Broker

Chapter 2

Sonya sat in the chair in the waiting room, looking down at her hands. Even now she could still feel the strange tingle that had swept up her body when she’d taken Marta’s hand. A woman choked out a sob nearby, her husband consoling her silently. Sonya glanced at the two people, loving and supporting one another. Why couldn’t all people be like that? She looked down at her fingers again, What was Chunhua doing at this time? She wondered quietly, clenching her hand into a fist. 

A nurse stepped out through the doors, “Miss Chernovna?”

Sonya got to her feet and followed the Nurse, “How is Marta doing? She was my caretaker.”

“Miss Daphne? She’s still unconscious but she seems to be fine otherwise. Her husband is with her,” The Nurse said, “We’re more concerned about you, Miss Chernovna.”

Sonya frowned but gave a curt nod, “I figured,” She said, reaching up to touch her eyelid self consciously. In this early time many people would be confused about the circumstances of Pandora’s Light and the changes it would have on the world. A woman suddenly growing prosthetic eyes was certainly cause for concern.

The woman gave her an uneasy look, “Do they… hurt?”

Sonya shrugged, “They feel a little heavy,” She offered, brushing her hair out of her eye. She paused and grabbed a strand of it, “What the?”

“Miss Chernovna?” The nurse paused, looking at her in concern.

“My hair,” Sonya gasped, it had turned white! Stark white, starlight white, every inch of it. She scrambled for her phone and pulled it out. She hadn’t checked her own appearance since she knew what the eyes from her Pandora-Given powers looked like, it didn't matter. What the hell! Sonya trembled as she hit the camera button and turned it to selfie mode, looking at her face on the screen. Her skin had gone deathly pale and her hair was indeed as white as fresh snowfall, her mechanical eyes twirled and spun, clicking with that eerie sound they made. A faint blue-green glow blazed inside of them. “It’s changed…”

The nurse regarded Sonya for a moment, “I’ll… make a note for the doctor,” She said uneasily, hurrying to scribble something down on a notepad as Sonya recovered and they continued walking.

They stepped into an examination room and a trio of doctors were waiting, the three of them turned as one, all of them wide eyed.

“I’d heard what was going around,” One said.

“But to see it in person,” Another murmured.

The third strode forward, a broad shouldered man with jet black hair and glasses, he looked asian, he extended a hand to Sonya. “Choi Da-Som, I’m the head of neurosurgery here,” He said. Her eyes lingered on his face for a moment and she could see the same name hanging over his head.

<Choi Da-Som, Unawakened>

She took his hand and felt a momentary connection with him, that same untapped sense of potential. She made a split second decision. He’d taken her hand willingly and it wouldn’t hurt to test and see more detail about this strange new power of hers. This time she wanted to see what a single feature would do; Appraise.

<New Product Acquired: Hands of the Healer>

Nothing happened for a heartbeat and she forced herself to smile and shake his hand, “Nice to meet you sir,” She said, trying to look weary. It must have worked because he leaned in a bit and examined her face.

“You look anemic, Miss Chernovna, why don’t you have a seat,” He said, gesturing to the examination table. “Would you like something to drink?”

“I’m just tired,” Sonya admitted, she’d been up for almost a day, it wasn’t easy to nap with all the crying and wailing in the waiting room. He seemed to take her retort in stride as she stepped past him and onto the examination table. “So what now?”

“Well, honestly we need to know more about your condition from you,” One of the doctors said, moving up to stand next to Da-Som. He had a tablet in his hand and was reading it, “It says here you were clinically blind, your eyes damaged by an incident at a lab you worked at?”

“I worked for Stockton Chemical, yes, there was an incident with acid that took my sight,” Sonya said flatly, “Then yesterday happened and now I can see.”

“How would you compare it to your original sight?” The other doctor asked, taking a few notes down.

“Well, like I told the nurse, they feel a little heavy in my head and make a ticking sound like there’s a clock up in there,” She tapped her temple, “Whatever happened didn’t heal my tear ducts, and I still don’t need to blink, also I can see honestly better than I had before. Peripheral detail is really good, your shoe’s untied, Doctor Manse,” She said, staring straight into Doctor Choi’s eyes, unblinking.

Manse, one of the other two doctors, looked down at his shoes and coughed, “Remarkable.”

“I’d like to run some tests,” Doctor Choi said, “But after that, I’m pretty sure you’ll be good to go, you don’t seem hurt at all.”

“Just some bruises,” Sonya said.

“But what’s happening is extraordinary, it could take days to get all the information!” Manse protested. Sonya stiffened, she didn’t like the sound of that. She had no memories of what happened at the hospital after Pandora’s Light the first time. She'd awakened and was given a clean bill of health before being sent home after some questions about her condition.

“We don’t have a right to hold her here,” Doctor Choi cut in firmly, “More importantly, there are plenty of other people experiencing these odd symptoms and changes. We need to catalog first before we start examining for more detail. You’re putting the cart before the horse.”

Manse frowned but nodded his consent to the point. Sonya let out a breath and graced Doctor Choi with a smile, “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Would you be willing to follow up once we better understand what’s going on?” The doctor asked, returning the smile.

“I’ll think about it favorably,” Sonya said, she wasn’t willing to say no and after experimenting with some of the people in the waiting room she realized she couldn’t lie and say yes either. If she’d lied in front of observant people like this, they’d notice her choke and start asking more questions. 

Does my inability to lie have a connection with this new power? It sounds like it involves making deals, is that a consequence of that? I can’t deceive people directly?

Fortunately, Doctor Choi seemed satisfied with that response and immediately set to work through a few tests to get an idea of what was going on with Sonya’s new eyes. They tried to examine them internally but the inner workings were too complicated for their equipment. They ran her through an MRI with little success either though it did paint a picture of how the eyes were connected to her brain, that alone had been monumental according to Doctor Choi, who had enthused about it and urged Sonya to return before they parted ways.

“Your eyes could be the solution to blindness in a lot of people,” Choi said, “I do hope you’ll come back.”

Sonya simply shook his hand again with a smile, she noted that the option to appraise him was gone. Instead only the sample and broker deal options remained. 

So I can only appraise once? Interesting. But what does it mean by product?

Before she left, she managed to get the room number where Marta was staying and went in for a visit, finding her husband looking tired but relieved that his wife was alive. He thanked Sonya despite his obvious misgivings about her new eyes, shaking her hand and giving her a new person to appraise.

<New Product Acquired: Light Step>

She left the hospital after urging him to contact her when Marta’s condition changed. That woman had died for her once and now had saved her life. It was strange, though, last time around someone else had destroyed the beast, obviously. Where had that person gone off to? Had they simply been too slow to respond before Marta had settled the problem? It was anyone’s guess.

“Mommy it hurts!” A small voice whined as she stepped into the small hall between the automatic doors that lead outside. She glanced over at a little boy sitting on the ground, clutching helplessly at his arm in a cloth sling. His mother was hovering, fretting over his condition. She looked about as beat up as everyone else, cuts and scrapes but no serious injuries. She looked at the boy’s arm and felt a surge of instinct come over her, it was like she could see a warehouse in her mind, inside were hundreds of empty shelves. One, however, had three vases on it. Product? If it's a product, it belongs to me, she reasoned, so can’t I use it?

She turned and walked towards the pair, “Excuse me, I might be able to help,” She offered gently, kneeling down next to the boy.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” The woman demanded as Sonya reached out and touched the boy’s arm. She mentally drew on the item on her warehouse shelf and felt it rush into her. Instinct and understanding, just like the acquisition of her eyes. She knew how to use it. A faint green light erupted from her fingertips and the boy let out a startled gasp. “What are you doing!” The woman screamed only to go silent as the boy stretched his arm out in awe.

“It doesn’t hurt!” The boy gasped as Sonya got to her feet, it was a good test but she needed to leave, fast.

“Wait!” The woman called, but Sonya had already pushed into the crowd as more and more people streamed towards the hospital.

–

Sonya let out a weary breath as she sat down at the only coffee shop that had dared to be open after everything had transpired. She held the warm coffee in her hand, more for the soothing feeling it gave her than her desire to drink it. Oh boy would she drink it though. It was fortunate that only the woman seemed to have seen her and the boy was too elated with his arm being mended to have noticed.

I mended that kid's arm… She thought, still awestruck by what happened. She reached back into her mind to check through her warehouse. Lo and behold, the shelf still had all three products present. The only explanation she could come up with was somehow she had taken a copy of the potential power in the people she had touched and internalized it. Her power referred to it as a product, though. Did that mean she could just as easily give it to someone else?

Is that what it means by Broker Deal?

She snorted, “A power broker.”

“What’s that ma’am?” A man asked, stopping next to her with a tray in his hand. He set down a small cake in front of her and she looked up at him. He tried and failed not to wince at her eyes. She really needed to get some sunglasses, she’d worn them all the time after getting her powers the first time around.

“Mm? Nothing, sorry,” Sonya shook her head and looked down at the cake, “I didn’t order this.”

“The man over there did,” The waiter said, pointing across the room, “We aren’t a bar though…” He grumbled.

Sonya raised an eyebrow and followed the waiter’s gesture. There was indeed a brown-haired man sitting there, he was young, probably in his early twenties and had an earnest look on his boyish face. Sonya frowned, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about being hit on right now and he certainly wasn’t her type. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel she recognized the guy from somewhere. She examined the bar over his head.

<Nick Adders, Awakened>

Not Unawakened. Did he already have a power? Why is his name so familiar?

Sonya graced the waiter with an easy smile, “Sorry, I’ll go talk to him.”

“Sure sure,” The waiter groused and walked away. Sonya picked up the cake and her coffee before walking over to Nick. A few people glanced her way uncomfortably before looking away. It had been just over a day since Pandora’s Light and word was already getting around about people with unusual powers showing up. 

Sonya stopped at Nick’s table and set her plate down, “May I join you?”

“Please!” Nick enthused.

Sonya swept into the chair and sighed, taking a sip of her coffee, she really needed to get some sleep soon. “Can I help you, Mister Adders?” She asked, keeping her tone light.

He winced, “That one of your eye’s abilities?” He asked.

“You could say that,” Sonya said with an easy smile.

He took a deep breath and lowered his voice, “I’m like you,” He whispered, “I got hit by that light and… whoom!”

She gave him a deadpan look, “Whoom?”

“Yeah! Whoom!” He exclaimed, drawing a few looks, he winced and lowered his head, “Uh… I can like… make fire, and light stuff up.”

She narrowed her eyes, Adders, fire, her eyes widened momentarily before she controlled herself. V N Adders was the internally known name of the hero Firestorm, a horrendously powerful hero from her memory and one of the bigger players in the American Heroes Guild. He was a big name! Or would be a big name, eventually. What on earth was he doing in a smaller city in North Carolina? More importantly, how do I get him to shake my hand? she thought, a small pang of hunger was already building in her. To have Firestorm’s ability as one of her ‘products’ would be incredibly useful in the future.

“Impressive,” Sonya said with a smile, “I’m afraid my eyes aren’t nearly that special.”

“It’s not your eyes I’m interested in!” He corrected her, earnestness on his face. “Please, I need your help!” She frowned, Sonya knew for a fact that Firestorm only had one power, so he couldn’t have identified her abilities. So what was he so interested in? He seemed to notice her guarded expression so he lowered his voice even more, “I saw you heal that kid at the hospital. Can you do it again?”

Her eyebrows shot up, “...you saw that?”

“A few people did, but it was so crowded I’m pretty sure only I saw your face. I kinda… followed… you here,” He started to turn red as Sonya scrutinized him. “...sorry.”

She sighed, “Whatever, let’s say I can, what do you want, and what’s in it for me?”

He slapped his hands to his knees and bowed his head, “I need you to help my dad, please! We can work something out I’m sure!”

It took every ounce of strength for her not to grin, she extended her hand to him, “I can at the very least have a look,” She said, her eyes ticking ominously in her head.

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick