The man in the gray suit never did giver Lorian a name. What he did was remind her of the mountain of paperwork she’d signed when she agreed to fly cargo for Daedalus Technologies. Daedalus Tech was the parent company that sponsored Doctor Scarlet’s research. Then he pointed out that, as a frequent international flier, it would be easy to explain away her disappearance if her plane went down unexpectedly, or if she went missing in a foreign country. And there were hundreds of fatal automobile crashes every year. What would one more be?

Lorian was less than thrilled to be reminded of the fact that, despite all the law enforcement and airport security in the world, it was still trivially easy to arrange a kidnapping or murder. It wasn’t something she would ever bother to do: Her personal code of ethics precluded the notion. Still, she could spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, or she could cooperate.

“Look, Mr. I was hired to fly planes, deliver cargo, and act bored enough that no one bothers to care what it is that I’m hauling. Getting involved in weird super-villain stuff isn’t really my speed. Either someone offs me intentionally, or entropy does. It won’t really matter which in the end. Now, this sounds like the kind of stuff I ought to report to the cops. But this job pays pretty well, so I don’t really want to bother. Just don’t lock me up again, and don’t expect me to work the shady side of the business. Any more than I unwittingly do anyway. Capiche?”

The gray-suited man sighed. “As you say, Capiche. You’re very chill compared to the people I usually visit.”

“I’d offer you booze, but I don’t drink the stuff. What is life, if not one grand adventure?”

“Indeed. Since you are financially motivated, would you be interested in joining the medical trials offered by Doctor Scarlet’s lab?”

“Not especially. I like the illusion of freedom that working as a lab rat would dispel.”

“It wouldn’t be anything more invasive than a round of injections when you visit. We’ll triple your pay, and offer full medical coverage.”

“US medical coverage?”

“Global medical coverage. Experimental procedures would be covered as well.”

“This is one of those things that is to good to be true.”

“It is a bit of a gamble. Still, you have a rather cavalier attitude, so what’s one more?”

“I’m beginning to rethink whether or not booze is a good idea. Ah, what the heck. I’d like to get the deal in writing. And filed with some impartial lawyers that can actually enforce it.”

“We should be able to come to an arrangement.”

###

Lorian decided that Booze was terrible. She and her new lawyer, introduced by a friend from flight school, had gone drinking after hashing out Lorian’s new contract. Her lawyer -a brunette chick with about two years experience- had done her best to dissuade Lorian from going along with Daedalus Tech’s proposal. Failing that, the two had worked out an ironclad bastion of legalese with which to drag medical expenses from the company’s coffers. And then the drinking had started. Sally- Lorian’s new lawyer- had claimed holding one’s liquor was an important skill for any lawyer. Lorian had decided, after the first three drinks, that cleaning chemicals were for external use only.

A few days later, Lorian flew another load of chemicals and supplies down to Scarlet’s lab. Her usual copilot was back, a youngish guy named Bart. When they touched down in the Andes, Luke was the guard to greet her. She was lead through a part of the facility she’d never seen before, the door to which was behind a supply cabinet on rails. A very well equipped genetics lab lay beyond, as well as an array of imaging devices isolated from one another by thick partitions. One couldn’t very well keep an X-ray and MRI device in close proximity.

Lorian was scanned and measured at a dozen stations, then given a round of injections, scanned again, and sent back out to the airfield. Bart had lost a bit of money gambling with the guards, but not enough to dampen his mood. The trip back to the states was uneventful. No man in gray was waiting for Lorian when she reached her apartment. It was easy to forget the threats he’d made, or the dubious nature of the injections she’d had. Lorian doubted they’d go to all the trouble just to poison her, and she had been given a fairly long leash, even if it turned out to be rope with which to metaphorically hang herself. Relaxing on her couch, watching her weekly TV shows, Lorian laughed at the absurdity of the world.

###

A few months later, Federal agents came knocking on Lorian’s door. Lorian invited them in and offered them water, which they accepted, but did not drink. They asked her about Sophia, showing a picture to jog her memory.

“Sophia? Oh, yeah, she substituted for my copilot when he got sick a few months ago. I think she got in trouble with our clients down in South America. I had to pick up a different sub on the way up. Never saw her again afterwards.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about her? We’re trying to get a better picture of who she is.”

“Not really. She didn’t talk much on the flight down. I think she might have been a bit too curious for her own good, but I’m hardly going to hold that against her.”

“Well, If you remember anything else, please let us know.”

The Federal agents left a card and were on their way. Lorian assumed that the government had taken a look at her digital footprint, but they hadn’t called her out on her piracy of Netflix shows, so their investigation was probably focused elsewhere. Adopting the same strategy she’d employed when Mr. Grey (Not his real name) had made his threats, she acted as though nothing unusual had happened. She did watch the speed limits around town a bit more closely, but that was her default response to spotting law enforcement of any type.

###

Lorian’s body had been changing, little by little. Her periods had stopped, and she’d packed on a bit of muscle. She often woke up with a general soreness, but it faded quickly. The Daedalus doctors assured her that this was all within expectations. Lorian had never really been interested in making her own babies, figuring there would always be kids in need of a home if she felt the need to raise a family. She suspected, and the Daedalus doctors later confirmed, that she was wired a little bit differently than other people. She could certainly appreciate a good looking dude from a distance, but never really got to the stage of fantasizing about him. And girls weren’t her thing either.

The first major change she noticed, funnily enough, was that she’d managed to wear out her nail clippers. After confirming with the lab techs that her nails getting tougher was within expectations, she switched to trimming them with a knife. Bart remarked on her claws, and Lorian made an offhand comment; “The better to scratch you with, my dear.”

A year after she started getting injections from Scarlet, Lorian had put on a good thirty pounds of bone and muscle. She was denser, now, and could perform feats of strength and flexibility on par with Olympic athletes. But none of those feats were truly superhuman. What was significant was that the x-ray machine had to be dialed up to penetrate her tissue. Scarlet had introduced an artificial organelle into Lorian’s biology, that absorbed radiation and served as a secondary back-up to the nucleus. Since Scarlet had first modified Lorian’s biology to remove dispositions for various genetic diseases, and reprogrammed several glands including the pituitary, Lorian’s cells would no longer be at risk of compounding errors. She no longer aged. Further treatments enhanced her ability to regenerate damaged tissue, but the experiment was essentially completed three years after Lorian had joined.

With the end of the experiment, Daedalus Technologies decided to close down the South American lab. Lorian spent several months flying equipment and crates of Serum to a secure storage facility in the Nevada dessert. The last flight out, Doctor Scarlet herself boarded the plane with a dozen bodyguards.

As fate would have it, that would be Lorian’s first crash. A surface-to-air missile shot them down over Mexico, and only five of them walked away. Bart wasn’t one of them.