Dinner was interrupted by the arrival of a guest.

It was kind of weird. Out on the deck, between the pavilion and pool, a blue spark started to appear. It rapidly swelled upwards, and I was instantly out of my chair, barbecued rib held out like an emergency weapon as I watched it expand.

I felt something patting my butt and glanced at Caelo, who just shook her head a little, leaving her hand on… my butt. When I looked back at the spark, it seemed to swell, splitting again and again, with an odd sort of dark shimmering in the middle.

Fairly soon it resembled a hole with a sparking outline, about 8 feet across, and through the hole, seeming to form out of electricity itself, stepped two figures holding hands.

I could FEEL the energy coming off the hole. Whatever it was that had allowed me to momentarily unlock some kind of energy sensing was reacting strongly to whatever this was. It felt a bit like the arc welder’s spark, but more strongly like something else.

In moments the portal had vanished, and the forms stabilized from wavy sparking outlines into a beautiful and well-endowed woman with long black hair, probably in her early twenties, and a little boy, freckled and a little unsteady on his feet, perhaps three years old. I probably shouldn’t have noticed this, since she wasn’t in a mask, but the energy was clearly coming from her, and I could feel a vast well of energy that dwarfed both mine and Caelo’s.

As soon as the energy subsided, Caelo stepped in and gave the woman a quick hug, and then bent over and gave the boy, Toby I guess, a hug too, while I stuck out my hand. “You must be… umm… Lauren, right?”

She nodded and reached out to take my hand, but then paused, suddenly, to pull it back. “What the hell are you?”

I quirked an eyebrow but lowered my hand, “That depends on who you ask, I think. Why, what are you?”

“A Metahuman,” she replied simply.

“Just throwing the mask protocol out of the window, are we?” I shrugged. “Something like that.” It probably wouldn’t hurt anything to tell her. “Let me guess, you have an ability that lets you detect energies?”

She tilted her head, slightly curled black hair tumbling over her shoulder. “Yes, but even when someone can shift, I can still tell what they are.”

“Oh, you must be really popular with Proteus then. That dog that just wandered by? A disguised metahuman. That senator that just backed up a new accord? Metahuman. That patch of air over there? That’s just an invisible metahuman,” I chuckled, “Can you tell the ones that are doing telepresence too? Astral projectors and possessors?”

She nodded slowly, “Yes, but Proteus doesn’t know. That’s why I know that whatever you are, it’s not a metahuman. You don’t even read like a human, no electrical impulses. Are you a golem or something?”

“Like those clay guys Rabbis make? Nope.” I sighed a little, “I guess I am just your kryptonite. Not a big deal, I am a lot of people’s kryptonite. Although I guess that makes it no secret that I do have an ability. A minor one. I am a sponge.”

“A sponge?” she asked. Caelo was rapidly signing at me.

“She doesn’t know LSF. She knows some ASL, but we didn’t communicate much beyond yes and no. She’s a friend, but she doesn’t know how much I understand. Naomi told her a little bit about you, but only that you were her boyfriend and her bodyguard and that you were hard to kill. She’s Louis’ pet, so anything you say to her will get back to him. She’s also taken the pill.”

“What Pill?”

“The one I was telling you about. The one that anyone can take to get control of their powers. That’s why I am worried. It is wonderful for helping people with problem powers, but it will give anyone power as long as they are able to grasp it.”

Right, this mystery pill unlocks powers in anyone, not just potential metahumans. I would have to find out more about it.

“Yeah, I can pretty much soak up most damage stuff thrown at me. That makes me a pretty good guard, but I do have a limit,” I said, scratching my head a little. “Most Meta detectors go a little wonky around me, the same with X-rays because I soak ‘em up.” I was not lying, I absolutely did have a limit… too many different types of damage were thrown at me in a hurry before I had time to shift or soak up enough for all types, or a new type of damage I had never trained against, and I might as well have no powers at all.

It was also possible that way too much might overwhelm me… I hadn’t found the limit yet, but I’d never been at ground zero of a nuclear blast or gotten the full attention of a class A or B yet. I also wasn’t sure about things that were slow or indirect damage, like vacuum or pressure.

She nodded and held out her hand. “Naomi told me your name was George. I was a little worried because she told me your… uhh…. Chosen career was working for cowls, as a henchman, but bodyguard doesn’t sound so bad. I thought you might be a professional killer or something.”

I chuckled, “Mook, not henchman.” at her quizzical glance I shook my head. I had explained that a lot lately. “One of those guys the cowls like to put in matching silly outfits to either play bodyguard or attract attention. We like to act scary, but it’s sort of a rep thing. We don’t go around killing people and if a cape shows up, we rabbit.”

“Why?” she asked. “If you can resist just about anything. You would make a pretty good cowl, or even a superhero, yourself.”

I shrugged helplessly, “It’s what I do. I am good at it. It pays pretty well, I don’t go to prison, and I don’t build up a rep as a cowl. No one likes grenades in their Wheaties because some hopped-up wannabe vigilante decides it’s their life’s mission to take you down.” I smirked a little, “I would probably survive it, but it’s rough on your living space.” I shook her hand.

I had to quickly damp down my electrical resistance. I had almost unconsciously amped up the voltage absorption when I saw the sparks forming, but I started to feel a bit of power gushing from her hand and it would have been very poor form to leave her power-drained.

It raised an interesting question, though. If I could actually absorb through touch, would that be a good way to render a mask helpless?

I already knew that meta-suppressors had no effect. Whatever energy they put out got absorbed right along with everything else, I guess. They drew a huge amount of energy for a small radius, and usually, only prisons could afford to keep them powered… let alone buy them. Every suppressor I knew of was on loan from Proteus.

But in comic books, overpowered superheroes losing their powers was a staple of weak-ass writers to make threats seem real. In practice, suppressors were incredibly delicate, had a huge amount of things that could go wrong, and unless you were carrying around a pocket nuclear reactor, you couldn’t just go sticking one to every cowl you see.

Except for tinkers. Every once in a while a tinker actually HAD a pocket nuclear reactor, but I was pretty sure that however they were created, it was meta-tech, not real technology. Some masks had created and distributed them.

The idea both interested me and worried me. Being able to withstand almost any metahuman’s power, check. The ability to sense metahuman powers… It wasn’t reliable yet but check. The ability to disable a metahuman’s powers with a touch, check.

If Proteus knew about any of it, especially all three, I would be on the really short list for mandatory recruitment or getting disappeared. A list that might just have me on it. It probably wouldn’t work on bricks or tinkers, but disabling elemental-type metahumans would have me kicking in doors, and I couldn’t count on Proteus not having a metahuman that could affect even me, like some kind of entropic manipulator or something.

She looked a bit interested. “Really? Naomi says you are a good guy. Her standards are a little… different, but if you’d like a change of pace, and to work for something that has real meaning, You should talk to Louis.”

“Who’s Louis?” I asked curiously. The name rang a bell for some reason. Had I heard it recently?

“Alchemyst?” she replied.

Oh crap. Why did she have to make an offer like this? I still remember Ugly Karen making a ‘request’ and visions of a distant relative’s head arriving neatly labeled in dripping boxes filled my head for a moment. People say Proteus doesn’t do stuff like that, but I knew better. Cartels are all the same, even if they have better public relations. There was no way I could turn it down safely.

“I work for Naomi. She’s my boss, and I have a name to uphold. If I ditch her at the drop of a hat, I will have a tough time getting jobs in the future. Not to mention she’s kind of my girlfriend.” Please drop it. Please drop it. Please drop it.

She didn’t drop it. “Oh, that’s not a worry. She said you helped her get her little problem under control. We are all part of a common interest, and there are a lot of benefits.” she smiled privately. “I will talk to her. It could be a big step up.”

Crap, if I outright refused, it would be obvious to Karen that I had rejected her little proposal. “Well, you do what you gotta do, but I am not real big on causes. Feeding my face, having a comfortable place to sleep, and getting a little nookie occasionally are about the extent of my ambitions.”

She nodded, unconvinced. “Of course, but I think you might like it. She tells me you have had a lot of experience with capes of various stripes, and we could offer you a very nice place to sleep.” she quirked an eyebrow, “The nookie thing will be your problem, although all things considered you shouldn’t have any real issues there.” She gave me a once-over. “Although we are hoping to get Naomi on board full-time if Kjootoo is okay with it.”

Caelo was signing at me again, “Could you please tell her that I would love to, and Naomi would be too as long as she could do side projects? She really loves the idea of being a full-time cowl and maybe following in our Father’s footsteps. She wants to impress him.”

I repeated what Caelo said, and Lauren was looking more and more surprised. “You can talk to her?”

I nodded, “Yes, she knows sign language.”

“I thought… she couldn’t. I tried to learn some sign language but mostly I just confused her. We always talk with yes or no. I thought only Louis could talk to her.”

I wasn’t sure who this ‘Louis’ guy was, but maybe he knew LSF. “That’s because her sign language is French. She only knows a little bit of ASL” I smiled slightly, “But if you could understand her, she’d tell her that I am a very bad person.”

Caelo punched me in the arm. I overreacted like she’d walloped me, and Lauren chuckled. “I think maybe she disagrees with you. It’s Caelo. If she thinks you are a good man She’d know better than anyone.”

I decided I’d be frank with her. “I have been hearing something about some kind of concoction that Alchemyst makes that is supposed to Unlock powers in normal people. People who aren’t latent Metahumans.”

She sighed and looked at Caelo, “Sweety, could you keep an eye on Toby for a little bit? And should I tell him about it? Can he keep it quiet?”

Caelo nodded to her and then smiled at Toby, making the sign for ‘Play’. Toby nodded. 3 years old, and he already knew a bit of sign? Interesting. Smart kid.

“First I need to ask you to suspend your disbelief until I am done explaining,” Lauren said as I walked beside her on a path that was beginning to become well-worn, astern down the side of the helo pad.

I nodded, “That should be pretty easy. Even in a world with dudes flying around farting fireballs and inventing television-headed gorillas, I have seen some shit.”

She raised a well-sculpted eyebrow at me, “Maybe I should be asking you to explain instead.”

I shrugged with a little smile, “Let’s just say I am older than I look. If you are going to tell me about werewolves and vampires, it’s a little late to pretend they don’t exist.”

She shook her head, “No, I am going to talk to you about aliens.”

I grinned, “What, like the invasion of ‘52? That wasn’t aliens, but I am pretty sure that they exist anyway.”

“They do, but mostly they won’t invade this planet. They might try to disintegrate it for raw materials, but that’s kind of unlikely. To most Aliens, Earth is a lot like hell. Too much gravity, temperature variations that would kill most of them, Earthquakes, tidal waves, Hurricanes, and tornados… Mostly they think we are insane as a species to even live here.”

I chuckled, “Like we have a choice.”

She slowly nodded, “That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Well, a long time ago this planet was a lot more… magical than it is now. Heroes like Beowulf, the gods, Hercules, giant monsters, and stuff like that walked around all the time. A powerful mage got really upset that humans were basically at the bottom of the food chain, so he sealed the magic up.”

I was just nodding, so she ventured, “No questions or comments about magic being impossible?”

I scratched my beard a little before replying, “People can make a nuclear reactor out of two bobby pins and a banana peel. They can fly perfectly without wings, pick up landmarks without wrecking them, and shoot lasers from their eyes. Assuming there’s anything like a non-magical reason for it is kinda like fishing in a swimming pool. It’s just wishful thinking at its best.”

She sighed and sat down on a bollard, looking at one of the boat davits with an unreadable expression that curved into a little smile. “That does make it easier. Well, have you ever wondered how organized it is?”

“Define organized.”

“Well, most people that have the ability to project fire are also protected from it. The same with ice. Most people don’t actually kill themselves with their power, they get killed by a side effect when they first awaken. An exploder will blow up a building and it will collapse on him, or a teleporter will teleport blind and wind up inside a wall. But just teleporting… tearing their atoms apart and recombining them someplace else inside an atmosphere, doesn’t hurt them at all.”

I nodded slowly.

She continued, “How much do you know about genetics?”

“A little bit. Enough to know that the whole natural selection thing is on shaky ground.”

“Yeah, because most mutations are either unnoticeable or kill whatever mutates. Positive mutations are like one in a couple billion.”

I grinned, “This is a very, very old conversation.”

She used her left hand to scrunch her hair behind her head, “Well, it uh… turns out that there’s been something controlling it, I am not big on science either. Something alien and probably magical, I think.”

I nodded, “That would explain the exponential rate of increase in metahumans. Every few years the amount doubles. That’s why Proteus is getting desperate to try and lock them all down. When it was just a rare few, it was easy. Put them in a cape, turn them loose on organized crime, and soon they are either dead or cleaning up the town.”

“Right… umm… from what I’ve been told, that… barrier, or whatever, that blocks magic, has been weakening ever since Warlock started creating portals. That’s why they keep popping up, and why there are more than ever. It was a game, designed to help people achieve their maximum potential.”

I nodded, “So your pill gives people that?”

She shook her head, hair flying, “No. Not at all. It was very bare bones, like a beta. They came out with a new version, and that’s what the pill does. It sort of… upgrades the original version that humans came to Earth with, and lets people access it more directly. Everyone on earth already has it, but for most people, it doesn’t work very well, because it was not designed to deal with some of the weird stuff that humans wound up with.”

“Humans came to Earth with?” I asked.

She nodded, “Yeah. I am not sure of the full picture, but humans came from someplace else, that’s why they can’t connect humans and neanderthals because they were technically two different species that could interbr….”

The Horn was going off on the bridge, rapidly, for some reason. Whatever it was interrupted us, it worried me, and I held up my hand. “Hold that thought.” and went running towards the bridge.

Only to see Caelo, struggling in the grip of… a pile of sand? Shards? Oh crap. That was Sandman! She turned towards me, her mouth opening like she was trying to scream, and then Sandman noticed me charging towards them… he held up one hand as if to wave, turned it around, and gave me the finger before he and Caelo both vanished in a shower of sparkling crystals.