"So I tossed a piece of chocolate at it—you know, for research purposes—and it disappeared inside. Like, completely disappeared. This weird blue light shone from it, and then—and this is the weirdest part...this shot back out."

Harold held up the small, chocolate-coloured coin that had flown at him from the odd haze of rippling energy the previous night. Helen and Jimmy, who had been listening raptly to his recount of the experience, leaned forward, mouths slightly open and eyes wide as they surveyed the strange token.

"Wait...so, this mist thing...ate your chocolate bar and decided to—what—pay you back for it?" said Jimmy, looking both bewildered and disbelieving.

"No, I think...I think it actually turned the chocolate bar into the coin," Helen said excitedly. Both Harold and Jimmy looked at her, eyebrows raised.

"What?" she said defensively. "It's the theory of transmutation. A process by which the particles of one object are rearranged so that one can fundamentally transform that object into another. We learned about this back in second year, in Chemistry!"

"You say that like you think we actually listen in Chemistry class," Harold said.

Helen rolled her eyes as the two boys grinned at each other and snatched the coin from Harold's fingers, turning it over and scrutinising it carefully under her bespectacled gaze. "It has all the necessary credentials," she said slowly. "It even feels real. It could have certainly passed for an actual coin if not for the colour."

"You think the vending machines would take it?" Harold asked, his eyes on the large, transparent box reposing in the corner of the room. Noticing Helen's burning glare, he said quickly, "What, I wasn't actually thinking about it!"

She shook her head, exasperated, and muttered something so quiet it was almost indistinct, yet which sounded suspiciously like "Boys." "But what bothers me most," she continued, "is that even if it is some form of transmutation, it was clearly incomplete, otherwise it wouldn't have retained the colour of the transformed item." She looked harassed. "Tell me again what you saw."

Harold sighed in exasperation. "I told you, I was just hovering there, minding my own business, when I heard the splash. I looked around, but nothing was there. Then I heard another splash and looked around again, and there it was in front of me. It was like the air was shimmering, you know, like when asphalt gets too hot and you can see heat rising from it?" Helen and Jimmy nodded. "But it couldn't have been heat. The place was so cold I had to thaw out my underwear in the shower this morning."

"Okay, that's a mental image we did not need," Helen said, disgusted. "Just—the important details, please!"

Harold and Jimmy snickered, but after a few seconds Harold composed himself. "Okay, so I approached it. And that was when I noticed it: lightning. Like, little rivulets of blue electricity were streaming around inside. It looked dangerous. So, naturally, I wanted to touch it," he said casually. "But it was obviously a bad idea. So instead, I decided to use what was left of my candy bar. I tossed it in, and got this limited edition, Crackermilk penny in return. When I looked up, the haze was gone. I might have thought I'd been hallucinating if I didn't have the coin as proof."

"Well, we're lucky you didn't touch the haze yourself," Jimmy said, grinning. "Can you imagine, skin-flavoured coins? Urgh."

Helen froze, a curious expression on her face. She turned to Jimmy. "What did you say?"

"Oh, I was just making a joke about Harold touching the—"

"I know that!" she said impatiently. "What did you say after that, about the coin?"

"That nobody would want a skin-flavoured coin?" he repeated nervously.

To their surprise, Helen's face lit up, as if that was exactly what she wanted. She thrust the coin at Harold. "Bite it."

He was sure he had misheard. "Sorry?"

"Bite it," she repeated impatiently.

He plucked it from her fingers and held it up to her eyes. "It's—a—coin," he said. "I know you always say I'll eat anything, but even I have my boundaries."

"No, you idiot." She had this look, as if what she wanted to say was obvious, and he was merely being obtuse. "Didn't you hear what Jimmy said? 'Skin-flavoured'?"

"I did. And I'm sure human flesh is a delight somewhere in the world, but not to me."

"No, I—forget about the skin part, will you?" she snapped. She took a deep breath, then went on in a voice of forced calm. "I was thinking, what if the colour of the chocolate bar wasn't the only property the coin retained?"

"You think it kept the flavour too?" Jimmy said, with an incredulous look.

"It's a possibility, especially if the process wasn't complete."

Harold slammed the coin down onto the table, so that a loud, metallic clang rang out. Everyone in the canteen looked around, scandalized, but he ignored them. He was looking right at Helen, who, like the rest of the students, looked alarmed by the sudden act. "Hear that? Chocolate doesn't make that sound."

Helen returned abruptly to her usual manner. "I'm not telling you to swallow the thing whole. If it really is metallic, then it likely won't do anything to you, because of your super durability. And if it does, you'll heal instantly anyway."

Harold hesitated, turning the coin over in his fingers. She was right, but he wouldn't admit it.

"You were ready to touch a strange shimmering cloud full of blue electricity 'for research purposes,' but you can't bite a coin?"

"Hmm...touché," said Harold. Helen looked satisfied. He supposed it really couldn't do that much damage. He exhaled through his nose, then shrugged. "For science," Harold said, and he raised the coin to his lips.

"For science," echoed Jimmy, raising his glass in a toast. Harold positioned the edge of the coin between his teeth, then bit down.

As he had expected, he met resistance. The coin was most certainly metal. But, whether by instinct or motivation from the look of eagerness on Helen's face, he applied a bit more pressure, and his teeth broke through, ripping off the targeted area with a hard crunch, and he began to chew.

"Holy..." Harold muttered. He looked up. Helen and Jimmy were staring at him, Helen avid, Jimmy anxious but curious.

"It tastes just like Crackermilk," Harold whispered excitedly.

"I knew it," Helen said triumphantly. She lifted her tray, then stood up. "Come on, you two. We have to get to class, there's something I need to check."

Their first class of the day came after breakfast: Physics. This class was more theory than practicality, which meant Harold couldn't muster much interest in it. He stared up at the blackboard through glazed eyes, one hand on his cheek, while the teacher, Mr. Conrad, a short man with long, curly hair and a domed forehead, droned on about density, and velocity, and other "ity's" that Harold couldn't care enough to remember.

His mind was once again on the strange sights he had witnessed in the past two days: a mountainous white gorilla that bled green blood, which was powerful enough to completely overwhelm him, even with his enhanced physical prowess; a swarm of gigantic grey hornets that produced black venom that seemed to burn his very insides, as if it were liquidizing them; and now, a transparent mist that crackled with sapphire electricity which turned sweets into flavoured money.

Somehow, these were still not the strangest things he had ever witnessed, but they were the ones that concerned him most. Unlike everything else he had seen, these things weren't the work of some power-hungry Enhanced who was keen on destruction and chaos.

In truth, there was no logical explanation for any of this. Miraculous, transmutative mists didn't occur in nature, and he couldn't even think to revisit the one he had seen last night for further observation because, not only had it vanished without a trace, he had no idea where exactly it had been in the first place. He had not paid much attention to the path he was taking away from Helix, just gliding freely along, then returning to Helix by turning in the general direction he knew it to be until the island came into view. It was impossible to find the spot again.

Now Harold found himself wondering if the two cases were somehow linked. Could the same strange energy that had converted the chocolate bar into a coin be related to the same force that had changed the gorilla and the hornets into what they were when he saw them?

The bell rang soon after, and Harold let out a groan of relief. He began to gather up his things to leave with the rest of the class, when Jimmy nudged him and pointed to Helen, who was approaching the teacher's desk very slowly, clearly waiting for the rest of the students to file out before she confronted Mr. Conrad. Harold exchanged a look with Jimmy, then when the classroom was at last empty, they strode forward and stopped a few feet from Helen.

"Oh, Ms. Barnham," Mr. Conrad said, stopping short at the sight of Helen. His dark, frizzy hair was falling into his eyes. He brushed the locks away and looked at Helen with intrigue. "I imagine we both should be in other classes at this moment. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Actually, there is, Sir," Helen said, in a honeyed voice. "My friends and I were wondering whether you could tell us anything about the theory of transmutation?"

Mr. Conrad raised his eyebrows. "Transmutation? I imagine that would be more in the field of Chemistry rather than physics, but...Yes, I suppose I can help. Let's see....Transmutation is the chemical process by which one object is broken down and transitions into another, for example, alpha and beta decay."

"Yes, we already know that, Sir. What we really wanted to know is, apart from that, how would one go about initiating an artificial transition?"

Mr. Conrad looked at Helen, both surprised and, it seemed, a little suspicious. "Well, an artificial transition—which, in this case, I would take to mean you're referring to something along the lines of changing fabric to paper—has never been done before," he said, and Harold and Jimmy glanced subtly at one another again. "But I imagine that it could be possible by charging the object of your experiment with a powerful enough surge of energy."

"How much energy are we talking, Sir?" Harold asked.

"Are you sure you want to know, Mr. Farwell?" Mr. Conrad asked in surprise. "You seem to find most of what I say horribly dull the majority of the time."

Harold flushed.

"It would require a tremendous amount of energy," said Mr. Conrad, with a slight smile of satisfaction. "Enough to break the molecular bonds between the atoms of said object, more to rearrange them, and yet more to establish the new bonds. Unfortunately, that kind of energy is nigh impossible to produce."

"Even for us Enhanced?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes, even for us, Mr. Goodwin," Mr. Conrad said, narrowing his eyes at Jimmy. "Now, I have another class to get to, so if that's all—" He made to leave, but Helen forestalled him.

"One more thing, Sir," she said.

"Just the one?" he said, sounding exasperated.

"You said it's impossible even for us Enhanced to produce the necessary energy. But what about the Earth itself? It's a natural generator of heat and magnetic and electric energy. Could there be any hotspots around the planet that can produce this kind of energy?"

"No." Conrad's reply was prompt, his tone flat, and he gave no further elaboration. "Now, if you don't mind." And he swept away.

A few seconds silence followed as they listened to his footsteps fading away.

"Didn't seem very keen to talk to us, did he?" Harold said, eyes on the little stretch of the corridor visible through the door.

"I wonder why," Jimmy said. "Do you think he took offense that we asked him about Chemistry instead of Physics?"

"I don't know," said Helen, in a thoughtful tone. "He seemed pretty willing to help when I asked him about in the first place."

They started walking, trailing along the hallway to their next lesson.

"But either way, this information doesn't help," Harold said. "He was pretty adamant that transmutation isn't possible, yet the bits of chocolate coin now being dissolved by my stomach acid say otherwise." He patted his belly. Helen shot him an incredulous look.

"You didn't actually swallow it?"

Harold looked at her curiously. "Well, yeah, I did. It was Crackermilk."

"And it was also metal!"

"Very delicious metal," Harold pointed out.

Helen let out a groan of exasperation and rolled her eyes. "Let's just get to class."

Their second lesson of the day was Weapons and Equipment. In this class, their objective was to learn about the inner workings of various high-level devices that had fallen into the Academy's possession over the years. During their first and second years, they had studied mostly simple blasters and communication devices. Now they learned about things like laser weapons, which produced bursts of energy so concentrated that they could shear through even the thickest of tree trunks as easily as a knife through butter, devices that could project powerful barriers, and devices that could be used to override certain pieces of technology.

During today's lesson, their teacher, Edward Trueman, introduced them to a blaster that crystallized anything it came into contact with. Then he displayed its capabilities, handing them all the objects now encased in a thick, crystalline coating.

"And another interesting fact," Mr. Trueman said, holding up a glittering apple, "is that these crystals are composed of an element called Photofractite. The crystals absorb light, but they don't reflect it. The light remains captured inside the crystal, similar to how a battery charges power, but it isn't released until years after, when the crystals break down. Observe."

He put down his crystal gun, picked up a laser weapon, and aimed it at the apple. Greenish-blue energy erupted from the nozzle, washing over the crystal, but just as he said, the light was not reflected. The crystal glowed with the emerald light, filling up like a cup of water, and continued to glow even after he released the trigger.

"See?" Mr. Trueman said heartily. "Perfect for when you're going camping and run out of candles."

He began to break off chunks of the crystals from the other items he had targeted, then rounded off the class by handing a piece to each student.

Outside in the corridor, Harold was still observing his own. "My own permanent light source," he said. "Not bad."

Still gazing down at his shard, he bumped into someone. "Sorry," he said, but as he looked up at who he hit he immediately regretted the apology. Mr. Girvan was standing in front of them.

"Farwell, Barnham, Goodwin. Excellent, just the people I wanted to see. Please follow me."

He turned and strode off through the tide of students without another word. The trio exchanged looks, then set off after him. He marched down corridors and turned corners so fast that they had to break into a light jog to keep him in their sights. At last he came to a halt outside a door near the end of the third-year block. His own office.

It was a small room, stocked with black furniture, with scarlet curtains drawn over the windows. Light filtered through the fabric, casting an unsettling reddish glow over the room.

Mr. Girvan ushered them inside. There were chairs out, but he didn't direct them to sit, even as he settled himself behind his desk.

"Shut the door, Goodwin," he said, and Jimmy closed the door with a look of slight apprehension.

"I'm sure you have all been expecting a meeting like this for some time," Mr. Girvan said, leaning forward with his hands folded atop the table. No one answered, but he didn't seem to require a response. "Per your report, we are to understand that two nights ago, you encountered an apparently genetically enhanced primate, a gang of criminals who were interested in trading it, presumably across the Black Market, and a group of enhanced wasps as well.

"Most unfortunately, when Mr. Dreyfus arrived on scene, the men were gone."

"Did something happen to them?" Helen asked at once.

"Yes, something did happen, Ms. Barnham. The men were freed: there slashes on the ropes were most certainly caused by knives. We've also had no further information on where the gorilla you described could be. However, we did get word that there is some possibly illicit activity going on near an old mining site, and the information indicates that it may involve members of the very gang you stumbled upon: the Blue Vipers."

Harold's heart leapt, though he tried his hardest to keep his face neutral. Was he saying...?

"In that case, I would like you three to continue your investigation, since you've had experience with these men. However," he said, and Harold's heart sank back into place, "it will not be today. It is within everyone's best interests that we obtain more information about what we're dealing with first. And also, it is obvious that this mission will require a more...delicate touch."

"What do you mean?" Helen asked, sounding more suspicious than curious.

Girvan smiled his nasty smile again. "I mean, of course, that you will be embarking on this mission with some—how do you say—backup. Just in case. It is already quite obvious that you may need it. We wouldn't want a repeat of what reportedly went down last time. I mean"—his eyes found Harold, and his tone dripped with malice—"the Medical Wing can only supply so many Medipills."

Harold repressed a shiver of rage, though only barely.

"In that case, you will spend the period until said time as your mission is announced preparing, while we select who else is going to be accompanying you on your journey. The details will be made known to you before then. You may return to your classes."