As soon as the maid led me to the living room and I got my first look at the little girl, I could tell the child was dying.� She was sitting on an overstuffed, white suede couch with brown fringy pillows all around her, at the back of a living room that looked like something out of House Beautiful, all tall wide windows and understated elegance in brown and beige and gold and white. She was maybe about seven, if her disease hadn't undersized her, feet dangling off the couch and not moving. When children whose feet are dangling are not kicking those feet, and there is neither a book nor a TV nearby to explain the discrepancy, I can generally tell something is wrong. Her blonde curly wig was as expensive as the d�cor of her parents' living room, but I'm an expert in these matters � I could tell the chemo had taken her hair. And her skin was dull and dry looking, her eyes vague and unfocused, her expression indrawn and blank, her small limbs painfully skinny.� She showed all the signs of either being abused, drugged, or severely ill, and given that her father had called me in, I knew that at least it was the last. Probably the second as well.� The pharmaceutical industry has never solved the problem of stopping children's pain to my satisfaction (or, for that matter, the children's.)

Her mother would have been an elegantly plastic politician's wife if she hadn't been sitting tensely at the edge of the sofa, arm around her daughter, clutching the child. Fear and anxiety make even women with $500 haircuts and botoxed foreheads seem human. I'd already forgotten the woman's name; after checking over the daughter with a quick glance, I turned to focus on her father. Senator John Lightman, one of those politicians who manages to look "boyish" simply by being a thin dark-haired man in his prime when everyone else in the Senate is somewhere between 60 and dead, was walking toward me, reaching out a hand as if to shake it. I saw the look of puzzlement cross his face as he got a good look at me. "Are you..."

"Dr. Mystery?" I filled in the blank. "Yes, of course, I apologize. You couldn't possibly recognize me like this."� I had arrived in a stock form, a middle-aged woman of average height, weight and appearance with blonde graying hair in a short fluffy do.� I couldn't very well drive around town in my working form, but now that I was here, it was time to shock and awe the mundanes.� With a thought, I transformed.

When I first adopted this as my working form, it used to take me ten or twenty minutes in front of a mirror to get it just right, because it doesn't look human enough for me to use DNA as a model anywhere � I have to brute-force it. But by this time I'd been doing it for so many years, it took only a few seconds. Changing doesn't hurt � it feels like having a really good stretch, actually.�

In a moment, I was six feet tall, simultaneously busty and thin, with the golden skin of an Academy award, iris-less purple eyes with cat pupils, and flame-red hair down to the small of my back.� I wore a skin-tight black leather catsuit with no shoes, and modified pelvis and leg muscles so I looked like I was wearing high heels even though I was barefoot � an anatomic impossibility for other women, but there's no point in having total control over your own flesh if you can't use it to show off a little.� To complete the costume I grew a white cotton labcoat over the catsuit; not exactly a cape, but the name is Doctor Mystery, not Ms. Mystery or Lady Mystery or Sexy Chick I'd Like To Do Mystery.�

Being a supervillain's all about the power and the respect.� Back when my working form wasn't quite so do-me hot, I actually used to get less respect as a villain, as if a woman couldn't possibly really be all that mad, bad and dangerous to know if she doesn't look like a supermodel.� But when I do the catsuit without the lab coat, I get respect as a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, not as a biomedical genius.� Not that I'm not a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, but I'm not a teen thug for hire anymore, I'm a bona fide mad scientist and I want people to remember that, dammit.�

Mrs. Lightman's eyes went wide, and she made a tiny little yelping noise and clutched her little girl... who rather than looking frightened, actually looked mildly interested for the first time since I'd arrived.� Her dad was trying to hide it, but his lips had compressed as if he were trying not to bite them and there was just the tiniest tremor in his hands.� I expected Mrs. Lightman's reaction, but the Senator could have gone one of two ways � men usually react to me with fear or lust, or a combination.� I didn't think I saw lust in Senator Lightman, and when I took his hand and shook it, I confirmed it.� He was on the verge of peeing his pants.� I might have believed he wasn't reacting with any lust because he really had eyes only for his wife, if he weren't a politician.� But I've known very few male politicians to be faithful, and even they couldn't avoid being lustful.� Senator Lightman was terrified of me because I was a Proxima and he was a Sapien-centric bigot.� Also, probably, because I was a supervillain and a killer and I could drop him dead in a second, turn him inside out, make the skin melt off his flesh or give him cancer, just from the touch of his hand in mine.� But I suspected I'd have gotten the same reaction if I'd been a member of the Peace Force, or even a Girl Scout with purple eyes and gold skin trying to sell him cookies.� He hated my kind, but he needed me today.

And I intended to use his need to my people's advantage.

"Introduce me to your family, Senator," I said.

I felt his adrenaline spike through the skin connection of our clasped hands, but he managed not to show it.� He let go of me.� "This is my wife, Dot, and our daughter Mindy.� She's eight."

I walked over to Mindy and knelt down in front of her, prompting more tension and white knuckles from her mother clasping her.� "Hello, Mindy," I said.

"Hi," she mumbled.

"Do you know who I am?"

"My daddy says you're some kind of super doctor."

Super doctor. I liked that.� "He's right.� I'm here to help you.� I imagine you've gotten real tired of being sick."

She smiled wanly.� "Yeah."

"Let me have your hands."

"Will it hurt?"� Her tone was tired and apathetic, as if it didn't really matter if it was going to hurt or not.� I suspected it was more resignation than apathy.

"Not at all."� I smiled at her.� "I'm a super doctor, remember?� It doesn't hurt if I don't want it to."�

She gave me her small hands and I clasped them in mine. �I can't entirely describe what I feel when I examine a living creature, not in terms that refer to the senses everyone else has.� It's like feeling a symphony or hearing a tapestry.� Everything is very complex and interrelated, and I get signals from thousands of processes in the body, but it all melds together into a single big picture.� The big picture here was that Mindy's body was attacking itself.� Her bone marrow was busily churning out cancerous white blood cells that didn't work, filling her bloodstream with useless cells that crowded out and starved the working, useful ones.� The pain signals were overwhelming even with the drugs trying to mask them, and the drugs themselves were dulling her mind as much as the fatigue and weakness from the disease.

Like many terminally ill children, she was quiet and accepting, which is constantly mistaken in glurgy human interest stories about terminally ill children for bravery.� Children who go out with scarves on their bald heads and run lemonade stands to raise money to research and cure their own illnesses are brave.� Children who are too tired to feel fear and have been living with a disease too long to cry about it are just normal human beings.� Mindy was a normal human being, and her leukemia was also perfectly normal, something I'd dealt with a hundred times before.�

I closed my eyes so I could focus better on Mindy's internal world.� First I triggered the release of endorphins into her bloodstream to mask any pain caused by what I was about to do.� The human body rebels against my power, seeing my authority as a violation of its autonomy, and frequently reacts by tattling to the brain about it in a way that the mind perceives as agonizing, but unspecific, pain.� As I told Mindy, though, no one feels pain in my hands unless I allow it.� As soon as her body was saturated with endorphins and I'd shut down most of the internal sensory trunk lines to the brain, making her internally numb while leaving her ability to sense anything touching her skin, I swept my concentration through her body and killed every immature white blood cell she had.� I then targeted the surviving mature white cells and forced them to rapidly replicate and mature, until she had almost a normal white blood cell count and they all worked correctly.

To finish off, I blocked the drugs that hadn't been working so well anyway, turned the internal nerves back on, and filled Mindy with a combination of endorphin and oxytocin, and other hormones designed to make people feel good.� This particular cocktail wouldn't have sexual effects � Mindy's brain lacked some of the structures needed to process that, yet, and I always took great care with children not to do anything inappropriate to their age.� After what my own father did to me... well, I may be a supervillain, but I am not a child molester, and that makes me better than he was.� What I was going for � what I always gave the children I treated � can be best described, if you remember being a kid, as the excitement from knowing you're about to go to an amusement park, coupled with the pleasure you get from eating ice cream, and all that combined with the warm snuggly feeling you get when you're cuddled with your parents.� Mindy wouldn't know why, in the future, she looked forward to my visits and felt very warm and positive emotions toward me.� She would just know that seeing Dr. Mystery would be the coolest thing ever, and just my presence would be more fun than any doctor's office lollipop ever was.

Combine such warm and pleasant emotions with the freakish physical appearance of an obvious Proxima, and Mindy would not grow up to share her dad's bigotry, even if he tried to teach it to her.

"Mindy?" Dot Lightman asked, her voice trembling slightly.� "Are you all right?"

Mindy lifted her head.� Her skin didn't look any better, of course � I hadn't done any cosmetic work � but her eyes were refocusing, turning bright and engaged.� "Mommy?� I feel good, Mommy.� I think the doctor fixed me!"

With my endorphin cocktail chasing away her fatigue temporarily, she leapt to her feet.� "Thank you, Super Doctor Mystery!� I feel all better!"� She twirled around, perhaps to prove to all of us that she was fully healed... and stumbled.� "Whoa, dizzy!"

"Slow up there, kiddo," I said.� "You're not cured.� You feel a lot better and you're going to be a lot better, but you've spent a couple of years being sick and you're not going to be back to your full strength overnight.� Take it easy."

"Is she�is she going to be cured?" her mother asked, looking at me, her lower lip trembling.

"She's much healthier, right now.� But no, as I said, I haven't cured her yet.� I triggered a temporary remission and bolstered her immune system to compensate for what the disease did to it, so she needn't suffer while she's waiting for a full cure."� I turned to Senator Lightman.� "To cure her, I'll need to perform three treatments, about two months apart.� The cost will be $8,000 per treatment.� When we're done, not only won't she have leukemia, but the genetic potential for cancer will be purged from her system, so it will be very, very unlikely that she ever get any cancer-like disease again.� Short of living on top of a radioactive landfill, of course, but you understand what I mean."

"Oh, God...." Mrs. Lightman started to cry.� "Oh, God, thank you..."

"Don't cry, Mommy," Mindy said, and gave her mom a hug.� "It's good news. Don't cry."

"I'm crying because I'm so happy," Mrs. Lightman said.

"I�I don't know what to say, Doctor.� You have a deal.� I'd pay anything to save Mindy's life, and your prices... well, they're much more reasonable than I was led to assume.� I'd pay more than that for hospital treatments, even with the insurance."� I was pretty sure this was a fib � Senators get damn good health insurance.� But of course Lightman belonged to the party that thought that health insurance was a privilege, not a right, and downplaying the high quality of his own state-sponsored insurance was probably a reflex by this point.�

I smiled at him.� "That's because most of my payment is non-monetary."

"Non-monetary?"

"Let's go have a discussion, Senator.� I imagine you must have a private office in this house somewhere?"

His wife gave me a hard-eyed look. I returned her look with an "oh, please" expression, just the slightest of eye rolls and sardonic smile.� "There's nothing you can say to me that you can't say in front of my wife," Lightman said, his voice hardening.

"Yes, there is," I said, pleasantly.� "You want to tell her all about it when we're done talking, that's your prerogative.� But I am here to negotiate with a United States Senator, not a husband or a father."

He stiffened.� "All right," he said slowly.� "We can go downstairs to the den."

"Is it�is it going to be all right?" Dot Lightman asked her husband.

"I don't see that I have much choice, Dot," he said.� "She's the only hope Mindy has.� You know that."

"Mommy? Can I play outside?"

"Sure.� Sure thing," Dot said, her voice breaking again.� "I'll play with you."

"Don't let her overexert herself," I said.� "As I said, she's better, not cured, and even if she were cured she'd still need time to recover her energy. She wants to run around and play now because she's not in pain, but she actually still does need to save her strength."

"We'll go for a walk," Dot said.� "How's that sound, Mindy?"

"Sure, Mommy. We can do that."

"The den is this way," Senator Lightman said.

It was a typical suburban finished basement, not nearly as fancy looking as the living room, if you didn't count the huge projection television.� I perched on the still-nice-but-obviously-worn couch, sitting on the back of it.� "Let's get down to it, Senator," I said.� "You're a member of the Committee to Analyze Parahuman Activity.� You're aware as well as I am that the United States government has been investigating or implementing various techniques to control or eliminate the Proxima population, including laws to create a registry for us as if we're sex offenders, black ops soldiers with power suits to hunt us down, attempting to find cures for us like we're a disease, secret databases being maintained in an attempt to identify us in the absence of a registry law... so on and so forth."� I didn't mention the biowarfare; people who didn't live through being imprisoned in a government research facility and watching others being injected with various tailored viruses have a tendency to assume that government biowarfare is the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theories, and I doubted anyone had actually let Congress know what was going on there.� The others, I was pretty sure he'd been briefed on, if not actively involved with.� "And you're an active supporter of the Human Definition Amendment, which would deprive us of any human rights whatsoever on the basis of junk science."

The faintest beading of sweat broke out on his forehead.� "The United States government hasn't taken any illegal actions to �control' the Proxima population, as you put it, and certainly not to eliminate you.� You must understand, however, that we do have the right and the duty to protect normal humans from people like..."

He hesitated just a moment too long. "Me?"

"I was going to say, people like Caesar Primus or Optometron.� But if the rumors about your activities are true, then yes, you.� Weren't you some sort of assassin?� An enforcer for a drug lord?"

While technically the description was almost true, the idea of describing David as a "drug lord" almost made me laugh.� Almost.� I don't actually have a lot of a sense of humor when it comes to David.� "And I was rehabilitated by the Peace Force and today I'm a fine, upstanding citizen who cures little girls of leukemia," I said.�

"That isn't a lot of comfort to the families of the people you killed."

"Maybe not.� But if I'd been killed by American soldiers in power suits then, your daughter would be out of luck now, wouldn't she?"� I slid off the back of the couch and paced around him.� "And this isn't about me.� How many people were saved when the Irregulars stopped that second plane from crashing into the Trade Towers?� When they held up the collapsing building so the firefighters could get out?� When the Peace Force shored up the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina so the city didn't flood, or when Maui's volcano went active and they shut it down again?"� The Senator didn't actually need to know that was a plot of Professor Octohedron's, if he didn't already. The Peace Force hadn't actually broadcast the fact that the disaster had been caused by a Proxima in the first place; I only knew about it because Octohedron continued to believe that he could get into my pants if only he could impress me enough, and he hadn't actually ever managed to figure out that I wasn't impressed by grandiose plots to take over the world by threatening to activate volcanoes.� "You might owe your life to a Proxima. You are about to owe your daughter's life.� So I want your support for our basic human rights.� Oppose the Parahuman Registry, oppose the research to kill us or break us of our powers, and oppose the Human Definition Amendment."

"The Human Definition Amendment isn't designed to take away your human rights," he said.� "It's designed to clarify the rights you do have.� I mean, there have to be different ways to handle you people vs. the rest of us.� Remember when the ACLU sued on behalf of the Heat Miser?� They said that it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep him continuously drugged in prison. And as soon as they won and the drugs were withdrawn, his powers came back and he burned the prison down. 700 people were killed, over 100 guards and the rest of them human inmates, who'd been sentenced to serve time in jail for their crimes, not to burn to death."

"Then you redefine cruel and unusual punishment to state that methods intended to block Proximas from using superhuman powers to escape from prison are not cruel and are perfectly usual.� Passing an amendment to the Constitution that declares that Proximas aren't human is overkill."

"It actually declares that humans belong to the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, and that the law should not be automatically extended to grant human rights to people who can destroy our entire planet with a thought just because some bleeding heart doesn't think they deserve to go to jail for killing hundreds of people."

"Yes, and by declaring that Homo sapiens promixus does not count as human, it effectively says that we're not, and we can be shot on sight with no one but the ASPCA to worry about our murders, let alone suffer discrimination in every part of our lives.� You do not live with the reality of what being defined as non-human means, Senator.� I do."

"And you, Doctor, don't live with the reality of inhabiting a world filled with creatures who can kill you with a thought, steal everything you own, destroy your home without even touching it, or make you believe that up is down and black is white."�

I could argue that last point, if I wanted to be a smartass � I lived in the world where there was conservative talk radio, and it had convinced any number of people that up was down and black was white. �But that would be sidetracking.� "True.� But you're so focused on perceiving yourself as a victim of the existence of Proximas that you've given no thought to what it would be like to be one of us. And you really should.� Because you have a child, Senator, and she is too young to be confirmed as Sapien or Proxima.� You don't know what she is, and you're just assuming she's Sapien.� What if she's Proxima?"

He blinked.� "Well, of course I�but she doesn't have anything in her background � I mean neither her mother nor I have anything unusual, genetically�"

"No one knows what's causing the sudden explosion in powered humans, Senator, but we do know that it's some type of mutation.� 90% of Proximas have parents who were Sapien.� And the number is that low only because some of us have started having kids.� If your daughter was a Proxima with two fully Sapien parents, she'd be in the same boat as most Proximas. Including me.� So you really need to think about it."

"Well, I � I certainly wouldn't treat Mindy any differently if she were � but if she were, you'd know, wouldn't you?"

"I didn't check for it.� But I could, yes."

"Well, if she turned out to be, you could just fix it, right?� As part of the treatment?"

I stared at him as if I'd just found him on my shoe.� "Of course I could. And if she was black, I could make her white and blonde and blue-eyed. And I could change her into a boy if you decided you really wanted a son.� Have you any idea how offensive what you just said is?"

"I � I didn't mean to give offense.� I just want Mindy to have a normal life."

"Most Proximas do. I don't look like this all the time, Senator.� When I'm not treating hopeless cases, I live in a nice little townhouse, with two cats and a cockatiel.� I go dancing with men friends on weekends, I buy groceries, I do my laundry.� I choose to look like this when I'm treating people like your daughter, because I have no desire to be kidnapped and pressed into the service of crime lords or the government."

"Why would the government kidnap you?� Proximas have rights.� If you've served your time for your previous crimes, and committed no new ones--"

"--I would still have the power to make old men young, cure impotence and infertility, heal disease and scarring, change people's appearances... come on now, Senator, don't be naive.� If you had a way to make me heal your daughter without paying my price, you'd do it.� And I think you're basically a good man, who's concerned for the child he loves.� Can you say none of your colleagues would want me to heal them?� To restore lost youth, or whatever they had lost?"� I thought of the white room then, the snipers with guns outside ready to blow my head off if the important old men screaming under my hands didn't get up and walk free completely healed when I was done. Never again.�

"I... suppose power corrupts.� There are some bad elements in any system, but that doesn't mean the system is evil."

"I didn't say the system was evil.� I said it's not designed to protect people like me.� And if you and your fellows have their way, it'll be even harder for me to live a normal, safe life."� I shook my head.� "We're sidetracking.� If Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, she could still have an entirely normal and happy life, so long as you didn't reject her for it and the government didn't kill her for it."

"I would never reject Mindy.� No matter what.� If-- if she was a parahuman--"

"Then your opinions on appropriate treatment of Proximas would be rather different, wouldn't they?"

He sighed.� "Look, I have a constituency, Doctor Mystery.� They elected me into office to protect them and serve them, and they have ideas as to what constitutes doing that.� If I do something that they don't approve of, I won't have the power they've given me for very long."

I flopped down on his couch again.� "Oh, baloney.� You mean that if you can't fearmonger about hidden Proximas living among us and the draconian measures the Daddy State will take under your watch to protect the poor scared soccer moms and NASCAR dads, you can't get elected."� I sat up and leaned forward.� "It's all bullshit. The tide of history always favors greater human rights, greater freedoms, greater protections for minorities vs. mobs.� And it always works out better in the end that way.� I understand that you have to protect yourself from lunatics who shoot death rays out of their elbows, but you know, you also have to protect yourself from lunatics who break into the McDonalds' with a gun and start shooting people, and somehow it was your party who decided it was an unacceptable infringement on your freedom to hunt, shoot intruders, and generally feel like manly men to make people undergo background checks to get assault weapons."

"The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms."

"The Constitution wouldn't say that if you passed an amendment redefining a �well-regulated militia' as the National Guard.� Which I'm not saying you should.� I'm in favor of your right to protect yourself with a gun. I'm in favor of your right to shoot animals for fun if you feel like it; I'm a Darwinist and you're a predator.� It's in your genes.� Go shoot deer if you want.� But the Constitution currently states that I am a human being, because it doesn't say that I'm not, and I was born in the United States to two human beings, share 99.9% of my DNA with you, speak your language, look like you, and have sex with you.� Well, not you personally, but Sapiens men.� So if it's so vitally important to preserve the right to bear arms, because it's in the Constitution, that it's okay to let sociopaths get guns and shoot up college campuses, then it is vastly more important to make sure that every child born in this country to human parents is defined as human.�

"If you pass this Definition of Humanity amendment in order to protect your constituency, and Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, then she can be raped and her rapist could be charged with bestiality at best, because she wouldn't be legally a child who can be molested, she'd be legally an animal. She could be killed, and the most her killer could be charged with is animal cruelty. No school would have to take her, no hospital would have to treat her diseases, no restaurant would have to let her in to eat with you.� You would have to fight a battle to get her treated in a way that you humans take for granted, every time.� Want her to die in a car accident because the paramedics didn't want to treat a Proxima?� Want her to die in a fire because the firefighters didn't want to risk themselves going into a burning building for someone who isn't even human?� There are better ways to defend Sapiens than making it legally open season on us."

"But you're against those too. The Parahuman Registry would allow us to track dangerous people without having to deprive any of you of basic civil rights."

"Except I've never heard of a version of it suggesting that only parahuman criminals be added to the registry."

"Well, dangerous parahumans haven't necessarily committed crimes yet.� But for instance, if your next door neighbor turns up dead of a heart attack and everyone knows you were fighting with him, isn't it important that the police know you have the power to stop people's hearts by touching them?"

"If your next door neighbor has a gun, isn't it important that you know about it so you can keep your daughter from playing in his yard?"

"Most gun owners are law abiding citizens, and if someone is killed with a gun we already have laws on the books to help the police track down the killer.� If someone is killed with a superpower, we wouldn't even necessarily know to look for a superpower."

"So educate the cops better on superpowers.� Most Proximas are law abiding citizens.� If you kill your neighbor by hitting him over the head with a frying pan, does that mean you needed to be on some sort of registry of frying pan owners?"� I started pacing again.� "It's irrelevant in any case.� I don't care what your personal beliefs are.� I care that you love your daughter and want her to be healthy."

"So you're blackmailing me."

"Blackmail?� I'm demanding payment.� When your campaign contributors give you money for re-election, they're not blackmailing you to expect that you're going to show them some quid pro quo. I'm offering you something far, far more valuable than a few dollars in your re-election coffers; I'm offering you your daughter's life and health.� I think expecting a little quid pro quo is not unreasonable."

"And what if I refused?� Would you let her die?"

At one point that would have been a tough one; in this line of work you have to appear to be compassionate, but you also have to be tough or the patients will walk all over you.� I had had plenty of experience dealing with this particular conundrum, though.� "Do you know what I did for Mindy today?� Do you understand her disease at all?"

"I don't know what you did, no. You keep saying you made her better but you didn't cure her.� But I do know something about her disease.� The doctors tell me that she's making too many white blood cells, and it's crowding out and killing the rest of her blood."

"Close.� They're immature, cancerous blood cells, so they don't work to protect her from disease the way mature white blood cells would.� This lowers her general immunity, and yes, it clogs up her bloodstream and takes resource away from working cells.� What I did today was to kill all the immature cells and regenerate some of the mature ones.� She still has leukemia; she's still making too many immature cells.� Without a full treatment that will never stop.� What I've done is to ease her symptoms.� Until she builds up too many immature cells again, she'll feel better."� I leaned on the wall, arms folded.� "I'm perfectly capable of doing this every six months and never actually curing her.� She'll feel better, and she'll have a happy, normal life, as long as she gets her treatments on time.� The one time she misses a treatment, though � maybe because the government kidnapped me, arrested me, killed me or took my powers away � she'll have full-blown leukemia again, and within a year or two she'll die."� I pushed off the wall.� "So you can support me up front because it's the right thing to do for the person who gave you back your daughter's life, or you can hedge and haw and refuse to get with my program, and if so your daughter will be well for exactly as long as I am able to continue treating her.� The very laws you want to pass that will harm me, will block my ability to heal her sooner or later, and then she'll die, and it'll be your fault."

"And how do I know that if I promise to do as you ask, you really will heal Mindy and you won't just do what you just said?"

"How do I know that if I really heal Mindy, you won't go back on your word and start pushing for the Human Definition Amendment again?� It's a matter of trust, Senator.� You trust me, I trust you.� Or you don't trust me, I don't trust you.� Tit for tat.� What's it going to be?"

He took a deep breath.� "I'm not going to just rubber stamp your suggestions.� Even if that was the right thing to do for my constituency, and it's not.� I'm going to study the situation and try to do the best thing to protect my people and yours.� You can accept that or not."

"All right, I'll accept that, with one caveat.� The Human Definition Amendment is totally off-limits.� You can switch your support to the Inclusive Humanity Amendment, or just drop your support of Human Definition, but if you don't publicly do one or the other within the month Mindy does not get fully cured.� The other stuff, do the studies you want to do, but I think you'll find that when you look at Proximas as if we are people and not weird animal things with superpowers, you'll find it a lot easier to come up with ways to help protect your kind without harming mine."

Lightman nodded.� "All right, Doctor.� Then we have a deal.� When do you want to perform the first treatment?"

"If you've got $8,000 lying around in a checking account, we can do it today."

"I do.� Who do I make the check out to?� I don't imagine you can cash a check made out to Doctor Mystery."

"Make it out to Miracle of Life, LLC."� I had about twenty-seven of these shell companies I used to funnel my various payments through, since even Senators typically had a hard time coming up with $8,000 in small unmarked bills on short notice, and a girl's gotta eat.� Playing politics is all well and good, but I needed to cover the mortgage and the gas money for my various trips to clients, plus the funds for my various Activities of Mad Science.� Just because you can manipulate any organic tissue with a touch, doesn't mean you get your beakers and retorts and Petri dishes for free.� "Let's go upstairs.� I'm sure Mindy is eager to begin freeing herself from this disease."

"Of course."

At the top of the stairs, I reached out for his hand.� Too afraid of giving offense to refuse me, he took it, and I shook with him.� "Pleasure doing business with you, Senator.� Go call your daughter in, give me a check and we'll do this thing."

"Thank you, Dr. Mystery.� I may not entirely approve of your politics, but thank you for giving my daughter back her life."

He wouldn't be thanking me so much if he had known I'd just planted a tiny clump of slow-growing cancerous cells deep in his brain.� It'd be a year from now before he started feeling any symptoms, and that would land in the middle of his re-election campaign.� If he did what I wanted after I finished healing his daughter and we were on good terms, I'd find some excuse to come by and heal him or prune it down again.� If not... there was a reason I was a feared supervillain even though most people knew me, if they knew me at all, as some kind of uber-doctor.� You didn't double-cross Dr. Mystery and survive it.� Ever.

Well, unless you were Dr. Suryadita Chandrasekhar.� Then you got any number of free passes.

***

The truth was, I was being something of a hypocrite.

I was offended at Lightman's suggestion that I make his daughter a Sapiens if she turned out to be a Proxima, but not for the reason I told him.� The difference between a Proxima becoming a Sapien and a Sapien becoming Proxima isn't the difference between black changing to white or male changing to female.� The difference was described by Plato as a man raised in the darkness leaving the cave to see the light of the sun, vs. a man raised in the sunlight doomed to spend the rest of his life in a cave.� Making a Proxima a Sapiens is like giving someone a lobotomy, or a clitoridectomy, or binding her feet until she can't walk.� It's an obscenity, a Harrison Bergeron nightmare of breaking the best down to the level of the mediocre, taking away a birthright one was born with.�

Making a Sapien a Proxima is, on the other hand, one of my great callings in life.

Mindy Lightman wasn't a Proxima before I touched her.� But she would be, before I was done.� I did a preliminary assessment of her DNA while I was performing the first treatment, and I stored a small amount of her cellular matter in a pocket under the skin of my hand, to study at length later. I'd determine how much energy her mitochondria could supply her and which latent powers-complex genes she had, and which powers they were likely to ignite into.� If she had something distressing, like death touch or world-shattering TK or the gene for turning blue, I'd edit the complex over the next two sessions into something more palatable for the child of a public figure, something frilly and unthreatening.� Maybe the ability to make pretty light shows, or fly.� Most flyers loved it, and it didn't seem to frighten Sapiens as much as some other powers did.

When I left the Lightmans', now back in my middle-aged lady persona, I headed first to the bank to deposit the check.� Senators whose daughter's lives are on the line don't give me checks that bounce, but they do take time to clear, so the sooner I got it in, the better.� And then I dumped the rental car at the airport, changed form in the bathroom, and got on the Metro to head back home.

Science fact: There is only one gene that determines the difference between a Sapiens and a Proxima.

To most people this seems insane.� Proximas come in an entire extra range of colors besides the human norm, have powers ordinary humans can only dream of, and get energy to fuel these powers from a source that is frankly incomprehensible.� We just have to be a separate species, in most people's minds.� When Proximas were first discovered, there was a huge push to label us a fully separate species � Homo superior (thankfully, that one got shot down real fast) or Homo proximus, "the man who comes next."� Scientists � not me at the time, since I was too young, but reputable geneticists and biologists � had to constantly point out that the definition of a species is that they cannot viably interbreed.� The children of superpowered and ordinary humans were themselves perfectly fertile. Ergo, we cannot be a separate species.

But we hadn't mapped the genome then, and we didn't know exactly why Proximas had powers.� So scientists made, in my opinion, a mistake.� They agreed to classify us as a separate sub-species.

You've grown up being told that you are Homo sapiens.� What you might not know is that technically, if you're not a parahuman, you are actually Homo sapiens sapiens.� There were several other subspecies of humans, all extinct, such as Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man).� It is still scientific nonsense to call us a subspecies, when we're only different by one gene � to put this in perspective, parents and children differ by many, many more than one gene � and in fact the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature keeps debating changing it to Homo sapiens sapiens proximus or dropping the designate proximus entirely. But the scientific evidence that we aren't even a separate subspecies gets even less play in the media than studies that show that men and women are alike, if such a thing is possible.� And at least the Homo sapiens proximus nomenclature reinforces that we are of the human species.

The trouble is, most people don't know that the true name of Homo sapiens is actually Homo sapiens sapiens.� So when they hear the short designators � Sapiens vs. Proxima � they assume that our species is Homo proximus.� We're widely believed to be an entirely separate species, and it doesn't help that high-profile supervillains like Caesar Primus (who is 2,000 years old and knows as much as any Roman gladiator about science, which is to say, diddly jack), or Professor Octohedron (a brilliant physicist and inventor, but he knows about as much biology as I know about fixing my car, and let me put it this way, the last time I ended up dead on the side of the road I needed a friendly dude passing by to tell me I'd run out of antifreeze) are constantly spouting off about how we are a new, superior species.� Informed laypeople and doctors usually know better, but the truth � that we are different by only one gene � is so appallingly counterintuitive that you almost need to be a geneticist or an evolutionary biologist to get it.

But here's the truth.

The human genome is packed with genes that don't do anything.� Most come from our evolutionary history. You may have heard that we are less than 1% genetically different from chimpanzees.� That 1% consists mostly of control genes, which govern when, how and if the other genes turn on.

It turns out that some of those genes generate superpowers, under the right conditions.� One of them turns melanin, the brown pigment of humans, blue in the presence of a hormone called catalyzine.� Others use catalyzine to activate superhuman abilities.� All humans carry some of these genes.� But only a very, very tiny number � about 1 in 10,000 � have the gene that codes for the creation of catalyzine.

Like testosterone, catalyzine has two surges in a person's life cycle.� One is pre-natally.� The amount generated is small and doesn't pass the placental barrier, so no, pregnant women do not manifest superpowers when carrying a Proxima baby.� That's an urban myth.� The surge pre-natally does little, usually, except to prepare the brain to control superpowers someday, creating a brain nucleus and appropriate wiring.� In cases where the child has two Proxima genes � for example, the child of two Proxima parents-- the amount of catalyzine created pre-natally might be enough to distort the child's appearance, begin converting melanin into azurin, or awaken a low level of superpower.

When the child hits puberty, the same genes that turn on sex hormones turn on catalyzine production.� The superpowers appear, and wire up to the brain structures created in utero.� If the child has the gene for azurin conversion, their pigment changes from brown to blue � so pale red-haired and blonde white children suddenly develop purple, green or blue hair, while brown-skinned children turn blue all over.� (Azurin is also rare.� Only about 5% of all people carry the gene for azurin production, and only Proximas ever display it.� Non-Proximas with the azurin mutation never express it, and end up creating perfectly normal melanin, because they are never exposed to catalyzine.)

The "power mitochondria" are another pan-human phenomenon that only expresses itself in Proximas.� All living cells on Earth contain tiny organelles called mitochondria � practically separate living things, with their own DNA, they use oxygen and sugar to generate the chemical that powers all life, ATP.� Power mitochondria vastly overproduce ATP, and no one knows where they get the energy to do it � it's like they suck potential energy out of the universe and convert it to life force.� But they do this only when activated by catalyzine within the cell.� About 1/3^rd of humans have power mitochondria.� In the presence of the Proxima gene, these people generate energy above and beyond what they take in from food and air, which is then consumed by their superpowers.� Without power mitochondria, a Proxima must draw from their own life force to fuel their superpower, which makes their powers pretty weak.� The exact same genes for telekinesis can code for a person that can lift 70 lbs with their mind with effort vs. a person who can lift an aircraft carrier out of the water and break it in half, depending on the presence and output of the power mitochondria.� Since mitochondria are passed by the mother, Proximas who inherit their power from a powerful mother will always be very powerful themselves, whereas Proximas who inherit from a powerful Proxima father depend entirely on the hidden status of their mother for their own strength.�

(Funny fact, here: when Proximas were first discovered, male Proximas freely dated, married and fathered children on human women, because our entire society says it's okay for men to have wives who are weaker than they are. Proxima women, on the other hand, mostly stuck to their own kind.� In the seven years since we discovered the role of the power mitochondria, we have seen a dramatic reversal in which powerful Proxima men will not marry or get serious with human women unless they consider themselves "childfree" or have had the human woman's mitochondria analyzed for power status, and more and more Proxima women are dating Sapiens men.)

So most of what goes into making a Proxima is actually in a vast percentage of the human population � 30% have power mitochondria, pretty much all of them have powers-complex.� It's the presence of the single gene that codes for catalyzine production that makes a person Proxima as opposed to Sapiens.� My belief was that Proximas would not be safe from the fear and envy of Sapiens unless we were normalized.� The more Proximas there were, the more the law would adapt to and accommodate us and our needs and the less we'd need to fear the mob of Sapiens out to kill or control us.� So my primary work, since I became Dr. Mystery, had been to increase the number of Proximas by giving as many Sapiens the Proxima gene as I can.

In my early experiments, when I used uncontrolled methods like retroviruses to mutate people, there were high casualty rates.� Sapiens adults whose brains have not been exposed to catalyzine in utero can't control whatever superpowers they develop if they suddenly start making catalyzine.� So I started working primarily with children, usually terminally or chronically ill children that I could get direct access to.� My power can create new brain pathways, and in a child or teen, with a developing brain, I can do it transparently, with no one noticing.� Adults cannot experience sudden brain growth and change without noticing that something's wrong � memories suddenly becoming lost, well-developed skills becoming weaker, mood swings, etc�so I only alter adults into Proximas if they request it.� I often modify women of child-bearing age so that all their eggs carry the Proxima gene, ensuring that they'll give birth to Proximas if they ever have kids.� It's harder with men, because men are generating new sperm all the time � I'd have to alter the spermatogonia, and since they're part of the body, the body's immune system might notice that they are genetically different from the other cells and attack them, making the man infertile.� So I only make men into Proxima-fathers if I have plenty of time to work with them and tweak their immune systems, if necessary � and if they're likely to have kids.� Gay men coming to me to save them from AIDS and 70-year-olds who don't want to get Alzheimer's are usually not worth modifying reproductively.�

The Peace Force were aware of my work, and opposed it.� They believed it was wrong of me to change people's genes without their consent.� Technically, maybe they were right, but come on, what sane person would object to having superpowers?� The only reason anyone would not want to be a Proxima is the prejudice against us, and I was working on that too.� So I had to maintain a low profile because every so often the Peace Force would take it into their heads to try to capture me.� This wasn't fully legal � I was pardoned for my activities as Megamorph by Bill Clinton (did you know that Hillary Clinton once had breast cancer? No?� Well, neither does anyone else), and nothing illegal I'd done as Dr. Mystery could be proven in a court of law.� But the law hadn't caught up with Proxima abilities, so the Peace Force never overly concerned themselves with whether they could prove wrongdoing or not.� Their mentor and leader, Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar, aka Doctor Sun, was a telepath, and if she said, "Bad guy! Go fetch!" they would jump like puppydogs after a thrown stick.

So I lived in Baltimore, in a townhome in the Woodberry neighborhood, on Television Hill, because living directly under the broadcast tower generated enough interference that Suri couldn't find me telepathically.� I'd have preferred Little Italy, or better yet, a real city like New York or Philly (and I'd come way down in the world, admitting that Philly is a real city), but New York was far too close to Suri, whose base of operations was in Manhattan, and a lot of my work was done with politicians, making Baltimore or DC more convenient than Philly.� And DC had the Super Service, human police in power suits who patrolled to protect the Capitol from parahuman attack.� I never felt safe in DC.� My Woodberry home had civilians living on both sides and a children's day care across the street, ensuring that the Peace Force couldn't attack me in force � they'd know the threat to civilians from a power battle would be too great to risk it politically for my sake (and to be fair, most of them are goody-two-shoes hero types who wouldn't risk civilians, especially preschool children, even if they had perfect political cover for the operation.)� So I figured that if Suri ever found me, she'd still think twice about siccing her dogs on me.

Also, the Light Rail, Baltimore's sad and pathetic substitute for a subway, had a stop near my home.� I didn't learn to drive until I was 28, and I still hated it with a passion.� I was a Brooklyn girl � give me a city with buses and subways and railways, so I wouldn't have to dodge hurtling chunks of death metal just to get where I was going.� From DC's Metro, after I dropped my rental car at the airport, I changed at Union Station to the Camden line, took it to the baseball stadium in Baltimore, and changed there for the Light Rail.� This took far longer than a car would have, but didn't involve me being isolated in a tiny box with no source of living organic matter other than my own flesh and facing careening metal boxes coming right for me.� It also didn't involve traffic jams, which are brutal on the DC Beltway.� A short walk from my stop later, and I was home.

As I unlocked my front door, Brian the cockatiel chirped at me wildly, flapping his wings in his cage.� I'm really proud of Brian � in some ways he's my greatest work.� He used to be a man, or the head of a man, who attempted to rape me once.� The truly pathetic thing was that Brian had been a good-looking guy, wiry and blond, the way I like them, and if he'd been willing to wait half an hour I would happily have had sex with him.� But he hadn't wanted sex, he'd wanted rape � the only reason he dated women and went back to their houses with them, rather than jumping out of the bushes with a knife, was that he was a lawyer and knew that a handsome man with money who date rapes a woman will basically never, ever be convicted.� People think rapists have to be hard up for sex, or have to somehow look evil � the idea that a handsome, charming guy who could get any woman he wanted would actually prefer to hold screaming women down and force them when he could get consensual sex with the exact same woman instead breaks people's brains.� They assume the woman must be lying, because what man who could get mutual fun would prefer to commit rape?� No one wants to admit how common misogynistic sadists actually are or how normal they look.

I found out from Brian that he'd date-raped ten women before me, that only two had tried to press charges, and the cops had refused to take the charges in one case and upset the other one so badly with their disbelief that she'd dropped the charges.� I found this out while I had him paralyzed but still able to feel sensation, his voice made too hoarse to do more than whisper no matter how much he suffered, on a cot in the basement.� Over the course of the two weeks that I used him in experiments, he told me his entire life story, amidst lots of self-justifications, begging, pleading and promising to change his ways.� Then I started turning his body parts into animals, bit by bit.� The rats and mice I made of his arms and legs didn't come out right, and they died.� The cockroaches who used to be his testicles were actually very robust, but after the cat knocked over the terrarium I was keeping them in, I had to kill them because who wants cockroaches in their house?� I was actually quite sad when the puppy I made out of his guts wouldn't wake up and live � sometimes they just won't come alive no matter what I do.� Living things are very complex, and it's more an art than a science to do things like make life into different life.�

Since at that point, Brian had no way to digest food or ingest water, and he was therefore only a day or two away from death, I finally put him out of his misery by turning his head into a cockatiel and his torso into an iguana, a gecko, and a handful of tropical fish.� Nothing lived longer than a week except the cockatiel, which so far had lasted three years.� I often wondered, since I'd used some of the original brain tissue in making Brian's new cockatiel brain, if he had any dim sense that he used to be human.

I fed Brian a cracker, re-absorbed my shoes into my flesh, and took back my original human form before plopping down on the couch to relax and await my cats.� My actual body was permanently frozen at about age 22 or so; I changed it so often, I'd never really had the opportunity to let it naturally age.� I could have forced it up to 36, where I really was, if I had to, but why bother?� No one was going to see me and think less of me for looking too childish.� My natural form is about 5'4" and built like a gymnast � tiny breasts, thickly muscled legs and arms, a rounded and balanced body with a low center of gravity and nothing sticking way out of line with the rest of it.� For gymnastics � my childhood passion � and for combat, it was a fantastic body, and I used it for years as Megamorph before it occurred to me that maybe I should hide my true face if I was going to be a criminal.� For instantly commanding respect, making men drool and women envy, or sending the signal "I AM A SERIOUS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND", it wasn't so good.� It was short, the face looked too young and soft (and too much like a young, soft Gillian Anderson � people in med school actually used to call me "Scully"), and a body perfectly proportioned for gymnastics or martial arts isn't all that attractive by the psycho standards of our culture.� But it was my body, and in my home, with the shades drawn and the security system on, I went back to it because it was me.�

As I wiggled my toes on my shag carpet and then propped my feet up on my coffee table, I wondered where my cats were.� They were well-fed cats, but their heightened metabolisms made them constantly hungry, and they knew I was a sucker for giving them treats when I'd first come home.� Normally, they'd be leaping on me minutes after my arrival.� This worried me.� If I had accidentally shut them in the bedroom, Angelkitty would probably pee on my ceiling to express her displeasure and Pikachu might have destroyed my furniture with a few good lightning blasts by now.�

My cats were also experiments.� I'd been curious to see if the genetic structures I'd observed in other mammals that seemed related to the human powers-complex were in fact superpowers, so I got myself a pair of abandoned newborn kittens and in between the droppers of kitten formula (I really drew the line at making cat milk in my own breasts; those little things have teeth very early), I modified them to generate catalyzine.� The female promptly grew bird wings (which didn't attach to the right spot on her back and were too small; she'd never have flown if I hadn't heavily modified them for her), and the male developed the ability to shoot lightning out of his paws, so I named them Angelkitty and Pikachu.� (Technically, if you have seen the Pokemon cartoon, which I admit I have, Pikachu is a mouse that shoots electricity, or something rodentlike anyway, but come on, there aren't exactly any mythological figures of cats that shoot electricity.)� They don't have power mitochondria � that does appear to be a human thing � so they eat like pigs.� I could feed six ordinary cats off what my two eat, but they remain extraordinarily svelte, almost feral in their slimness.� And so if they weren't here to pester me for fish treats, something was wrong.

I got up and went out to the kitchen.� To my relief, my cats were still noshing on their tuna fish, which amazingly it looked like they had barely touched before I came home.� (I always fed them human food.� Why not?� I had the money to keep them in canned tuna rather than cat food, and they loved the stuff.)� Pikachu looked up at me, gave me a meow that I interpreted as "Oh, you're home, good," and then went back to his meal.

Wait a minute.� There was more food in the bowl than there had been when I said good-bye to them this morning.� And it was beyond the realm of possibility that they'd left so much food untouched for so long, anyway.� And the tuna looked fresh out of the can.� So how�

"I was wondering when you were going to get home," a woman's voice said behind me.� I was already spinning to face her, preparing to leap at her, but as soon as I saw her I realized it was hopeless.� "Don't you ever feed these cats?� They look like they're starving."

Ciana Kim, aka Sapphire, my once-classmate and current dire nemesis, was standing � well, floating�above my stairs in her traditional blue bubble, her features slightly obscured by the blue distortion and concealed behind her mask.� The combat leader of the Peace Force was in my house.

I backed up.� I couldn't take Sapphire directly.� Her power was to generate spherical or toroid magnetic fields, which glowed blue due to the way they bent light, hence her name.� I needed organic channels to send my power through�behind her force field, Sapphire was totally safe from me, because I couldn't touch her.� I wasn't safe from her, though.� She could generate a force field around me, trapping me, any time she wanted.�

There was a switch by the door to my basement, labeled "FURNACE � DO NOT TOUCH," that would actually activate an EMP.� All the computer and electronic equipment I had in my house outside the Faraday cage of the basement would fry, but Sapphire's power would fail as well, and I could leap on her before she could reset her power.� Or, if I didn't really want to replace my MP3 player, phones, and the laptop in the bedroom, perhaps I could grab Pikachu and throw him at her.� He'd be startled enough to discharge a bolt, and the electrical surge should pop her field like a soap bubble.� I knew I had a faster reaction time than Sapphire � after years of modifying and tuning up my nervous system, I'm faster than anyone who doesn't have super-speed as a specific power � so I should be able to grab her and neutralize her power or knock her out before she could get a force field back up again.� I was reluctant to do that because Pikachu was my kitty and throwing him at superheroes seemed kind of mean, even though I knew he wouldn't be hurt, but the EMP generator could theoretically blow out TV Hill, and then I'd have to dodge swarms of reporters trying to find out why they suddenly couldn't get on the air anymore.�

I stalled for time.� "They've got very fast metabolisms.� I feed them all the time, but they'll pester anyone they meet for more."

Sapphire rolled her eyes.� "Oh, stand down, Meg. If I was here to capture you or beat you up, I'd have done it before you knew I was here."

She had a point. Sapphire wasn't stupid, and she had completely gotten the drop on me, to the point that I was actually really embarrassed about it.� "So what do you want?� Cooking advice?� I always prefer to replace the generic vegetable oil with olive or canola, it's easier on the heart."� The last time I'd been in the same household as her, Ciana Kim had refused to learn to cook, for very similar reasons to her refusal to learn hand-to-hand combat.�

She ignored my jab. "Doctor Sun sent me.� She needs your help and she asked me to ask you."

I blinked.� Doctor Sun wanted my help?� Cold day in hell.� But it'd have to get a lot colder before I'd say yes.� "She wants my help?� And she actually thinks I might agree?� Excuse me, but the last time I interacted with any of you people you wrecked my lab, ruined four years of work and set me back half a million dollars."

"You were infecting children's vaccines with a retrovirus.� Did you seriously think we'd let you just get away with it?"

"All it would have done was make them into Proximas.� What do you think I am?"

"Someone who mutates people against their will.� And how do you know that's all it would have done?� Retroviruses mutate. Besides, it's still wrong to change people without their consent.� How do you know those kids would even have wanted superpowers?"

"Oh, be real.� Who wouldn't want superpowers?"

"If I wasn't a Proxima, I might have been an Olympic gold medalist."

She was telling the truth.� One of the things that annoyed me so much about Ciana was how close her life had been to mine, minus the dysfunctional family.� I, too, had had Olympic dreams once, and my coach had told me when I was 11 that I might seriously make it as a contender.� But no matter how good I'd been, I'd never really had a chance; if my parents hadn't died when I was 13, some other aspect of my family's screwed-up-ness would have ruined it for me.

Ciana Kim, however, had had a good and loving family who'd pushed her hard in the belief that she could achieve anything.� She was a third-generation Korean American from California and her parents were doctors or something like that, and they'd stood behind her every step of the way.� Even after everything had fallen apart in my life and I'd basically become a thug for hire, I had followed the Olympic gymnastic news, so I'd known all about this as it was happening.�

Ciana was originally to be the USA's representative to the Olympics in Seoul for women's artistic gymnastics.� Much was made in the media of a Korean American going to Seoul to represent America, but Ciana had been very photogenic and full of great soundbites about how she was as American as apple pie and she was honored to represent our great country and she was so looking forward to bringing a medal home for the US and she was following in Mary Lou Retton's footsteps and blah blah blah.� And then, a week before the Olympics, it had come out that she was a Proxima.� They'd finally figured out that doing a blood test for catalyzine would find any Proxima with an active power.

The truth is that even now, twenty years later, as an experienced superhero who uses her powers all the time, Ciana still can't use her powers invisibly.� There's always a shiny blue blob there. And she had no training with her powers when she was 16, so it would have been even more implausible that she could have somehow used her powers to secretly cheat.� I would be disqualified from a Sapiens competition in gymnastics in any sane world because of what my powers actually are, but Ciana was disqualified solely from anti-Proxima prejudice (and, to be fair, probably some anti-Asian prejudice from the Americans whose job it would have been to advocate for her).� The Americans paid for their prejudices when Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union took home all the women's gymnastics medals (I don't like Ciana, but I'm pretty sure she would have won at least a silver in something, if not a gold.) Ciana was recruited by Dr. Chandrasekhar to learn how to use her powers and eventually join the Peace Force, Dr. Chandrasekhar's UN-supported superhero team.

So it wasn't that I had no respect for Ciana's loss, but it irritated me that she saw the problem as being that she was a Proxima rather than that the Olympic committee was scared of Proximas.� And also, that being an Olympic medalist was better than being a superhero.� "Yeah yeah, you could have had your moment of glory, and nowadays you'd be selling sneakers and breakfast cereal to pay the bills, assuming anyone even remembered you at all.� What's Mary Lou Retton doing with her life?"

"She's been an Olympics commentator, and she's a motivational speaker who supports physical fitness."

Trust Ciana to actually know this.� "And that's better than being a superhero how?� You save lives, you have an action figure, millions of little girls look up to you�"

"�I wear a mask when I save lives because otherwise supervillains or stalkers might hunt me down, no one knows my real name, my family aren't allowed to tell anyone what I do for a living, I'll probably never have a normal life with a husband and kids�"

"--You could marry some guy and quit the superhero business any time you wanted to, it's just your overblown sense of responsibility that says you can't quit your job to have babies until your powers give out on you, because you think the world needs you, and if that's the case where would they have been if you hadn't been a Proxima?"

"Someone else would have taken my place if I hadn't been a Proxima.� And all of this is besides the point; no matter how great you or even I might think it is to have superpowers, the fact is that you were planning to infect helpless babies with a retrovirus that would have mutated them.� Some of them might have died of it.� Some might have been killed by their families for being Proximas once they manifested.� You don't have the right to play God that way."

"Nobody would have died of my virus," I retorted.� "I tested it thoroughly ahead of time.� But you also notice, I haven't done it again."

"Because you know we'll stop you."

"Because I listened to your arguments that retroviruses are unstable and highly prone to mutation, and I decided that maybe you have a point."

"Then why did you bring it up?"

"You didn't even try to just persuade me.� You just blew up my lab!� Do you know how many vials of vaccine I hadn't modified yet you destroyed?"

"All of this is pointless," Sapphire snapped.� "I'm wasting time arguing with you when Doctor Sun is dying.� Are you coming or not?"

Wait, what?� Dying?�

I had been a half-crazed killer with no self-esteem, no sense of myself being able to be or do anything good, no belief that anyone could ever care about me � at least not without dying for it � after David died.� Dr. Chandrasekhar had taken me in and taught me that I could have a better destiny than being a tool for monsters to use to kill each other with; that I didn't have to be a monster myself.� I could use my powers for good.� I could help people.� I could be a decent person.

Viewed from her perspective, I suppose, it didn't last � I freely admit I am a supervillain and I do highly unethical things, up to and including killing people.� But I do it for a cause I believe in.� I do it to save my people from the bio-engineered diseases I was forced to participate in creating at Sonnebend.� I do it so girls with superpowers who are going to medical school to learn how to save lives will not be kidnapped, stripped of their powers except when convenient for their captors, raped, tortured and forced to use their powers to heal enemies and kill their own kind, by agents of their own government.� I do it so my people can enjoy the same rights and privileges as every other human on this planet.� And the fact that I can fight for a cause, that I can see myself as a person with a noble goal of my own... I owe that entirely to Doctor Sun.

No matter what she does to me, no matter what she orders her Peace Force to do, I can't ever get away from that.

"Dying of what?"

"She was kidnapped and raped by Caesar Primus.� When she escaped, she was two months' pregnant, but the doctors say it seems more like six months.� The child is growing too rapidly for her to handle it, and it'll kill her."

Oh, God.�

My heart started pounding, my throat went dry.� I could feel the adrenaline surging, my sympathetic nervous system revving up for a totally inappropriate fight-or-flight response.� I couldn't stop imagining the reality behind Sapphire's words.� It didn't help that I'd once had sex with Primus myself � consensual, sort of, but I could entirely too easily imagine what it'd be like to be raped by him, without powers to protect you.� And Primus was immune to telepathy, so effectively Suri would have been helpless.� God, no.� I didn't want to think about that.�

So I was flippant, and cold.� "Doctor Sun's a woman of the world.� You're telling me she's never heard of an abortion?"

"She doesn't want an abortion.� She says she won't compound Primus' act by taking an innocent life."

"When did Doctor Sun turn into a pro-lifer?"

"She says the baby has a mind and she won't kill it."� Sapphire floated herself down onto my dining room floor, still surrounded by a protective bubble but no longer on my stairs. �"Are you going to help, or not?"

"I'm a feminist Darwinist.� I'm morally opposed to letting a fetus conceived in rape live.� It lets dangerous genes persist in the population.� Suri knows that."

Sapphire sighed explosively.� "Fine.� I knew you weren't going to be any help, but Doctor Sun believed in you.� I'll just go tell her I was right and she was wrong."

"What is this supposed to be, reverse psychology?"

"Nothing reverse about it. I knew before I got here that I would be wasting my time.� You're a killer with no conscience; why Doctor Sun ever thought you might help, I have no idea."

"Because she knows me better than you."� I stepped forward.� "If this is reverse psychology bullshit, it isn't necessary. I've known I was going to agree to help you since you told me she was dying.� And if you really believe what you're saying, then nyaah nyaah nyaah.� I'm a doctor; everything I do, I do to save lives.� And at least I have to try to persuade Doctor Sun to abort the thing.� Besides, if she was raped by Primus she might have injuries she could need my help with."� Primus had hammered at me like he was trying to break my pelvis, and without my powers he might actually have done so.� And I'd voluntarily gone to bed with him.� What he'd do to a woman he was raping, I really really didn't want to imagine.

I didn't mention to Sapphire that this was partly my fault anyway.� When I'd met her, Suri (Dr. Suri to me in those days, but I feel I have the right to call her by her first name now) had been dying slowly of multiple sclerosis.� She had met me on a good day; she'd only needed crutches and braces to move.� On bad days she'd been confined to a wheelchair, and on really bad days she'd had to stay in bed.� I'd healed her, and in the process I'd turned her from a forty-something woman approaching menopause back to a woman in her prime, young and healthy, physically in her 20's.� It had been almost 20 years since I'd done that; Suri would be approaching menopause again, but obviously wasn't there yet.� By now she'd be well past childbearing if I hadn't de-aged her when I'd healed her disease.

I didn't know whether Primus had raped her to torture her, to express domination over her, to really make the Peace Force mad at him, or to impregnate her, but I knew he had enough control over his body that if he hadn't wanted to impregnate her, it wouldn't have happened.� It was entirely possible that the goal of the whole thing had been to force her to carry his child; Suri was an enormously powerful Proxima with high output power mitochondria, and most women with such energy-full mitochondria would have had a power they could use to fight back against Primus.� Blocking a Proxima woman's powers while she was pregnant carried high risk to the fetus if it too was a Proxima; it could prevent the fetus from developing the ability to control its powers as an adult.� Suri was rare in that she was incredibly powerful but only telepathic, with no telekinetic abilities, and with Primus' immunity to telepathy, she'd have had no way to fight back against him even at her full power.� If Primus had wanted a powerful woman to pass her mitochondria to his child, and he hadn't cared about her consent, there were few Proximas who'd make a better target for him.� And if that was the case, then the whole thing wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made her younger, sixteen years ago.

Sapphire blinked.� "Wait.� You are coming?"

"I just said so.� But we have to bring my cats.� They need to eat more than the average cat � they'd starve if I left them without food for three or four days, and obviously I can't ask the neighbors to come feed them."

"Fine.� Sedate them; I don't need a cat flying all over my car, or meowing and moaning in his carrier the whole time.� We'll put them in one of the suites and make sure they get fed."

I took my cellphone/PDA � it had all of my appointments and contacts in it, and I'd have to call them all to reschedule once I knew how long this was going to take.� If I could talk Suri into aborting the fetus, this could probably go very quickly, but I knew how stubborn she was.� If I had to save the baby too, I could possibly have to take a few weeks.

Damn Suri.� Why the hell was I taking time off my work and spending four hours in a car with one of the people who most annoyed me in the entire world to go save my greatest opponent anyway?� From a problem she could just fix herself if she wasn't so damn stubborn?

But I already knew.� I couldn't let Suryabati Chandrasekhar die; not under any circumstances, and most especially not if she'd asked for me specifically.� Our differences were ideological; what she'd done for me went beyond ideology.� I would fight her and her people when I had to, but if she was dying and she needed me, I had to go.