Nikola felt something in her lower spine shift as she went up the stairs. It wasn’t too serious but certainly reminded her of an ageing body. Even in her twenties, too long shifts had consequences and she couldn’t do too many before they became permanent. And with the required training added in as well… It was one big recipe for disaster.

Walking calmly through the upper halls of the Heroes’ Association, however, the woman felt some form of serenity. The pain in her back was nothing when compared to the positives of the workplace. She certainly would have traded in much more for a chance to work there before, though that might have changed in recent days. A job at an office or a power plant would at least have allowed her good working conditions. With a lack of personnel available, taking up shifts wasn’t too uncommon. Nikola didn’t doubt the chance that she would have another call from a certain Songstress before the end of the week. That new girl certainly couldn’t help but see the short-term gain in skipping work. If she did it anymore, Nikola was relatively sure the woman would lose her position permanently. One of the requirements of the position was to work, after all, and that minor part of the job was being slacked on.

Seeing the changing rooms come up ahead, Nikola walked right past them and into one of the other elevators, pressing the button for Floor 19 as the doors closed. She wasn’t going towards the top of the building, after all. Her shift only began in two hours. Normally, the woman wasn’t there so early but she had to keep up her promises to Seid and look into a few things while he handled the in-person investigations. The woman knew he wasn’t going to be quick about it, Nikola remembering how side-tracked the man could be at the slightest hint of criminal activity. It was how he was away for so long without feeling remorse for it. That former Hero thought himself fully justified in such things, no matter how much delay there was on the original projects.

As the doors of the elevator opened up, Nikola couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take before she would find that man back on her sofa. A week? Maybe four of them. One could never know for sure. There was a long way to Sector 42 and the signs of crime were on every road. The actual professional Hero wondered if the man would get three steps without a detour. Seid likely wouldn’t. He never did his job in such a straightforward manner, no matter how much it could have helped. Maybe he would still have had his job, his former life. Maybe Harold would still see eye-to-eye with his former apprentice.

Getting through the new hallway, the windows obscured to the level where Nikola couldn’t see through them. It was quite the security feature. The Hero didn’t doubt it was nearly impossible to destroy those panes of glass. Out of any parts of the building, this was the floor where nothing would get in or out without express permission. She knew that if she didn’t have reason to travel to that floor, she wouldn’t have been able to.

Moving along, skimming the names of the different rooms, the Hero found the one she needed to see. Inside the room was a quick sterilisation chamber before Nikola was allowed into an advanced laboratory. The constant sound of air being ventilated was perhaps music to some strange people’s ears but it was quite annoying to Nikola. Mixing that in with the distorted magnetic field around and the woman knew she would have never been able to cut it in such a job.

“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” said an aged voice from behind Nikola. Turning around, the woman was happy to see a face she’d been missing for nearly three months now. “Tesla! I thought you would never visit.”

“This isn’t directly a social call, Iris,” Nikola answered, the two going into a quick hug. They had interacted with each other in semi-formal events. Last year’s Christmas party had forced them to chat for a few hours. It had been quite fun, though neither had tried to establish contact after the fact. “I saw your name on one of the cases that I worked with last night. It’s the-”

“Bug in the brain? Yeah, I figured that was one,” Iris finished for Nikola, looking amused at the slight state of shock on the Hero. “I don’t get too many of these assigned to me every day, Tesla. It’s mere guesswork and intuition. And… your name was on the case file which also helped.”

“I didn’t think lab technicians were allowed to see who worked with what case,” Nikola questioned as the laboratory worker brought the both of them further inside, coming to a massive rack of various boxes. It reminded Nikola of the cases used to hold bodies cold at cemeteries, though this version was quite taller and broader to accommodate for the possible Augmentation Users.

“We both know I hold a title slightly above that,” Iris replied with a shining smile, Nikola was reminded of just who she was talking to. If every worker in the building was invited to the parties that Heroes were made to attend, every single one of their identities would already be public knowledge. It took more than just hard work and good spirits before somebody ended up in such places. “Now, let me just remember where I parked our little friend.”

“Don’t you have the name noted down in the system?”

“The system has a terrible user interface,” Iris said, rejecting the mere notion of using such advanced technology. “No… My memory is as sharp as ever. Just give me a few seconds and I’ll remember where I put the body.”

It took five tries before the right body was found, getting out of the massive cooler and onto a table where the actual analysis could begin.

“I was only planning to check the insides tomorrow when I had an open time slot but I suppose now is better than ever if you need it for a report,” Iris said with a wink, Nikola merely smiling in return as the many machines came down from above. A large number of knives, lasers, and whatever other dangerous weapons stapled onto those robots were not appreciated but the lab technician seemed to work with them just fine, putting off her hands right next to the one of the flesh-saws. “Time to see what the inside of this man’s brain looks like.”

Finally, the important detail about Iris became obvious, the blue light from the palm of her hand showing every in clear detail. The entire muscle, skeleton, and nerve structure in the head was shown in vivid complexity, every part translucent to the two watchers. It was an ability worth next to nothing in combat but it was expendable in operations. It made Nikola wonder why the woman had decided on more… gruesome sides of scalpels.

“Would you look at that! The frontal lobe doesn’t have the proper connections to the cerebral cortex and the temporal lobe is nearly gone entirely,” Iris said, looking at both her own visual created by her powers while also cross-referencing with the small screen that projected other results from the robot arms. “The brainstem has the same treatment, though the outside has been left mostly alone. This… I don't think we can call this a proper Parasite.”

“Why not?” Nikola questioned, looking at the image on the screen as well. Inside the brain, the small bug that the Hero had seen was still there, as dead as the moment she’d found it. “It certainly looks like a Parasite to me.”

“Yes, I think that was the intention,” Iris said half-agreeing. “The shell around the eyes and main body is very clearly the perfect carbon copy of most of the natural variants that we’ve seen through the years but the tendrils sticking out at the sides are… I don’t know what they are meant to be.”

“Are they an entirely new mutation to the original schematic?” Nikola guessed. She’d heard of that happening before with some of the monsters in the higher sectors. Those were never fun to deal with.

“No, that’s next to impossible,” Iris replied, shaking her head slowly. “This isn’t what’s meant to be on a normal creature of any kind. This…”

The lab technician turned on the rotor-saw, cutting through most of the body’s skull and brain before finally reaching the small bug. Taking it out with the blunt side of the scalpel, it hung by one of the tendrils.

“This here is a superconductor,” Iris said as she put it down in a small container so it could be magnified on the screen. “Or at least as close as you can come to it while keeping up the appearance of natural creatures. This is not something that nature has made, though.”

“Then what did?”

“Either power or a mad scientist. Maybe a mix of both. No, wait, scratch that. It’s both. I can’t see any normal powered person seeing this as a good idea but I also can’t see any normal idiots with the necessary prowess to create anything of this level on a whim.”

Looking closer, Nikola had a hard time believing that such a small thing could cause so much destruction. It was barely the size of her pinky finger yet it was able to control a brain. Or… at least to some degree.

“Do you think it could have controlled the brain normally?” Nikola asked Iris. “You know, the not-Parasite just lashed out at the brain was alive so I can’t think of that as a viable long-term solution to keeping itself hidden. But if it had kept itself calm, do you think it could have done it and kept itself hidden from all others?”

“Probably? I don’t know. I don’t deal with questions like these,” Iris answered with a half-hearted shrug, clearly not caring enough to question it. That is until she started thinking of it as well. “But it would make sense that such a nobody was chosen as a host if it wanted to merely hide within the populace. That is if it was even able to pick its host. Since the Parasite was artificially made, there has to be some event that caused it to start acting up now of all times.”

“There weren’t any other waves emitted like what the Parasite was showing off,” Nikola supplied, making the lab technician look on in wonder. “Maybe something happened that wasn’t intended."

“A natural occurrence that released the creature from its slumber? That could work,” Iris said, bringing out a tablet that she had used many times before, flicking through the different screens at a lightning pace. “This all happened in Sector 42. What happened there recently… robberies? No. Murders? Who cares? Extreme storms? Now that is what we are looking for. What did you say the name of the farm was? I need to hone in on the area.”

“I can’t remember the name, sorry,” Nikola said, that piece of information never seeming important enough to note down in her mind. “It’s one the western border just next to Sector 43. Does that help?”

“Eh, it’s good enough,” Iris said, flipping through a few articles. “Okay… more than a few different areas reported rapid changes in the topography. The storm has been changing everything that wasn’t bolted down. If I had to wager a guess, some forgotten piece of tech was in the dirt and the storm just made it pop out into the open again.”

“Hidden tech? Nikola honed in on. “Like a hidden laboratory?”

“I didn’t say that,” Iris firmly corrected. “I don’t think anybody has built any of those hidden lairs in, what, fifteen years now? The modern villains rent out an apartment complex instead of going through the trouble of building from scratch. No, I’m guessing that somebody flew over and dropped a few of them accidentally a while back. It happens more often than you would think, you know. Villains don’t understand the positives of fastening baggage properly.”

The woman nodded along, not entirely sold on the idea just yet. There had to be something about that place. When she got the time, she needed to ask Harold about it. Nikola was meant to visit him soon anyway.

“Thanks for the help; Iris,” the Hero said with a nod. “I think this proved very useful. If you need anything, just come to the upper floors and find me. For now, I have a job to-”

“One second!” Iris said, cutting off the woman’s chance to leave. The lab technician semi-ran to her desk, going through the different folders before finally finding a small bag with a few injection kits inside. “This here is something I have wanted to give away for some time and I am not letting the chance slip by me.”

“What is this?” Nikola asked, mildly shaking the kit and the green liquid within. It seemed to bubble the slightest bit.

“That is my very own Ultra-Regeneration serum,” Iris proudly stated. “I was able to get some tissue samples from Ultra Man and this is what I was able to make with it. It works perfectly in the lab but I need to make sure it’s the same out on the field. If you ever use it, do let me know how it works out.”

“Right…” Nikola said as she brought it into her bag, hoping to never need it. “I’ll come down and report the moment I find a need for it. Until then, goodbye.”

The two made their farewells before the Hero returned to the elevator, not exactly sure what to do with herself. There were too many things going on. When she got changed around, she’d spend the morning trying to relax before-

“Tesla!” the intercom in the elevator practically shouted. “Get dressed! We need you right this second!”

How fun.