Yeah here he is sorry

I woke up. My chest hurt. I looked around. I was in a hospital bed, and Ava was there in a chair beside me, scrolling her phone. She was eating a meatball sub.

“Ava? Where am I?”

She looked at me, marinara sauce dribbling down her chin. She wiped the mess with a napkin and scoffed.

“Bitch, look around; where do you think you are?”

I looked around stupidly. It was obviously a hospital. Duh.

“Okay, better question: why am I here?”

She laughed. “Much better. You got shot. Robbery. I asked some questions… sounded like you were a real hero.”

“Hero?”

“Yeah, they’re saying you stood up for some deaf old lady. Saved her from some huge ex-army guys. Pretty cool of you.” Ava gave me a genuine smile.

I looked down. I had a hospital gown on. I peaked underneath and saw the stitches where I’d been shot. I don’t know much about anatomy, but it seemed to be over my heart. That couldn’t have been good.

“You almost died. You’re lucky to be here.” She said with a much more serious cadence.

“Ava, how much do you know about guns?” I asked, still looking at myself. The memory of the events started coming back.

“Guns? Not much. Why?”

“Well, it was weird. The guy… he shot me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s what guns are for.”

“No, no, I mean… he shot me a lot. He had two guns. He had this big one at first, and he unloaded a magazine into my chest. I shouldn’t have one bullet, I should have forty. I should be dead. I… I don’t…”

“Shh… it’s okay. You are alive. That’s all that matters, yeah?” She attempted to soothe me. “You must be misremembering things.”

“No, you don’t get it. I’m not upset or confused on being alive from the gunshot. I mean that there should be way more. I mean, this shot was from a pistol; the big gun should have been way more powerful. I can see that he hit me. Look at all these bruises on my chest, that’s where he hit me. I’m… it’s not like I had a fucking bullet proof vest on. But the bullets just left fucking bruises?! So… what the hell happened?”

Ava looked concerned. She stood up and peeked into the hallway, making sure no one was close by. She closed the door and locked it. You can lock hospital doors? Seems unsafe.

“Michael: I need you to be completely honest with me. Are you completely sure about this?” She asked. She grabbed her phone and started texting furiously.

“Yes. I remember everything so vividly. I’d been… I was surprised I was even alive. The second gun caught me off guard when it actually got me.”

“Michael…” she started before stopping, thinking to herself. “Fuck. Okay: I haven’t gotten your tests back, they’re with a doctor I’m friends with. Clearly something is up with you. That’s…” she huffed. “We‘ll need those tests back before anything.”

“Before anything… what? What do you mean?”

“I mean before anything! I’m not… fuck, man.” She sat back down and put her head in her hands.

She took a breath and sat back up. “Okay… I’m going to go talk to my friend about your bloodwork.”

She quickly stood up and went to the door, unlocking it. She was clearly unsure of whatever she was thinking.

Before the left, she said one last thing. “Whatever I’m thinking happened… I hope it’s not the case, Michael.” Then she was gone.

What did she think? Did she think I was schizophrenic? I was spouting nonsense of being bulletproof. I wasn’t…

Was I?

I wasn’t lying, I could see it clearly. I knew what happened had happened. I could almost still feel the punches of each shot as they hit me.

I know they make those non-lethal rubber bullet things, right? Like the ones they use at, like, riots? But even enough of those would do something. And, considering the surprise from the guy, I had a feeling it wasn’t those rubber ones.

So… what? What did that mean? Was this the result of the shit Vocx was putting in me? Was that a good thing? Should I tell Hana? Did the people already know?

Why did Ava act like that? Why was she here? She wasn’t my emergency contact or anything.

Okay, wait: she worked here. That was a query I could answer. She probably saw me when I was brought in.

That didn’t explain her locking the door. From where I stood, it looked as though she was going to tell me something other people couldn’t hear. She’d decided against it, though…. I had to wonder why.

My thoughts swirled in my head as I waited for Ava to return. I wish I could see what she was going.

-

(POV - AVA)

I left Michael in the room. I wanted to tell him about us, but… if he was misremembering, and I told him… we didn’t have a protocol for that.

Admittedly, I wanted him to be wrong. We weren’t close, but I didn’t want to bring him into our world. Especially if his job had a handle over him. We worked under the table, I didn’t want to be a corporate-type-

Doesn’t matter. No point thinking about any of that until I knew what the test said. One step at a time.

I got to Adams’ office. Diplomas lined the walls. He was hunched over a microscope, presumably looking at Michael’s blood sample I’d gathered. He nodded to me as I entered.

“So… what’s Michael’s deal?”

He took of his spectacles and rubbed his temple. “I can’t be certain. I’ve been running tests; something’s up, but his DNA isn’t misshapen the same way yours or the others’ are. It’s… different. ‘Reactive’ would be the best word for it.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, walking over to the microscope and looking through. Nothing looked up to me, but I wasn’t nearly as smart as Adams.

“Keep watching.” He said.

As I looked, I saw Adams bring a syringe into frame. He stabbed at the blood, and nothing happened. It just dipped into the pool of red, just as you’d expect.

“I don’t-“

“Keep watching.” He interrupted. He poked at the blood again.

This time, it was like he was poking a solid surface. I could hear what sounded like two pieces of metal hitting each other. The tip of the syringe broke off.

“You see? His blood reacts. I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s strange is it only reacts if it’s aware of the danger.” Adams explained.

“Fuck.” I said, looking away from the microscope. The worst had been confirmed.

Michael wasn’t lying.

-

Hey, hope you’re enjoying! It seems like people are? I’m finally trying to leak in some superhero stuff… took me long enough, eh?