Ugo Morata was once a pale Spanish teenager with an ever-goofy smile on his face.

Now he was an old man whose smile would be difficult to find in the blobbish mess that was his face. He sat on a chair, humming weakly. His face was barely human — his brown eye was located where the right side of his forehead should be, and the rest (eye, mouth, nose…) was covered under or spread across the smeared tumor-like surface. It was like a botched AI art project. Oily zits, red bumps, random growths of hair, and fingers were scattered on his swelled face.

His doctor unhooked him from the machines to give his body a breather. Wade was crouched before him, jotting down notes on a yellow pad.

“Wait, are you actually writing something down about the mutation?” Ugo asked, his voice muffled by the excess growth blocking most of his mouth. “Or are you just coming up with a new drug cocktail idea to get high?”

“What, I can’t do both?” Wade placed the notepad down and stabbed a syringe into one of Ugo’s bumps. He extracted some blood. “I am going to examine this now,” he announced, leaving the room.

Ugo looked over to his side and found Ashlin sitting on the edge of the desk with her black cat, Zvesda, settled on her lap.

“So,” Ugo began. “You into older guys?”

“I’m into guys that have a face,” Ashlin replied.

“Where’s your sense of adventure? Don’t knock it till you try it.”

To Ugo’s surprise, Ashlin smirked, and it didn’t seem like a pitiful one or the—okay, now please leave me alone and go away smirk, which Ugo was all too familiar with. Even with his vision slightly impaired, he was enamored by Ashlin’s beautifully shaped face and all its perfect Eastern European features—her almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, lush red lips, and slim nose.

It was the first time Ugo paid attention to just her face instead of glancing at it and then ogling at her unbelievable figure.

Ashlin sent her cat away and then hopped off the desk, making certain body parts jiggle that made Ugo forget about her face again.

“I can not stand looking at that ugly face anymore,” Ashlin said, holding out her hand. Zvesda returned and leaped onto the desk with a roll of bandage tape in her mouth. Ashlin took the tape and wrapped the adhesive around Ugo’s disfigured mug.

Ugo held back the urge to move or even make a sound as Ashlin’s large breasts pressed onto the side of his face repeatedly as she applied the adhesive.

Leaving just the eye out, she stepped back with her hands on her hips, eyeing the mummified Ugo with a smile. “Much better.” Zvesda jumped onto Ashlin’s shoulder and received an affectionate stroke under her chin. “Don’t you think so, Zvesda?” Ashlin said, and the cat replied with a purr.

The horrid asymmetrical shape of Ugo’s face marked the outlines of the bandages, yet, his confidence remained intact, and he continued talking casually as if nothing had just happened. “What’s your story?” he asked.

Ashlin stared back with a flinty look. “Why should I share it with you?”

“Oh, come on, I am risking my life to help save the world. You can’t just help me kill time by letting me get to know you better?”

Her eyes narrowed, making her icy glare even more frigid, and then she walked and returned with a chair, placing it right by Ugo’s side.

Control is what Ugo had to keep in mind as his gambit worked. He released his dorky giggle as lowly and quickly as he could and then composed himself as Ashlin took a seat with Zvesda stationed on her shoulder.

“You’re from Russia, right? What is it like over there?”

“It was terrible for me. I haven’t gone back since I left.”

“Oh… sorry to hear that.”

“Do you know what it is like to grow up in extreme poverty? Wondering how long it’ll be before you get another meal as you eat, apprehensive about getting sick because it might as well kill you since you have no access to health care. Then you look at your struggling parents and consider that maybe dying isn’t so bad,” she stopped to shrug, pouting her lips. “It’ll be much less of a burden on them.”

“Only child?”

“I have a younger sister who I looked after the most. We depended on hot meals provided by social services and spent many nights on the streets, or sleeping in tents, sharing the space with other unfortunate people.” Ashlin took Zvesda from her shoulder and held her as she stroked her back. “I watched my father die of illness. I screamed for help, but nobody useful was around, and things got worse from there. My sister and I found a cat and kept it as a pet. We named it Zvezda and did our best to take care of it.” Ashlin turned to Ugo and gave him a sad smile. “It died only a few months after.”

Ugo’s eye moved down to the purring black cat. He’d be pulling away if it wasn’t for Ashlin touching his shoulders with hers. He allowed her to continue.

“My sister, Ally, was devastated. So, I tried to make her feel better by stealing a cat doll from a store and giving it to her. We named it Zvesda.” Ashlin cranked her head up at the ceiling, and Ugo noticed she actually looked vulnerable, which was surprising.

He wondered if she was lifting her head up to keep the tears from falling.

“It was her prized possession.” Ashlin brought her head down. “I would even make clothes for the doll whenever I could, and then our mother died shortly after. As girls, we had no choice but to give in and accept the support of social services to be institutionalized to avoid a life of sniffing glue at the dangerous metro stations and prostitution.

“The orphanage was terrible. The rooms were large, like barracks, and we suffered abuse from other children and supervisors. Girls were allowed to do activities in their free time; one was crocheting. I liked the hobby and made clothes for her sister’s cat doll.”

“Do you still crochet?”

“Everyday.”

Ugo wondered where all the items she made stayed.

“My Mana Pores opened when I was 14. I had been living in the orphanage for two years at that point. I picked up on my abilities quickly. I escaped, leaving her sister behind to travel to other Realms. The most important place I visited was the Realm of the Dead, the astral Sub-Realm of the Human Realm. There I learned about spirits and ghosts. Most of them wanted to be able to interact with the realm of the living again.” Ashlin froze, and her face twisted chillingly with her eyes widening and a growing deranged smile. “That’s when I realized what I could use my talents for. We buried my parents at this impromptu graveyard set up by other useless members of society and they were my first candidates to be my Containers.”

“You… gave your parents’ corpses away to be Containers for ghosts.”

“I didn’t give anything away, Ugo….” She started to gently twist Zvesda’s ears. “I sold them.”

Ugo visualized the Hot/Crazy Matrix in his head, and Ashlin was at the top right corner in the danger zone.

“The young dead couple promised me a good part of their riches if I gave them the new Containers,” Ashlin explained, scratching Zvesda’s ears. “That was the most money I had ever made in my life, and I wanted more. I studied the supernatural harder and practiced my abilities until I could make Containers by scratch. I sold them to all sorts of monsters that granted me treasure that helped me make a profit even in the Human Realm.”

“What about your sister?”

“She’s happy and healthy. I got her out of the orphanage and left her with millions.” Ashlin picked up her cat and stared back into her eyes. “I resurrected Zvezda and gave a new, improved body.”

As Ugo watched Ashlin hug Zvesda (probably suffocating the cat with her assets) he realized when it came to the morals of being a Healer Ashlin was no example. She focused on making high-quality Containers and selling them to anyone with enough valuables to trade. She can make them look any way they want.

She made a good suspect behind Yaalon’s murder, but even her being cold-blooded enough to commit murder wasn’t reason enough. Maybe there was a monetary incentive behind the killing...

“I have to say volunteering to be the guinea is quite brave of you.”

Ugo turned back to her, and his brain returned to its default state. “It’s what I do,” he said, trying to sound cool.

“But equally stupid, so they cancel each other out.” She allowed Zvesda to climb to the floor and then crossed her arms under her breasts to focus on Ugo. “Did you do it because you thought it would make me think more of you as a man?”

At that moment, Ugo felt as though he had sobered up. Ignoring all of her enticing features, he silently focused on the cruelty of her look.

“Well, I don’t. In fact, I don’t think of you as a man at all,” Ashlin said harshly. “Do you know how I tell the difference between men and boys? They all ogle the same, that’s fine; I mean, look at me, how could you not? But real men would approach me, and boys would stay back and fantasize or try to devise some scheme to get my attention.” She groaned and rolled her eyes. “It is pathetic. I like when people take action, Ugo, not passive useless people who wait.”

Ashlin stood up and walked in front of Ugo. “But there’s more. The reason why I would never give you the time of day is the same reason why women don’t like you.” She bent forward and pushed her palms onto the back of Ugo’s wrinkled hands on the armrest. “You’re ugly even before the disease took over, and I sped up your aging.”

Ugo didn’t react. He was told far worse by many women, none of them close to Ashlin’s unattainable beauty, but still roughly the same experience.

“I thought your manlet boyfriend was the most pathetic of your duo and then I took a look inside.” Ashlin leaned in closer, her silver eyes sparkling. “You’re an even bigger loser with mommy issues.”

Ugo startled himself with how quickly and how intensely he started trembling all over. He was livid and breathing heavily under the bandages.

“Mommy was too busy with work to give her only child the attention he believed he deserved. Little Ugo always tried to get her attention and succeeded a couple of times. Those were the memories Little Ugo cherished the most. When he and mommy spent time together. And then mommy goes and gets killed by an incompetent doctor.”

“Did you… look into my memories?” Ugo said in a measured tone.

“When Wade knocked you out with anesthesia to help with the pain as the mutations started. I decided to take a peek. Not as good as Violet, but I saw enough,” Ashlin explained casually. “Mommy left you with the need to constantly try to get women’s attention, and you fail time and time and time and time again. It must be hard with that photographic memory of yours that doesn’t let you forget any of those shortcomings.”

Ugo gripped her shoulder and shoved her back. With his old man strength, she didn’t move too much, but it was enough to have her glare at him, plus Zvesda hissing.

“You’ve got some nerve touching me like that—”

“My memories are not something you can go looking around in!” Ugo shouted as he pointed at her. He pulled back and put his hand over his aged heart. Repeating the breathing exercise, he would do to push a damaging thought away. If it lingered in his head for too long, he would never be able to get rid of it.

Ashlin smiled as she looked back with curiosity. “Oh, does that make you mad? Do you want me to apologize now?” She glanced at Zvesda and laughed. “Look, how about instead I give you some advice? If you were smart, you’d use that brain of yours to learn about charm spells to force women to fall in love with you. That’s the only way you will get them to like you back.”

Ugo stayed quietly and let the acidic words seep into him.

“God makes plenty of mistakes. That’s why I’m here. To fix them,” Ashlin said. “Or if you would prefer a more attractive Container, I can help. I can make you look like whomever you want to get you women, but there is a hefty price. My services aren’t cheap.”

“Don’t look inside my head again without permission.”

“I’ll do whatever I want. You don’t tell me what to do, you ugly nerd,” she rasped, and then Zvesda climbed onto her shoulder again. “Seriously, if I was you, I’d be making so much money with that memory.”

“Is making money really all that you think about?”

“Yes.” She looked back with a confused expression. “I thought I made that perfectly clear. How can someone be slow with a photographic memory? You must take every opportunity to make as much money as possible, and now that I think about it….” She turned to her side, looked at the matryoshka doll on the desk, and approached it.

“What’re you doing?”

“You haven’t been feeling any pain since the transformation was finalized….” Ashlin said as she picked up the doll and examined it. “There’s a lot of demand for Containers in a world where everybody is ugly.” She threw the doll onto the floor, and it shattered.

A cyan blue light shined, blinding Ugo’s old eye for a moment, and when his vision returned, a disoriented one-armed Kian was getting up to his feet.

“Listen, you,” Ashlin said as she grabbed Kian by the collar and pulled him close. “I am going to ask you some questions, and if I don’t like the answers, you are going back in. Understood? Okay? Good. This disease of yours, is it fatal?”

“No,” Kian said. “I don’t kill people.”

“But you are okay with killing dogs. Not that I care anyway. It was a filthy creature.”

Kian looked away somberly. “I didn’t enjoy doing that, but I was forced to do something that brass. My pathogen doesn’t have the intention of death. It’s to heal—”

Ashlin let go and pushed Kian away. “I don’t care about your reasons. I’ve heard what I wanted to hear.” She pulled a piece of chalk from her cleavage and walked to the door. “Your carriers are downstairs,” she said as she drew a sigil on the door.

“Rutapexy—” Ugo was stopped by his elderly hacking and coughing, his legs buckled, and he was back in his chair.

As Ashlin exited, Kian summoned his diseased sword.

“Kian, wait!” Ugo pleaded, stretching his hand out.

The Infectiologist didn’t listen and charged forward. He swung the blade delicately at Ugo’s face.

The sliced bandages fell onto the floor.

Ugo checked his face with his hands, and there were no cuts or blood, just his regular disfigured features.

Kian leaned toward him and brushed his hair back, having both of his eyes, now sparkling, study Ugo’s face from up close.

“You’re beautiful,” Kian said.