didn’t want to talk just staying quiet or saying one word if much when I tried talking to her. With me having to pay attention to the matrixes I hadn’t been able to try much, anyway.

I see Spyglass still awake, a distant expression on her face. “What time is it?” I ask her.

She looks up, meeting my gaze briefly, and takes her phone from her pocket, glancing at it before simply telling me “8”.

“Woah, guess I got distracted with the matrices again.” the last time I had been in the real world, per se, was way before. At around 3 pm.

“Well, I’m going to lie down then. You’re fine staying here?” She just nodded, and I held in another sigh, exiting the awaiting room.

The bedrooms were right after the room with the stretchers and entering the treatment area; I noticed Spotlight was finally awake, perking up when he saw me. I smiled approaching the stretcher he was on.

“Finally up, I see.”

“As good as new,” he said, grinning back at my smile.

“Have you heard about what happened already?” I asked more seriously

“I talked a bit with LED and Payback when they were awake.” He said, confirming my suspicions.

“So, you heard about David”

“Yeah,” he looked at me with a rare serious look on his face. “And I was meaning to tell you to not beat yourself over it too much.”

he continued before I could say anything, “we get powers suddenly, and its normal to want to test their limits, to know what we can accomplish with it,” he broke his serious demeanor with yet another grin, “you have no idea the amount of shit I stole when I had just gotten my power.”

Just like I thought when I copied it, his power made going unnoticed way too easy.

“You stood in front of me because you thought I was the target, and that is a mistake even someone more experienced could’ve made, you were thinking of the fight and you have had little contact with the cruelty of the rats that own this country.”

“Even so, I was taking this situation way too lightly, but I understand it now. We must topple the regime before I can do anything else I want with this new opportunity given to me.”

“It was a shame that David bit the bullet there, but ultimately it’s another crime on the family’s shoulders.” He stayed silent then, thinking of something.

“When we have the opportunity, I’d like to show you something. I think it’s important for anyone fighting the government to see it.”

I nodded at that, not seeing any reason to deny. “Okay then, I’ll be going to lie down as well. See you later.”

“Later, Matrix.”

I went to one of the guest bedrooms, settling down and putting an alarm for two hours from now, so I had a safe room to stay vigilant about the tracker. After my brief nap, it would be back to studying matrixes while I waited to disrupt our pursuers, the insistent motherfuckers.

-

By the time morning came, I was pretty sure they had given up, at least for now, as it had been a good five hours since the last time that they tried anything. Maybe they allowed the tracker to sleep, hoping the one blocking it, me, would decide to go to sleep as well.

But I planned to outlast him, at least for another day. It’s not like it would be the first time that I pulled subsequent all-nighters. Coffee would carry me through.

I come out of the bedroom and see that Payback and LED are already up and I approach the two of them. Dressed in his training clothes, LED was talking to Payback.

“Hey matrix,” LED greets me. “Want to do some training with me today as well?”

I consider it for a second as I found it very invigorating the other time I did it but I decide to pass it today “Better not, I didn’t sleep much this night and I want to conserve my energy, so I can keep paying attention to the tracker, just in case.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.” He stretched his neck from side to side, rolling his shoulders. “well I’ll be going then, till later you too.” he went off, leaving me with Payback.

“Where is he going, anyway?” I ask, not remembering any workout room in the pharmacy

Payback shrugged. “He said there was a park nearby.”

I nodded, looking around the room, seeing Spotlight still soundly asleep spread on the stretcher, a blanket covering his form.

it’s still amazing to me how I now wake up every day and feel ready to go, as before it would be a struggle every morning to get out of the bed, the aches and pains of age not helped by me beating my body relentlessly for years, then it would be a full mug of coffee to put some energy into my system and a whole day of working a bleak job that wasn’t what I wanted.

Now I could feel the potential throughout my body, the peak condition, the power inside of me, and couldn’t help the smile coming to my face.

“What’s making you so happy this early in the morning?” Payback asked me.

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just admiring my new situation.”

What? Being chased around by the army?”

I chuckled, “no, not that part”

He looked me over now that I was close. “is it the fuzz growing then? Finally, dropping the bald look?”

“That’d be great, but I don’t see myself keeping my head unscathed for months.” I said, in good humor.

“What you need is a hair growth power then, the dream of the middle-aged men.”

“Yes, then I’d finally feel accomplished.” We both laughed, exiting the treatment area to the pharmacy proper.

“There’s not even a coffee machine in here.” Payback complained.

“Want to go get some coffee?” Even if I didn’t need it anymore to stay awake doesn’t mean that I don’t like it anymore.