"Like yours? How do they happen anyway."

"How does what happen?"

"The powers."

"Well there's this virus that, like, one out of three people have in their bodies, and really bad stress makes it turn on, and if it doesn't kill you, you're a Miracle."

"A virus! Oh man, I can't touch anyone or eat anything, what else did the bioweapon preparedness thing say!"

"It's not that contagious. And you should cat it anyway, being a Miracle is awesome."

"There is way to much weird new stuff for me to decide that yet "

"Also, I don't think you catch it from food."

"Yeah, well, the bioweapon warnings say that excess caution is better than insufficient caution."

"Well, you don't want to starve."

She bristles. "I have!"

"...One old biscuit. Well that's that. Gimmie some food."

He takes her over to the party food tables. "Maybe you should mingle for a bit."

"I don't know anybody. Also I'm bad at making friends. Mom always said so. What's your name I'm Walta?"

"Stanislav. Everyone calls me Stan."

"Makes sense."

Oh look food. Is there a line or anything? If not she'll grab something out of the way-ish.

There's a lot of cake and soft drink, also eggs for some reason.

Ooh, they have Pemberton Cola! Delicious.

...Are the eggs cooked?

To the nearest person, "Are the eggs cooked?"

"...Yeah," says the girl with the horns.

"Okay. Just seemed odd to have eggs at a birthday party, 's why I asked."

That guy who brought her here, where'd he go?

"I think he's hiding inside."

"...Um." Did you guess that or did you read my mind or something?

"The latter."

Would it do any good to ask you to stop.

Because she's flipped between interested, excited, and utterly terrified four or five times in the last few minutes and it's getting kind of tiring.

"Sorry." The horned mind reader wanders off.

They are not Darwinists. Not. Darwinists. It's something different and equally terrifying, but it means being cautious and afraid in anti-Darwinist ways won't help.

She has some cake, quietly.