Carry on

The next time I awoke, I was still in the hospital, still in the same bland room without any flavor and nothing inside but my bed, a plastic chair and the child proofed bathroom. Withholding any kind of communication and information was probably part of their strategy to get me to agree to their demands.

Or they simply hadn't thought about providing me anything, how often did a teenager just drop on them without family or friends to bring them their stuff. Not everything was enemy action. Not that any of my stuff was salvageable, my phone had been destroyed weeks ago and I had ensured there would be no traces of my failed/successful plan to hire parahuman assistance by destroying my laptop.

So I was bored and there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I had already made as much of a plan as I could yesterday, not that "safe sister, get over my fears and run away together" was much of an elaborate plan, but without further information I couldn't do anything. We had already messed up with the only 2 Hero teams in the city and while there was an option to hire mercenaries, somewhere even based in this city, not everyone was as stupid as the last one and I didn't have access to as much ready cash anymore.

My wallet with all my cards had been destroyed so I would have to get a new one, provided I could manage to gain enough documentation to proof my claim. Documentation which might not even exist anymore, between the fire at the manor and the faked custody hearing and if it did, it was in the hands of the Youth Guard by now. Getting documentation relied on the same people I would try to run from and the same group I would have to steal back my sister from. The same sister who I couldn't even think about without remembering the pain and terror of near certain death.

Theoretically the operation with the biggest chance of success would rely on me becoming powerful enough to just break her out and run from the city. It said something about my situation that hoping for a miracle was my best bet. And that was the same as waiting, which I was forced to do anyway.

I left my bed, marveling at all my functioning limbs, you never know just how much you rely on that second hand for balance, how much of your self-image hinges on the completeness of your body. Those two weeks already felt like a nightmare in a different body, but it would take a while to get used to being whole again. I still felt phantom pains of missing limbs that had returned. Ambroise Pare would have loved to get me in his hands, to bad he died 300 years to early.

Even in today's world I am a medical miracle for most people, which again reminded me of just how perfect the outcome of my total failure of a "plan" had been. I didn't believe in divine intervention, but if a miracle had happened once, why not again, it wasn't like there wasn't even weirder bullshit out there. Maybe I did trigger after all and my power was the perfect resolution to any plan and if I trained enough I could skip the plan altogether and just get the preferred outcome.

It took more than 10 minutes for me to get tired of trying to imagine myself and my sister on some random tropical island, myself protected by a forcefield included. If I had gained any power, I didn't know how to use them, which according to PHO was an anathema to capes. All capes knew their power, except maybe Case 53s and they had other tells. But maybe mine had been unknowingly removed by my sister and Panacea had restored me to a completely ordinary human body.

I took my time looking for anything unusual in the shower, but even after intense scrutiny and the discovery, that all my scares had disappeared, there wasn't anything for me to find. I still looked disgustingly small, but at least I wasn't round like a drum anymore. Fastest weight loss cure ever, takes only two weeks and you only have to lose around a tenth of your body to do it. Panacea could make millions with this alone, but as far as I knew she didn't even take commissions. Maybe there had once been an avenue for me to make money there, but mine and my sister surprise visit had probably destroyed that opportunity forever.

Or maybe not, if I had to stay in this city while my sister joined the Wards there was a chance she would interact with Panacea. They could even be going to the same school. There was a chance for them to repair their relationship and then I could slowly coax her into working with me. Provided I regained access to my money and managed to build a sufficient power base. I would probably have to work around her family as well, if they hadn't already planned something like it, maybe they were waiting for Panacea to build up a big enough reputation. Or it was simply a question of age, speaking of which, it would be another major hurdle for me, but I might be able to swing something with my sister. What she lacked in intelligence, she made up for in diligence, trough getting her a GED would be indispensable.

Not like it mattered right now, for all I knew the PRT had decided my sister was too much trouble and I was left to stew here until they had found a way to get rid of me as well. Unlikely, but possible.

It took another hour or so, before I got bored enough to leave my room, but as I expected, there was a goon in front of my door. A PRT goon in uniform, a well dressed and lawful goon, but for me he was still the evil warden who sent me back to my room and informed me that have visitors shortly.

I was tempted to argue, but decided to not waste me energy on the cogs of the machine. The important people would talk to me sooner or later. They didn't have much of a choice this time, my sister and I had made to much of a splash, with cracking a hospital parking lot and attacking a renown hero team in their house. No, this time the public would have noticed and with the Empire 88 involved in our first custody battle they wouldn't have any other choice but do this above board. Even a behemoth like the PRT had to pick their battles.

When the next visit finally happened, I had left the bored to death territory for the contemplating the death of everyone who had ever grossed me territory. You really shouldn't leave me without stimulation for my mind for extended periods. I didn't know how to build cars, but I suddenly had the feeling that rigging one to explode was ridiculously easy, which I didn't know definitely to be wrong, but I suspected it to take more than a knife and five minutes. I didn't even know how to find the cooling system, why should I know to be able to rig it a way to overheat at exactly 55 miles/h. My mind was even weirder today than usual.

Ms. Norbert and another new PRT goon in a well fitting uniform had the pleasure of interrupting my leisure (happy murder) time. After I had been introduced to goon 2, I didn't count door goon, and had promptly forgotten his name, I was informed that I would have to wait a little longer for a new foster family. No one said it outright, but some of the candidates had shown major red flacks, which the system hadn't caught beforehand and now they had to manually sift through the applicants. At least they were nice enough to give me a smartphone, one of those fancy ones with a number of applications, but no way to call someone. Instead I got a messaging app and a very unsubtle warning that all my messages would be reviewed before actually reaching my sister. Ms. Norbert assured me that messages to her wouldn't be checked, but I got the feeling that she was just too innocent or she didn't understand messaging apps. I didn't either, but I knew that separate messaging systems would be a major improvement, which meant they didn't have it and every message would go through the same server. Also their encryption was crap and easy to manipulate, and again, I didn't know where that knowledge came from.

In the end this only meant, that I had to write a few carefully written messages to my sister, without tipping of anyone that I was trying to be sneaky, maybe it would be best to just skirt the line by pretending to try to be subtle and attracting just enough attention to appear incapable of deeper schemes.

That done, I was given proper clothes, finally, and told to make myself ready to leave the hospital. I would be staying within a trooper/police compound close to the PRT building, normally used by visiting officers on training missions. The compound would be closed off and under surveillance at all time. My sisters Youth Guard representative also stayed there and we shared a floor, while the canteen downstairs shared a kitchen with the PRT headquarters and was staffed 24 hours a day. I was not given a key, but a short number for a keypad, which would be shared with Ms. Norbert, Ms. Johansen, my sister Youth Guard representative and a number of PRT goons on duty in the building. Again, privacy wasn't a right, but an illusion to keep the masses content. I wasn't content, but at I was at least able to contact my sister now, which was a major improvement.

Ms. Norbert tried to fill the short drive to my new accommodations with small talk and while I didn't respond, except give a few sarcastic comments when one of the goons in the van tried to play nice, I was grateful for her presence. I didn't like the physical, mental and political power imbalance between me and the PRT. Hell the only ones I had meet so far had been unimportant grunts, while they could demand my time and attention at any opportunity. Who know just how many people were working behind my back to devise strategies to secure my sister compliance and my own acquiescence, while keeping me occupied with moving around and useless talks about foster families. As if any family in Brockton Bay could ensure my sisters and my own safety without being involved with any gang. I was including the PRT as a gang here, because they acted like one in my experience. I could claim to have extensive experience by now and at the end of this I was certain to be an expert.