Scene 6 - October 15th

Exterior Park, Noon

Quinn Kaufman

I got the scan.

The doctor, on hearing an abbreviated version of the story, agreed that it was probably best to check on my nervous system, and had even offered a discount ‘because David is such a good customer,’ he joked. But it didn’t show any irregularities.

Oddly enough, my itching cleared up around that time as well. I had developed a killer headache on the way home, but that cleared up after I got inside.

It was now the next day, and after outlining my Metahuman History paper I was going for a walk in a nearby park. I couldn’t stop thinking about the suit.

It was dangerous, Dad’s story had made that clear. It had killed whoever it was tested on, way back when. Or horribly injured them, at least. But all it had done to me was make me itchy, or so it seemed.

Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that Dad had been right - itching can be a sign of nerve damage. But since I had none, it clearly hadn’t been.

The suit was supposed to awaken psychic powers, and Mom had been convinced that it did - but the people it had been tested on simply didn’t have dormant psychic power. But what if that just meant they didn’t have the right metagene? There was, after all, the theory that cosmic metahumans actually just had undetected metagenes - not everyone who came into contact with alien technology gained powers, after all. Many of them died, perhaps because they didn’t have the right kind of metagene.

I didn’t have any known metagene, but if I did have one... would it have granted me psychic powers? I hadn’t noticed any changes, though. Maybe the PA4 had just stopped working, over the fourteen or more years it had been left in the attic.

I absentmindedly stuck a hand out and caught a frisbee that had been whirring towards my head from the side, then snapped it back at the guy who had tossed it for his dog. “SORRY!” he called, and I gave him a wave to let him know it was fine.

Yeah, the thing had probably just stopped working. And I should head home - while outlining my history paper was enough work on that for today, I wanted to go over my notes for the afternoon’s Organic Chemistry class.

Besides, I was starting to get a headache again.