Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

+ Rina Carmen

Jack shrugged, they were fairly sure that it would take to long to explain the principle behind the device, and even if they managed to, the woman probably wouldn't understand it. "Or something."

The comment about her arrival seemed to be a hint, at least judging from the apparent amusement in her voice. Jack was less amused, their stomach still ached, even if kicking their erstwhile assailants had lent some salve to the wounds to their pride. Jack was smart enough to get it. Maybe she'd dropped from the roof, her clear enhanced resilience would have fit that situation. On the other hand, it was possible that she'd received a power that granted her more than simple increased strength.

They held out a pale, slender hand. "Jack, I appreciate your help."

This stranger had effectively saved their limbs, if not their life. And the three men heaped on the ground were testament to that fact. Jack certainly needed to keep an eye on this strange Raven, if this was the way she introduced herself into a new city it shouldn't be hard to establish a history for the woman.

"What can I do to pay you back?"

Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

+ CBE-177/"Anna"

Jack had watched carefully as 177 had collected the bags of blood from the corner. They didn't comment, but they could read the hunger from her face. The woman was normally so controlled that it was surprising to see her reaction to the plastic bags. Jack had suspected that the blood might be a potential control for the woman, but not to this extent. The feral rage she had displayed during the attacks had been out of character, at least up until that point.

They had suspected that there might be a savage side to her, but her origin had proven difficult to divine. It was as if she had simply appeared. What little they knew of her history came predominantly from the woman herself, and only sparse reports they had managed to gather. That made them uncomfortable. Jack was used to being the one with information at their fingertips, and in this data-driven world it was an unusual situation indeed to find someone without a data trail at all.

Old soviet records were famously opaque, but even so they had hoped to make more progress by this point. A few of their leads seemed to be panning out, but it was slow going, and they found such ponderous progress frustrating.

Gathering the blood bags together, they returned them to the plastic crate they had carried them in originally. They paused at a thought. "It seemed that you used up the last blood fairly swiftly. Can you feel how much power you have left?"

Stepping smartly away from the table with the box of blood, they gave it a nod, their intent clear.

Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

+ CBE-177/"Anna"

So Anna could control any new powers they gained through blood, but struggled to do so when she had more than on ability. Metahumans that could imitate or replicate the abilities of others were extremely rare, and Anna's experience demonstrated why Mother Nature may have taken a pass when it came to that specific evolution.

Jack resisted the urge to rub their various sore spots. It would have taken some time for a start. They didn’t bother collecting the various scattered bags of blood or sheets of paper from the floor. They paid Anna a substantial salary, so collecting those items should really be included in that.

They turned their attention back to the diminutive soviet super weapon.

Jack shoved a hand into their pocket, producing what most would call a phone, or if older, a smartphone. In truth, the object was far beyond what any normal human could call smart. Still, it was capable of recording a lot more than your average iPhone. They pointed one of its many sensors in the direction of Anna, holding it for a moment before bringing it closer to their face to inspect the results. That done, they placed it carefully on the leaning table, before hunting around the room for the items they had brought with them.

Eventually they found the blood kit they had brought. Fortunately it was in a hard case, and only one of the needles seemed to have received any damage. They closed it again and tossed the case to Anna. "I need four vials." Jack went back to their phone, picking it up and click through a few different sensor suites before running it over the table leg that Anna had frozen. They muttered to themselves, glancing in the direction of the scattered blood bags. They clearly wished to continue immediately. That seemed unlikely however, so they would have to settle on other avenues of exploration for now.

"How much does the ice affect you? Can you feel the cold?"

Their notes indicated that the metahuman the blood had come from no longer seemed to feel the effects of extreme cold, and as such was totally immune to their own ability. Did that immunity extend to Anna? Or did she only gain part of the power?

Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

+ CBE-177/"Anna"

Jack, on the other hand, was not smiling. Instead they looked less than impressed. Their t-shirt was torn, and the jeans they were wearing weren’t in much better condition. Worse was the blemish on their temple which was already starting to colour. It would be bruised black before the end of the day.

They rubbed at the blemish, wincing as it stung at the touch. They had hit the floor, or the ceiling, at least three times. It was hard to keep track of, after all, each time they had been flung into one it had felt like it should have been the floor. Anna had clearly lost control of her ability, or had intentionally allowed it to go haywire. The latter seemed more likely, as Anna had regained her feet.

The room looked like it had accidentally strayed into Kansas. One of the tables, and both of the chairs had been reduced to matchwood, while the other leaned drunkenly at an angle, its contents had been strewn about the room however. At least it wouldn't be too much effort to pick up, though 177 and Cory would have to reassemble several of the now toppled pieces of gym equipment the room had been furnished with.

They glared at Anna, "A little warning would have been appreciated."

Still, at least they had an idea now of what had gone on, it seemed that the blood had provided Anna with a specific reservoir of power to use. In her panic she had used up all of that reservoir, seemingly allowing her more control of the second power she had replicated.

"So you have control now?"

Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

The room was large, well appointed, and airy. With its large windows, natural light poured across it. The three siblings were stood side by side, in order of age. Their age was clear enough through their height. The tallest, and therefore eldest, a boy, had close cropped blonde hair and an air of arrogance about him. The next was shorter, though only by a few inches. She was slim, with a faint smile on her face. The final, the particular object of our story, is shorter than both, and while thin, is thin in a particularly gangly way that suggests they have not yet grown into their limbs. Their hair is dark, messy and falling down over their eyes, such that they frequently need to brush it out of the way.

They do so, returning their hand to their pocket once their vision is no longer obscured. They are slouching, dressed in direct contrast to the other two. Instead of shirt or blouse, they wear an oversized t-shirt adorned with an equally inappropriate slogan. Their jeans are stained, and at odds with their sibling's more formal attire.

The three have been stood like this for some ten minutes, awaiting the arrival of the one who summoned them, their father. The door clicks open, and all three stiffen, standing straighter, though this was difficult in the case of the two elder siblings. The youngest grimaces, suggesting that their position is one they would not have chosen themselves.

The man who enters is tall, though the eldest is clearly catching up to him. He has a long face, sharp cheekbones, and the sort of figure that suggests he once was an athlete, now running to fat with his increasing age. He didn't look at the three individuals awaiting him, instead moving across to the large, heavy desk that dominated the space.

He sat, inspecting a few papers for a moment before finally looking up.

His eyes passed across the three individuals without comment, though they lingered disapprovingly on the last and youngest figure for a moment longer than was perhaps necessary. They were cold blue eyes that conjured images of white witches and contract killers before they made one think of a father figure. His face was impassive, betraying nothing. It never did. Emmanuel Fontaine was a man of control. He rarely expressed intense emotion, or emotion at all.

"Well?"

His tone likewise held no warmth to his progeny, demanding absolute attention and obedience, while giving little in return.

"You know your task. You may begin."

Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

+ David Lucas

+ Brian Harris

Jack made a habit of keeping an eye on metahumans. Of course that had been theoretically much easier before the Event, but they had been much more moderated in terms of what they had been permitted to carry out. Their father had always admired ambition and initiative, but not, it seemed, when it came to his youngest child. Now though, their resources were considerably less limited, the Fontaine family was extremely wealthy, but the patriarch kept a tight grip on the reins of that fortune. Now Jack's money was their own. Several patents under various pseudonyms and the simple game that was the stock market meant they were rarely wanting for anything. Although getting hold of strontium-90 had been a little less convenient.

Now though, their routine checks and scanning's of San Francisco had turned up something interesting. David Lucas had already been on the radar, albeit at a low level. There had been several references to concerns about him in emails, private messages and the like that had perked Jack's interest, though not enough to maintain it when there were so many other things to follow. This was why they had created Erys, though that project had ultimately proved too much of a success to allow to continue. Erys would have been able to further investigate individuals like David once Jack lost interest. No, Jack's internet scrapers, simple dumb routines programmed to identify unusual traffic and activity had noticed a certain uptick in the young man's searches for scrap metal, ordering of appliances and the like. That and several large purchases on a credit card had perked the young meta's interest. After all, who needed three different microwaves, two clocks, an iron and a half-dozen blenders.

Mr Lucas was building something.

That made things much more interesting. Gadgets weren't particularly common metahumans, and they certainly hadn't been respected before the Event. To find another one was a rare pleasure, though usually that pleasure soured when Jack realised they were simply that, Gadgets. Jack's ability had developed so early that it had become inextricably a part of who they were, developed their intellect to a point that there were few individuals who could hold their attention for more than a few minutes at a time. It didn't stop them looking all the same.

And so they found themselves outside the warehouse. It should have been empty, there was no one registered to the lease, and hadn't been for at least five years. That much was obvious, as even from outside one could tell the state of disrepair it had fallen into. Yet the lights were on, and a steady, two beat thump could be hear from somewhere deep inside.

Pulling their bag around and extracting a small circular device with wires trailing from it, Jack stepped inside. They felt their heart quicken as they stepped inside. Though their was a large device in the centre, and two figures beside it, that was not where their gaze was first drawn. In the corner, connected to a generator was a small device of archaic and clearly metahuman origin. It was clockwork, whirring mass of metal, gears and springs. It was that device that was apparently the source of the heartbeat. Jack saw few things they couldn't understand instantly, but this was stretching even their mighty intellect.

Eventually, and with some effort, they pried their eyes away from the machine, turning them back to the two individuals and the new machine taking shape. It seemed the larger man was clearly not the Gadget at work here, judging by the tool they had picked up instead of a socket wrench. Jack mentally ran through the metahumans in San Francisco, finally turning up a Brian Harris that seemed to match the description, though they weren't sure why they had a dog. Presumably a new development they hadn't bothered to avail themselves of when he had turned out to be uninteresting.

"That's a block plane, he won't be tightening anything with that."

Nobody

Don't you know who I think I am?

+ CBE-177/"Anna"

That Anna resorted to her phone suggested that what she was experiencing was of a certain degree of complexity. Her grasp of sign language, though confident, clearly wasn't enough to express exactly how the power felt.

Jack rolled their eyes once they felt a grip on their angle, and a pull that set them rotating gently in the air. Upon one rotation they saw Anna wiping her mouth clean, clearly having ingested the contents of another bag. That brought a frown to their face, they hadn't intended that she might drink as much of it as she liked, it would hardly make her more controllable after all.

A moment later and Jack's stomach jumped as their body fell suddenly in the opposite direction. They landed awkwardly, stumbling, but keeping their feet, just. They were surprised as Anna fell upwards towards the ceiling once more. So ingesting the fresh blood had interrupted her stolen ability somewhat, but not removed it entirely.

Had it come with an additional ability?

Ice exploded across the ceiling.

Apparently so.

The ice continued to spread, spiderwebbing with abandon from wherever Anna's fingers made contact with something else. It was impressive, until Anna shot a worried glance in their direction. No matter what she did it seemed, the ice continued to spread.

Jack backed away, getting cocooned in ice was not something they had planned on today. Unfortunately it seemed that Anna did not have an immunity to the power she had manifested. Annoyingly though, she was still on the ceiling. Jack wasn't exactly tall, and they certainly weren't athletic.

They gestured to her quickly, "Get off the ceiling. It's spreading from contact, float in the air like before."

Hopefully that would at least slow the spread of ice and give them more time to think.