Yes, the nurses are happy to get her changed into a gown. And they're sorry about not having a mask on hand. But actually ...

A man with a glowing helmet and a spear knocks on the side of her open hospital-room door.

"Hello! I'm Dauntless."

He flashes a practiced grin.

"Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

He reaches into a pouch subtly built into his costume and comes out with a one-size-fits-all black domino mask and a pamphlet, which he holds out toward her enticingly.

A nod at the general hospital bed situation, “I certainly do. Good evening — and thank you,” she says, taking the mask; but she doesn’t see a way to change into it immediately. Also, whose idea was it that a domino mask was really sufficient identity protection, and why do they work for the Protectorate?

She will glance at the title of the pamphlet but not give her attention to it first unless he seems to be expecting that.

A sufficiently cynical person might think that the PRT cares more about the pretense of secret identities than about actually keeping identities secret. Surely not.

Anyway ...

The pamphlet is titled "Becoming a Parahuman: What you Need to Know", and features a stock photo of the triumvirate posing on the cover.

"The Protectorate likes to send one of us around to check in on people who fly out of mysterious sinkholes," Dauntless explains, standing at ease. "How are you doing?"

Deadpan, “Oof ouch owie aargh. Did anybody get the plate number of that sinkhole?”

He chuckles.

"No. But you know what is interesting? The patch plate over your sinkhole was incorrectly installed, and in record time for roadwork in the Bay. Do you have any idea why that might be?"

“I don’t! But that is interesting. One could imagine having a word with the public works department about it.”

Dauntless nods.

"By an amazing coincidence, that's actually my next stop. Fancy that!"

He gives her a rueful grin before schooling his expression.

"For real, though — we are looking into it, and we will be happy to keep you up to date with the progress of the investigation. Just call the PRT main office number and identify yourself with the passphrase inside the pamphlet," he tells her. "We also provide counseling services for newly-triggered parahumans — I'm sorry, I missed a step. Are you aware of how parahuman powers manifest?"

“They — only manifest in people with a particular brain structure? And not arbitrarily, but when they seem needed?”

"Yes, that's pretty much it. We call that moment of extreme need a 'trigger event'. Since powers are only 'activated' during moments of stress, many newly-triggered parahumans find it helpful to talk to a therapist, or just to a trusted friend. If you already have a therapist, great. If not, the PRT has free counseling services with people who specialize in trigger-event-related trauma counseling.."

"We also offer free power testing," he adds. "A lot of people think that their powers should be intuitive, or that the applications are obvious, but that's rarely the case. Most powers have caveats, side effects, or secondary focuses that it's important to be aware of, even if you don't plan to become a hero. So our power-testing specialists can help you figure these things out. And of course if you do want to become a hero, you should definitely consider doing so through the Protectorate — we're the best-organized, best-funded, all-around most-handsome hero team."

He grins again.

An astute observer of body language may be able to determine that the attempted generic charm is found irritating but dismissable in the name of politeness.

“Well, I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience and you’re not my therapist, but now that I'm not in a pitch black hole any more, it feels like most of my stress right now is not yet seeing how I am possibly going to bootstrap myself a secret identity without blowing it up by walking home.”

They may have a solution. They may have an offer with strings attached. But regardless of her future choices, she doesn’t expect they're not going to know who she is. Especially with the car in the sinkhole, and all. (If she wanted maximum privacy from all parties, she should have looked for powers to destroy identifiable parts of the car. Too late to do anything about that.)

Does she want to be harder to notice, maybe? Or instinctively know who can see her?

"Well, if you're considering joining the Protectorate, we do have staff who can help with arranging discreet transport," Dauntless replies, oblivious to the gift's prompting. "But short of that? My advice is that surprisingly few people look up. If you take a winding route, use your flight to pop a few blocks away, and then change clothes, you should be fine."

If she considers joining, huh. Bit of a hard sell, that, even if it has no concrete price, what with her not having many other (admitted) options. Doesn’t seem very heroic.

“I do generally like strategies with more guarantees than that sort of happenstance.”

Can she do laundry without detergent? Can she make clothes from a complete lack of whole cloth?

She can gradually make things cleaner, or generate fabric, yes. And she still has the muscle memory for how to cut cloth by feel.

She would like the ability to gradually m— actually, wait, shouldn’t the hospital be able to help with “I have no clothes fit to wear out of the hospital”? Surely there is a process and she doesn’t have to give evidence of more, well, frankly, mini-Eidolon powers? She could order new clothes to be delivered, if she had a working phone. Well, it really hasn’t been that long and she’s probably going to be here for a while and maybe solutions will become apparent. Or not. Either way, let’s not take hasty actions. You were saying, Dauntless?

"That's perfectly understandable. I'm definitely not supposed to ask about where you live in order to be able to make more specific suggestions, though. And I'm no doctor, but I bet you have some time to think things through before being able to go home, anyway. Do you have any questions for me before I go ask the Department of Transit some pointed questions of my own?"

“I certainly don’t want to keep you,“ (she might regret that later but real-time is hard) “but what would you recommend as reliable information sources someone should be paying attention to if they are — getting involved? Not the ‘so you got powers’ aspect,” she gestures at the brochure, “but understanding — the balance of power, the org charts, the old grudges, and what ‘everybody knows’ when they’re a cape?”

Dauntless inhales through his teeth, looking thoughtful.

"There ... isn't really a comprehensive guide like that," he admits. "I usually rely on our internal briefing documents. But I've heard good things about the PHO wiki. It's usually kept up to date, and covers lots of things that are public knowledge. For everything else, I would suggest getting to know existing heroes. It's ..."

He shifts uncomfortably, before seeming to remember himself and stilling again.

"There is one thing that you kind of need to hear by word of mouth. It's not official. And it's not necessarily something you can rely on, where villains are concerned, but there is generally an agreement not to escalate too much, in cape fights. If you avoid killing, or dragging people's secret identities into the open, many parahumans will do the same."

Well, there’s a lot to unpack there. Truce outside the law, the status quo instead of (more) blood in the streets? More things he isn’t comfortable with and isn’t saying, or just an unusual question? Politics? PR?

“I see. That’s good to know. Thank you.”

He nods to her.

"Happy to help, ma'am. I hope you feel better soon."

He closes the door gently, the tap-tap of his boots soon fading away among the other hospital sounds.

She would like to un-merge the bone-setting and the pain suppression and shoo the bone-setting. Thank you.

The two merged powers come apart with a magnetic pop, and the bone-setting power drifts away before vanishing from her mind. The feedback from the pain-removing spark disappears as well; it is back to only suppressing her own pain.

Now, she would like that ability to instinctively know who can see her. Actually, make that “who or what”; cameras are, if anything, more important.