If the space the gift moves through is vague on direction, it is equally vague on quantity. It finds an opportunity, and it reaches out. There's a sensation of something outside herself gently brushing across her mind.

Does Kaitlyn want to stop feeling pain?

The question comes with the impression that nothing bad will happen as a result of her choice. The offer is just there — a thing she could choose to do now, in response to that questioning feeling. She could stop feeling pain.

She what?

The sensation conforms itself to her mind, trying to find the offer that will help her.

Does she want the ability to set bones well? That is also a thing that she could do. That offer is not going to make anything bad happen either.

She gets the feeling that that part is important — she has the choice. But before, her choices were things like "try to shout more" or "pray". And now her choices include ceasing to feel pain, or knowing how to set bones. Or rejecting the gift.

…

Much as she would like to stop feeling all this pain (broken bone, bruised ribs, assorted bruises and scrapes, ears ringing from airbags going off), her leg is actually more important.

A wordless intuition opens up to her, and it feels like a dim ball of light igniting within her: this is how to set a bone so that it will heal best. Not only the theory, but the muscle memory for how to do it. It doesn't force anything — she doesn't have to set a bone — but she knows that she could, now.

Several feet of filthy water is not the best place to do anything, but it does have one advantage over other kinds of being stuck in a hole in the ground: buoyancy. She swims to where she can brace herself against the car’s hood with her back and the rock wall with her good leg, and reaches down —

— okay actually can she also be not in pain for this?

Yes!

There's a faint sense of distant satisfaction. Another ball of light blooms inside her, the two balls spinning around one another. Her pain fades away.

She can still feel that she's hurt, it just isn't the attention-grabbing, lightning-hot, sensation of pain anymore.

Okay. Reach down, carefully feel the shape the bone makes through the skin, relax the muscles, push — ugh. It may not hurt but bones still should not be doing that. Especially her bones. There. Done.

Breathe.

The next thing she could use is a splint. She has a knife in the glove compartment and she can use it to cut up the seatbelts to use for rope. But what does she have that's stiff, straight, and long enough? Maybe something in the car’s emergency tools — which are kept in the rear, which is now the uppermost part of the car, sticking out of the water. Great.

Hey, mysterious helpful thing in her brain, got any recommendations? Or maybe flight powers? Flight would be great.

Sure, it can help her fly. This ball of light doesn't seem to like the others. Also, now that she is not being distracted by her leg, she gets the impression of increasing fullness.

Does she want the ability to slowly generate rods?

She is not really a powers nerd but she is pretty sure most of them don't work like this.

Right. Anyway. Fine. Hold off on the additional extremely specific powers. Carefully float up — she doesn't know what there might be to bump her head on and she certainly doesn't have a helmet — and — oh, car's dead, the hatch is not going to open. Okay. Even more carefully open the back door, lower the back seats, slide in and bend and keep your leg sticking out touching nothing, extract the tool kit, park it on the back of the driver's seat as a table, rummage. Argh. Not super helpful. There's the towing eye, which is mostly a straight rod, but it's too short to really help immobilize the break, and there’s the — what do you call it anyway, the cross-shaped tool that you take the nuts off with, which would stick out and could get caught on things.

Hey, flight, can she just float out of here all the way up to the surface, no legs needed?

The flight she has now should be perfectly capable of lifting her out of the hole.

Assuming, that is, that she knows which way to go.

The hole is, after all, incredibly dark.

She has quickly acquired a lot of experience at feeling around in the dark, and she is pretty sure that the direction she needs to go is primarily up, or her car wouldn't have gotten down here the way it did.

Step 1: collect everything that is useful. Get her bag, ditch the probably-thoroughly-dead laptop (she has backups) and everything that will have been ruined by the water. Take the tools from the glove compartment. Dump the bulky parts of the car’s break-down toolkit. Cut off the seat belts and roll those up and stuff them in the toolkit, just in case she turns out to in fact need something rope-like.

Step 2: … she has apparently acquired powers. She should preserve the option of a secret identity given that she is most likely going to float out onto a public street. She is probably sufficiently bedraggled that she does not need to worry about anyone recognizing her outfit and hair, but she should have a mask. Unfortunately, all her clothes are soaked in filthy water. What else does she have? A dry half of a car. The seat belts don't seem like they will help, but she can cut a big piece out of the seat upholstery and hope that when she has a little more light, she can try to cut it into something that she tie around her face somehow. Or maybe the helpful powers will say, no problem, you can just go invisible! Who knows.

Step 3: Go up, very slowly, hands ahead. Feel for air currents, make a noise and listen for echoes. Try not to acquire another injury.

The hole is jagged, dark and deep.

... but it's just a hole, and therefore rendered much less threatening by the power of flight.

It remains pitch-black, but she eventually feels her way up into what must be a tunnel of some sort. The walls feel like stone, which is a bit odd. She can hear running water, which is probably what caused the subsidence.

Does she want to float along the tunnel, or try to feel around the ceiling more for the presumable path upward?

A faint skittering sounds from further down the tunnel.

Is there any light at all in the tunnel? Is there a draft through it? She doesn't know what a storm sewer smells like, but does it smell like it's been wet for a long time, or more like something else, that is only recently broken into by the water?

The thing about Brockton Bay that many people seem to forget is that it is — for some unfathomable reason — on an aquifer. So even if this tunnel had been used for something else originally, it would probably still smell pretty wet.

In this case, it smells pretty strongly of stagnant water, damp earth, and quite possibly rats.

And, indeed, there is no light. Which is strange, because her car could hardly have traveled that far, and even at night the city has lights.

There is a draft, but it's quite weak. It feels like air is blowing from her left.

There must be a way up that she came down. Exploring possibly-dead-end tunnels seems like a significant sidetrack from getting out of this hole and to a hospital, even if she were equipped with, say, a waterproof flashlight and a sense of adventure. Up first.

Her car must have slid a little bit sideways with the collapsing earth, but not that much. Finding the hole in the ceiling is fairly straightforward.

But as she reaches higher, her fingers meet a cool metal plate. It seems as though someone has already thrown a temporary patch over the subsidence. There's a dull thump-thump as a car drives over the plate.

It sure would be convenient if they checked if someone had fallen in the hole before covering it up!!!

To be fair, it was a really deep and twisty hole, but still.

She will try the less getting-lost option first. Get the towing eye (a solid chunk of steel itself, if not as massive as the plate) and bang on the underside of the plate. Someone might notice — if she’s really lucky, the crew that put the plate down is still here. She will try periodically for a few minutes. Ow, ringing noise. She will try with the fabric wrapped around her ears to muffle it a bit.

Up above, the bystander effect occurs, leading to a nerve-wracking period without a response. Eventually, someone thumps back on the plate in a communicative way and shouts.

"I've called 911!"

“THANK YOU!” she yells back. She crazily thought momentarily about saying that she is okay, just stuck, and there is no rush, but that's really not at all true, what with the complete darkness and the broken leg; it's just that she is in contact with civilization again, and suddenly in a position where waiting is the correct action.

Now, how is she going to explain how she got where she is? Plan “float out of the hole in the street wearing a mask” is currently difficult to execute because she was hoping to have some light with which to attempt construction of a mask. She could claim to have climbed up this far, but she has no idea how plausible it is to in fact have climbed the path she found. She could deflect and just insist on medical care. She could give up trying and tell the complete truth. She could —

— oh there’s the suppressed panic, now that she has nothing to do. What if she just sits here and shakes.

Does she want to be good at calming down and accepting the situation? Maybe she would like to glow, instead?

...

She doesn’t know how this works.

What is up with the sensation of increasing fullness? Is she — frame it carefully, now, just in case — the things she wants do not include being full of miscellaneous powers and not having more choices in the future. If she does nothing, she will probably get out of here just fine. Well, adequately okay. That is her situation. Any comments?

There's a sense that she can push the sparks within her away; a feeling like being full for a time, not forever.

The two sparks that like each other (not feeling pain and being good at setting bones) also draw her attention — it feels like she could push them closer together, and open up space that way.

Oh. All right then. She would like a light source —

— no, wait, what she most wants, right now, is a mask. Or for that matter a disguise of any sort. Can she become good at cutting fabric in the dark by feel? Can she outright create items of clothing (in, let's say, under two minutes, she thinks when remembering “slowly generate rods”)? Can she become invisible, or shrouded in fog? Can she just teleport out of here??? Can she —

She can do so many things! There's a faint sense of being overwhelmed.

Does she want to have an intuition for what kinds of powers are possible for the gift to give her?

Not helpful!!

Take a deep breath. Another.

If possible, she would like to become good at cutting fabric in the dark by feel. That will provide a path to solving her time-sensitive problem without further planning and it seems in scope. Yes?

Another spark blooms to life in her chest. This one doesn't seem to like any of the others.

There's a sense of fullness and ... stableness, perhaps. The light mental touch of the gift fades into the background.

But now she has the muscle-memory and visualization skills required to cut fabric in the dark by feel.

Then she will set about cutting her saved car-seat fabric into a mask. Parts along the edge can become thin strips tied to more cut strips to tie the thing onto her head. It is badly fitting, scratchy, and smelly, but it will do. Are there any helpful-sounding noises from above, by now?

It's so hard to judge what noises are "helpful", and so easy to let your fears be magnified by the darkness, isn't it?

But in this case yes: a siren can be heard after a few minutes, and shortly after that someone shouts at her to back away from the plate.

“OKAY!”

She moves what seems like a good distance away down the tunnel and sits down on the floor, legs carefully laid out to not be further jarred.

It will be over soon. Well, some of it will be over soon. Some of it will be over soon.

A few minutes after that, there's an amazingly loud sound as someone begins drilling through the tar that was (incorrectly) used to seal the plate to the pavement. Eventually, they get enough of it away for a car-portable jack to lever the plate up with a resounding bang.

A hard-hatted head pokes into the hole, playing a flashlight around to try and spot her.

“Hello! Sorry for the trouble, but I was injured and stuck here!” And I kind of wish you were less efficient at covering holes in the street, she doesn’t say.

When the light finds her she waves. And lifts up and floats slowly, shakily towards the hole.

(She could not demonstrate any powers, and not wear a mask. But that would leave a possible mystery. She has spotted enough bad infosec from people posting on PHO, where cape business is already on everyone’s mind, to know that you can’t just let the let the little things slide and hope nobody notices.)

He does a double take when she starts to float, and then backs away from the hole to give her space.

Up on the surface, the hole in the street has been closed off with cones, and a crew of people in high-visibility vests stands around it with tools. An EMT pushes past them, and then stops when he sees her float out of the ground.

Sunlight! (Ow, sunlight.) Fresh air! (She is now colder and can see her filthy and ripped clothing.) People!

She would really, really like to just sit down and let other people deal with the situation now. But she still has a broken leg. She should say so.

She pointedly stops moving and settles onto her good leg (in a way that doesn’t, actually, balance) and beckons the EMT. “I — My car fell a very long way down. My left leg”, the one that is still floating, “is broken. And — uh, everything hurts.” And she has had too much adventure today and would like to stop.

The EMT sighs in relief; he doesn't know how to handle flight, but he can handle broken bones and blunt force trauma.

He efficiently transfers her to a stretcher, and starts splinting her leg in a practiced way.

"It doesn't look too bad," he tells her. "Well, I mean, it looks like you were in a car accident. And I'm not a doctor. But it looks like you don't have too much blood loss, and you're still conscious, which is good."

A few minutes later she's in the back of an ambulance making its way through downtown traffic on the way to the hospital.

This is tedious and would be painful, if not for the helpful sparks. As it is, it's mainly just not what she wanted to be doing with her afternoon. Hopefully she does not end up stuck in the hospital for too long without even a working phone.

While we’re waiting: helpful sparks, how about that “being closer together” thing? That won’t have any effects on the outside world, right? Nudge.

There's a slight resistance — just strong enough that she has to give them a deliberate push — and then the two sparks snap together like magnets, merging into a single brighter spark.

A sort of shiver runs through her. Before, she had skill with setting bones and the ability not to feel pain. Now, she has the ability to set bones while suppressing the pain of those she works on. Luckily, she counts as having worked on herself, so her pain remains at bay. But now keeping it at bay is an active thing that she is doing, and that she could stop doing if she's done fixing her leg.

Her skill with setting bones suggests that would be a bad idea, though; inhibiting her pain response is reducing inflammation, which is preventing some secondary tissue damage.

Okay, so, she can have more capacity but less individual flexibility. Or is it more like swapping them out for a replacement ability that happens to cover both uses? Hey you. Are you really a power for setting bones (only) and suppressing pain (only) or do you do other things too? Could you do other things?

The combined spark does feel more powerful, for whatever that's worth.

And there are lots of things that are part of setting bones and suppressing pain, aren't there? She has to have some other medical knowledge to set bones safely, and some ability to identify bones, and some feedback to tell whose pain she can suppress or stop suppressing (right now, just her own, but there's a vague sense that she could do something to the EMT's face). She also feels like she could suppress just a part of her pain. And "pain" is a wiggly enough category that she can do some not-strictly-nociceptive numbing. She's keeping herself from feeling the bone splinters moving in her leg as the ambulance goes over a bump, right now, which would be disconcerting even without pain. Plus she is getting some feedback about inflammation via her pain-suppression, now that she pays attention, since those are tightly linked. And that information is feeding back into her skill at setting bones to tell her more about the injury ...

Hmm. Flight, you’re not a combined spark, but can you do more things? Can you tell me things about this here ambulance reference frame?

There's a feeling like an omnidirectionally symmetrical ball of light shrugging.

Does she want to instinctively apply gentle uniform forces to her body in a way that incidentally largely nullifies the effect of gravity? Because if she doesn't want to do that, the flight spark can't really help.

Well, how about largely nullifying the internal effects of non-gravitational acceleration, like smoothing out this ambulance ride? That would be in-scope, wouldn’t it? She would like that.

Well ... she can hover? And then she won't be in contact with the ambulance, so it won't transmit forces to her!

There's a sense of pride in having solved a difficult problem (i.e., one not directly related to applying gentle forces to her body).

Then she would run into the ambulance. That would only be good if she wanted to go somewhere else than where the ambulance is going. Sorry.

Ah. Well, if she wants to apply gentle uniform forces to her body, it will be ready!

Brockton Bay traffic is bad, but Ambulences have some special advantages in that area. She arrives at the hospital in not much longer, where she is subjected to normal hospital things: properly securing her leg, getting an x-ray, being fitted for a cast, having her scrapes bandaged, being checked for concussion, etc.

Everyone is being very careful not to disturb her mask, but she may notice a number of stares from nurses, doctors, and other patients.

Yep, all as expected. She is pretty sure she doesn't have any injuries it would be hiding. Yes, really. And there is plenty of access to her scalp and neck and so on. How's her spine doing, considering how she fell?

She doesn’t suppose they can supply a less improvised replacement mask? This must come up sometimes? No? No, a surgical mask does not really count. How about clothes that are not soaked in foul water? That's of actual medical benefit, isn't it?

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.

A fourth spark blooms in her mind, and with it a sense of fullness and also ... pressure, perhaps? None of these four sparks like each other, adopting wide, shifting orbits that stay out of each others way.

At first, nothing changes. And then a nurse walks by in the hallway outside, and it is obvious that he can see her. When he steps out of sight the feeling fades.

Can she tell anything about what sort of other sparks they would like?

Hmm. Well, the spark that is suppressing her pain liked the bone-setting spark. It feels like it would like something medical, or maybe something about hysteric strength, or using her nociception for another sense?

The spark that lets her apply gentle uniform forces to her body in a way that partially negates the effects of gravity would prefer something relating to spatial awareness, or maybe momentum.

The spark letting her cut and work fabric in the dark would be happy with a lot of things — material generation, absorbing light, knowledge of fashion, etc. The spark letting her know who or what can see her would also get along with something relating to spatial awareness, or with something to do with hearing.

The sparks present the sense that all of these categories are fuzzy, and somewhat broad. The fabric spark in particular gives off a sense of 'I'll know it when I see it'.

Hmm. Suppose she had something for spatial awareness, of trajectories of things that are her and not her. Would you two space-related sparks like that? Could you be three-in-one in a chain? (Will she have to actually take it to find out?)

The sparks swirl for a moment in thought.

They return a sense that it would be likely, but they need to see the potential new spark to be sure.

Then she will say goodbye to the cloth-cutting power, and wish for a spark that understands spaces from the perspective of how they can be traversed: what path collides with nothing? What can be seen or heard from this point? Where can this point be seen from? Where will a moving object (including people) be?

The cloth spark drifts out into the darkness, and a replacement blooms in her chest. Both the flight and sight sparks do decide that they like it, and the three of them start orbiting in a chaotic dance that lets each spark loop close to the new spark without approaching each other too closely.

In this hospital room, things are mostly going to remain stationary. But, since she can fly, she could move her body in these sorts of ways, in order to be located in different parts of the space. Similarly, the door could swing open, if someone were crouched below the window and decided to open it.

A doctor with a clipboard steps into view in the hall, and it is instantly apparent that she will cross the window in six seconds, during which she'll be at the right angle to see Kaitlyn for four and a half seconds as her sight plays across the room, if she keeps moving like this.

Seeing the whole gestalt of the room's space as a sort of four-dimensional impression of angles and timings takes a moment to get used to — but only a moment. She doesn't seem to be getting any extra sensory information from her new spark, exactly, but it makes tracking the locations and velocities of the things she can perceive instantaneous and effortless.

Excellent! And what are you like when merged?

... no, the sparks can't merge. 'Flight' and 'Sight' don't like each other.

She could merge the spatial awareness spark with either of them, though.

You seemed far more confident in this being a possibility a minute ago. Maybe they have to be merged stepwise? — actually, “noticing who can see her” is almost redundant, here. There’s probably a better route.

Spatial awareness and flight, combine!

There's a sense of confusion around what possibility she's talking about, before spatial awareness and flight click together into a single brighter spark.

And suddenly, it becomes clear that her understanding of spaces should really be thought of in terms of forces. It's not just that things have positions that can be extrapolated, it's that everything is nudging the path of everything else, in a way that now seems perfectly clear.

Including her body, the path of which she can nudge far more directly. The heart-rate monitor in the corner table isn't going to rise into the air, hover, and then return to Earth; that isn't one of its possible paths. But her body could.

Within the inner space that holds her sparks, however, it becomes clear that the spark which tells her who or what can see her can't make the same kind of connection with the new, merged spark. It feels like it wants to, but they're at different levels, and it couldn't balance.

After considering things from this perspective for a while, she realize she wasn’t thinking about observation quite right previously — people move all the time, even when they think of themselves as holding still, but cameras don’t. So, detecting cameras is still a useful power. What would pair with it well? Something more generally about states of information?

How about a power like that — noticing the paths, not of matter and forces, but of information, of knowledge, of correlation and synchronization? Is that even concrete enough to make sense? Is that within our capabilities? Can she have that?

Oh! Yes, that's something a spark can provide.

A fourth spark blooms in her chest again, and with it a sense of verging tiredness. She can keep generating more sparks (when she has room), but maybe not at this same pace for too much longer.

The new spark likes the 'sight' spark, and they drop into each other's orbits. The new sense that she gains is ... vague, blurry. But still quite useful, for all that.

Right now information is flowing out of her via this pulse oximeter, down that cable, and into that machine. A tiny amount is flowing from her lungs and hair through the air and out under the door. A larger amount is flowing off of her face and clothing and bending through the glass of the door. A miniscule amount is flowing out of her in all directions.

Information is flowing into her eyes, nose, ears, and skin, although it's a bit harder to trace, for whatever reason. Some additional information is appearing directly in her brain, in two different areas which some knowledge of neuroanatomy might clarify.

The new sense still doesn't let her see whether there is, for example, anyone in the adjacent room with a listening device. But it does make her aware of how the sound of her breathing splashes against the wall.

Limits: noted. Does merging and un-merging sparks also cost anything?

But this is very valuable experimentation regardless!

No, the sparks seem happy to merge or un-merge at her direction, with no sense of tiredness.

Merging the 'sight' and 'information' sparks produces a new 'big' spark that likes her flight and spatial awareness spark.

And it can inform her with confidence that nobody’s watching, directly or indirectly, at least through ordinary eyes and sensors and not more diffuse and indirect things like precognition?

Well, no. There's a nurse at a station down the hall who is peripherally aware of her by way of the pulse oximeter. And a hospital wellness dog a few rooms down can smell her, a little.

But other than that, nobody is currently directly perceiving much recent information about her.

Nice. Reassuring. Copacetic.

She could get started on something to improve her clothing and mask situation, but for now, time to take a break and read that brochure.

Becoming a Parahuman: What you Need to Know

Glossary

Parahuman: A human who awakens a dormant power in a moment of extreme personal stress (called a Trigger Event).

The Protectorate: The premier hero team of the United States and Canada.

The Wards: The junior branch of the Protectorate.

The Parahuman Response Team (PRT): The department of the U.S. government concerned with supporting, regulating, and investigating Parahuman affairs.

Heroes: Parahumans who choose to use their powers to help others, usually as part of the Protectorate or an independent hero team.

Villains: Parahumans who use their powers to harm others, or in the commission of crimes.

Starting Statistics

Many Parahumans feel unstoppable when first experimenting with their powers. The sad truth is that this overconfidence can be deadly.

Fact: 68% of newly-triggered parahumans who do not join a team die within the first three months.

This is especially true for Parahumans with powers that can be used to enhance other people, including indirectly by building devices.

Fact: Gangs are three times more likely to forcibly recruit Parahumans with powers that can enhance others.

Joining up with the Protectorate can greatly reduce your risk of serious injury or death.

Resources

PRT Emergeny line: +1 555 342-8820

PRT Non-emergency line: +1 555 342-8800

Protectorate Emergency line: +1 555 987-1212

Protectorate Non-emergency line: +1 555 987-1211

In an emergency, contacting 911 will always put you in touch with the most relevant agencies.

Suicide-prevention hotline: 988

Protectorate on-call therapy: +1 555 575-9267

Support Services

The Protectorate offers complementary power testing to all Parahumans. Dedicated specialists can help you determine the extent of your powers, as well as providing opportunities for further growth.

Non-villains are also entitled to free, confidential trauma counseling.

Independent heroes who register with the Protectorate can receive a number of additional perks, including notification of ongoing emergencies.

Protectorate members receive identity protection services, relocation assistance, a competitive salary, branding and merchandising assistance, and a host of other benefits. 

The Endbringer Truce

For certain high-level emergencies, such as an attack by one of the Endbringers, the Protectorate may declare an Endbringer Truce. This truce has been officially recognized by many countries world-wide. Any Parahuman, regardless of legal status, is permitted to join fights against the Endbringers. Committing crimes during an Endbringer Truce is likely to result in harsh penalties.

This brochure was produced under the auspices of the P.R.T. and the Department of Justice, and is therefore not subject to copyright. The distribution of harmful or fraudulent information purporting to originate from an agency of the U.S. government is illegal. For questions or concerns, please contact the PRT non-emergency hotline.

She feels vaguely disappointed with this, but isn’t sure what would actually improve it. More information? More awareness of — something? Eh. Probably “just the facts” often goes over better than a more ‘advertising’ approach, and it is a useful set of phone numbers and defined expectations. She sets the brochure aside, under the domino mask. What next? Oh, right, she wanted to improve the mask situation.

The problem is, doing anything that fits and looks better needs sewing, better materials, or preferably both. She has the vague idea of somehow combining the domino mask with the remaining car-seat fabric to make something with more coverage, but not any of the details for how to do that.

She could look for another spark but if that’s limited throughput, she should save it for emergencies. For now, she can see how the hospital handles things, and how fast the tiredness goes away.

Mostly, the hospital handles things by leaving her alone. Broken bones are not the kind of injury that demands fast, life-saving attention.

Eventually, a nurse comes through on her rounds, to ask Kaitlyn how she's feeling and if she needs anything. She has a cart with some neatly-organized little cups of painkillers, but doesn't give any to Kaitlyn, since she hasn't shown any signs of being in pain.

Her tiredness fades into undetectability around the same time.

“Can you tell me how long I will need to stay?”

"Right now you're just being kept in case of complications," the nurse informs her. "With your leg in a proper cast, you could be discharged today. But Parahumans sometimes have idiosyncratic reactions, so the doctor would prefer you stay in inpatient care for a few days, just in case. Plus, your bone will have set more solidly in another day or two, which will make the chance of exacerbating your injuries while moving lower. Even if you left the hospital now, the doctor would probably recommend bed rest for the next few days at least."

“I see.” Longer than she would like, but she doesn’t actually have a complete plan for what she is going to do next. And she cannot start ordering new clothes and a cell phone — or calling any acquaintance to borrow something — without a lot more opportunities for eavesdropping that isn’t nearly as simple as “being in earshot”.

“Well, whenever that does happen, I will need replacement clothes — or maybe what I was wearing will actually be salvageable, but I have no idea if hospitals do patient laundry.”

She is tempted to ask again about masks but, actually, she might not want to seem so extremely focused on one ‘silly’ ‘little’ ‘thing’. More options may become clearer in the future. She does not need to rush anything, it seems, except insofar as she is (sort of) stuck here in a rather vulnerable position and not doing anything she could be doing to arrange her future better. (She could just fly away and avoid jostling her leg. She is keeping that option in mind.)

"We ... can, technically."

It's a huge pain because they have to keep it separate from the hospital linens.

"But usually patients find it more convenient to have a friend or loved one bring them a change of clothes."

“Yes, well, if I call a friend, that has a good chance of creating some unwelcome attention. I wouldn’t want to inflict that on them.”

She could try digging through the phone book for some sort of mail-order shop that will take a cash-on-delivery order to the hospital, but that sounds like a dubious proposition.

Indeed, while there are many businesses who will take orders by phone and arrange delivery, they universally want to be paid by credit card at time of sale, rather than by cash at time of delivery.

The nurse hesitates a moment, and then her eyes crinkle in sympathy.

"I could get you something from the hospital giftshop?" she offers. "The stuff is a bit overpriced, but it's better than nothing."