I wait, looking around, and take it all in. The place seems to be an appealing mix of traditional architecture and modern tech, although that’s not overdone. I glance at the news screen on the wall to see if anything interesting is happening, but there are no local alerts. Just some sports scores and some of the latest about offworld conflicts.

  It’s still within visiting hours and the place has a lot of people wandering around. Some look happy and others look like they’ve seen their loved one for the last time. Families hug in the hallways and lonely looking men and women who clearly aren’t the patients wander around looking slightly lost. It’s not an environment I have any experience in and I’m not sure what to think. It doesn’t have the drama and bustle of the hospitals I’ve been in but it’s clear what the purpose of the hospice is. I have a surge of worry that my Aunt has gotten to this point in her life and how she’s doing. I’ll find out soon enough.

  Since I’m waiting for Fabian to clear me, I drop my duffel bag beside my chair and consider making a few calls, but instead something catches my eye so I pick up a magazine from the table. It’s not that often you see one of these anymore with how technology has advanced and so I check the date. It’s half as old as I am, and a bit of a blast from the past with a feature article on what was at the time the fourth person to ever reach a Legendary Power, right when she reached that milestone. For a long time Tier 3 Epic Powers were thought to be the peak of human capabilities. Since then there’s been a few hundred more people with Legendary Powers, but she’s one of the most famous of the originals.

  I move the magazine back and forth in the light to get a good look at the picture on the shiny cover. Omnistrata had a magnetic appearance back in the day. Since the time of this article she’s changed from youthful and bright eyed to confident and perhaps just a little jaded, especially when people capture photos of her and post them on social media. These days she’s the queen instead of the princess. Some things haven’t changed though - even back then she had the trademark silver-blonde pixie cut and big blue eyes that pulse with rotating concentric glyph rings. There’s always something not quite solid about her, an echo of all the realities she lives in simultaneously.

  It’s a good origin story and I flick through it quickly. The young girl Senna Finn whose Awakening didn’t happen until late, when she was 15 and already well into puberty, and her rare Power was already Tier 2 Epic right off the bat, a complete statistical anomaly. A tough time followed over the next few years to achieve her first two Power Evolutions at Level 50 and 100 and - bang - our first Tier 1 Legendary Power. She has access to innumerable alternative versions of herself, each trained up in different skills and with the ability to splice or sever lines of fate. It’s not really even imaginable what her life must be like. How much she needs to hold in her head and what she’s dealing with. Most of the time she’s not even on Earth anymore, she’s out somewhere in the Galaxy or beyond that in the wider Universe protecting us or trying to find allies.

  “Calrik?” calls Fabian from over at the counter. I can tell by the tone he’s gotten an answer he wasn’t expecting and as I look up and he motions me over with a brisk, jaded wave. I get up to walk over, heaps of thoughts passing through my head in the short couple of seconds.

  Just as I stand up, a chill runs through me followed instantly by a warm feeling of reaching outward, as if I’m meditating and connecting with everything around me. It fades quickly especially when Fabian starts talking to me.

  “Boss says your Power situation isn’t important so we don’t need to get to the bottom of what’s going on. He also says you’re uniquely qualified to look after Vitalis when she arrives next week so we’d better get along. You’ll help out however else you can until then, ok?”

  I nod my agreement. This is better than I expected.

  “And Calrik… I’ve got to remind you - if your Power isn’t a good matchup for one of the residents or it causes one of them problems, you get help or warn us, ok?”

  I nod in agreement again rather than continue to convince him that what I’m saying is true. He looks at me with some heat in his eyes and a scowl. In a lot of ways I actually respect his sense of responsibility and care for the residents, so I don’t take it personally.

  “Like I said, we’ve got a lot of vulnerable people in a hospice like this, Calrik. Some of them are pretty dangerous. This isn’t the highest security facility in the country by any means, but we look after our residents and I don’t like secrets. Nobody here does. Better keep your nose clean… I’ll be letting everyone know they should watch you extra close. And don’t get into anything unusual unless you want to come clean first about your Powers.”

  “Got it,” I tell him with a respectful tone to assure him I’ve heard the message. From my point of view it’s over the top because I know the truth. I can tell Fabian isn’t super happy and probably thinks I’m a liability, but he accepts it anyway and does a couple things on his terminal that I can’t see.

  “What Enhancements you got? Some Powers at Saint Marianne’s are hard on any Enhancements, especially non-standard ones with certain metals.”

  “Just the standard, Fabian. Some healing nanites, optical implants. That’s about it. I also have some reasonably advanced tech, particularly my portable shield generator.”

  “No issue with most of those, but you might want to be careful with your tech around Rusty,” Fabian warns me. “Wait a couple minutes and I’ll get Lucy to show you around and get you settled,” he says. “We’ve got you in the old part of Saint Marianne’s in room 17.”

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  “Thanks Fabian,” I reply and look him in the eyes, trying to show him I mean what I’m saying. “I won’t cause you any trouble. Everything you see on my profile there is a hundred percent real from a risk point of view. If you’ve got residents who are shedding nanites I’m happy to pitch in too; I have an unusually high natural resistance to them.”

  “If that’s the case, Calrik Corvin, you are one unfortunate bastard even though that would be pretty useful around here. You’ll probably get the chance to prove it with all the stuff we deal with.”

  I sit back down to wait and look around. I don’t pick up the magazine again; instead I run through in my head what I might say to Lucy when she shows up. Even though the chances of someone like her being interested in someone without a Power are legitimately tiny, I’m still human and Lucy is definitely on my radar. While I’m running through scenarios I check the screen again. There’s no sound, but it’s easy to see another big Earth Strike Force mission has arrived back to Earth and the ESF Captain is giving his first public briefing outside the massive starship. From the graphics and expressions it looks like they’ve either found a resource rich planet or defeated some of our Galactic enemies in a skirmish, or maybe both. It’s not frequent that Galactics mess with Earth because of the high Level heroes with Legendary Powers we’ve got here, but out in the Galaxies there are a lot of battles despite the alliances we’ve formed.

  By the time Lucy strides confidently into the room to consult with Fabian I’ve talked myself out of anything resembling charm. Fabian and Lucy chat just out of earshot and he points at me, then she comes over my way. Her sharp features and bright smile make me sit up straighter. When it’s clear she’s going to address me I stand and smile.

  “Hi Calrik, I’m Lucy,” she says with a smile and holds out her hand to shake. I make sure my handshake is a bit firm and don’t linger even though I’m having a hard time finding something to look at that doesn’t make it obvious how interested I am. I settle on looking her in the eye. Friendly, not creepy, and not overly familiar.

  “Hi, nice to meet you… again. Nice work with Jetstream in the courtyard.”

  Lucy lets out a light laugh that I decide is one of the most interesting sounds I’ve heard in a while, then I let it go. And then she nods over her shoulder to our left.

  “Come on, your room is this way. Where are the rest of your things?”

  “Just this,” I answer, and lift my duffel bag up. I don’t have the Credits for much right now, so I try to make sure what I do have is quality over quantity. Lucy shrugs, not really caring one way or the other.

  “Ok.”

  She leads me down a couple of short hallways to room 17. I don’t see any residents in this part of the facility and along the way I glance through some open doors. Everything I can see makes me conclude it’s mostly storage for equipment and maybe some rooms for overflow residents that haven’t been used in a while. Maybe Lucy lives here too, behind some lucky door number, but I’m not going to ask during our first trip down the hallway unless she volunteers something.

  “Hey, was that just your Power that contained Jacinta’s outburst? Or something that’s automatically triggered by Saint Marianne’s as well?” I ask her. It might be a touch rude, but since I don’t have any way to protect myself from resident Powers other than avoiding them or my shield generator, I reckon my curiosity is justified.

  “That’s all me,” she replies with a quick glance over her shoulder and a slight smile that indicates no further information about that is forthcoming and my question wasn’t taken the wrong way.

  “Here you go,” she says, and points through the open door. Friendly but nothing else. “See you around!” And with that, she pivots and heads back toward reception. I decide watching her go is creepy so I drag myself through the door. Inside is pretty simple, basically the same as a resident room minus the medical equipment. A bed, this one a standard single with no mechanisms or controls. A desk, perfectly serviceable. Some drawers and a closet I could hang things in if I had anything that needed hanging. I flick on the TV that’s on the wall and the news blooms to life.

  Sports scores stream across the bottom of the screen and the latest news is covered while I unpack my stuff. There’s the usual battles between Heroes and Villains; the Earth Defence Force constantly stops people with the right kind of Powers and the wrong kind of intentions. Some stories about new negotiations with Galactic species, and some new ESF Expeditions that are being co-funded by the Government and some of the richest humans on Earth. There’s a lot more news no doubt but I turn it off once I’m finished putting my clothes into the drawers, not that interested. I’ve got my own tiny world to focus on right now.

  Just to try to make sure I’m useful even though nobody has asked me to be yet, I grab my tablet and pull down schematics of equipment that most residents like this have on site. The information I can get is possibly a few versions old, but I flick through and it gives me enough of an idea that I could probably have a good bash at fixing respirators, mobility scooters, adjustable beds, pressure mattresses, and vital sign monitors. I’m already pretty familiar with HVAC units and heat pumps, fire alarm panels and smoke detectors, and stuff you’d find in a kitchen or laundry. That takes me a few hours and I decide that rather than wander around Saint Marianne’s, I’m just going to get a good night’s sleep and be ready for the early start in the morning.

  As I’m just about to go to bed something I’ve never felt before surges inside my bloodstream and all the hairs on my body stand up on end, snapped to attention. It’s like the feeling I had in reception except this is the biggest, warmest shiver I’ve ever had in my life. A part of me I’ve never felt before surges to the surface, questing for something I can feel at the edge of my senses. Flashes of crazy writing and schematics, or maybe glyphs and equations, flicker across my vision then disappear without really manifesting and I wonder if I’m somehow hallucinating about what I’ve been reading or if someone is using a Power on me.

  Within a few seconds it’s over and I feel a deep sense of loss, like I’ve missed out on something and now I have an empty hole inside me where whatever that thing I’ve missed should be. I glance over at the clock and see it’s almost 10pm. I lie awake for ages wondering what the hell that was and replay it over and over in my mind until I fall asleep.