After the flow of injured slowed to a trickle, Dale and Lars leave sickbay. Dale wants to talk to everyone who had been at Stella's party when the event hit. He asks Lars to follow him and they seek out Curt and Stella but don't find them in the common areas. Reasoning that they are probably in their rooms, they swing by Anita's room but she is also absent. Dale leaves a message on the door for her to look him up either in his room or on level 6 ASAP. Then the two head down to level 6 and ring Curt's doorbell. Curt had been sleeping but he asks what they want through the door. Dale responds that he would like to talk to him and Stella about what happened. Curt becomes more agreeable when he understands that they will also be talking to Stella. He follows them down the hall to Stella's room. She answers the door buzzer and invites them in when Dale indicates that he would like to talk to everyone. He tells them he left a message on Anita's door.
Once inside, he tells everyone that he suspects that they have picked up mutant powers from the strange event. He goes on to tell them of his own experience "speaking" with one of the Malaysian girls from the field trip even though she didn't speak English and Dale doesn't speak her language. He says he did it mentally and was able to see deep enough into her mind to know that she is the victim of human trafficking coordinated by the so-called chaperones. The others are a bit skeptical and Dale goes on to tell both Lars and Curt that it is not possible to simply "hold your breath" and survive in space for a full minute unscathed. Both must have some sort of mutant abilities that allows them to survive in space. Similarly, Lars should not have been able to "swim" to the airlock as space is a vacuum that does not allow that sort of movement.
With some food for thought, he asks others to concentrate on some of the things that they have apparently done. Curt starts by saying that he can hold is breath for quite a while. He then goes on to do just that, holding his breath for many minutes and, to his own surprise, feeling absolutely no discomfort. With that wake-up call, Lars suggests that he try to extend his arm as Lars still thinks that Curt was not close enough to the ship to have simply reached out and grabbed a protrusion. Curt begins trying, with no immediate success.
Dales suggests to Lars that he try to fly. Lars responds with disbelief and says, "I don't even know how to even think about trying to fly!" Nevertheless, he closes his eyes and thinks about flying. After a few moments he says, "Are you satisfied? I can't fly." He opens his eyes as he is saying this and Dale responds smugly, "Yes, I am very satisfied." Lars is floating about a foot off the ground!
Suddenly eyes are back on Curt who has been snapping out his arm all this time telling it, with greater degrees of frustration, to stretch. Curt's arm is now about 3 meters long and he is holding the handle of a door on the other side of the room. After marveling at this ability for a bit, he tries to concentrate of recovering his arm but all that happens is it seems to lose all muscle and bone structure in his arm and it flops to the ground like a dead snake. It takes him some minutes to figure out how to "reel in" his arm and make it look normal again.
Stella, initially very skeptical of all of the super power nonsense and believing that what had happened to her foot was simply an after effect of the event, is finally prodded into experimenting. She concentrates on her right foot and tries to get it to turn to gray metal. It takes quite a bit of time but she finally succeeds. But then the metal seems to take on a life of its own and travels up her leg, to her other leg and eventually to her entire body. Alarmed, she says, "How do I turn it off?" After a bit she calms down as Dale takes her hand and she is able to feel even with the metal hard skin, albeit not as sensitively as normal. She then wonders just out tough the skin is. Lars pulls out his dagger, reverses it, and raps on her arm. She feels it but feels no pain as he hits progressively harder.
"Do you want me to see if I can cut you?" Lars asks.
Hesitantly, Stella agrees. Lars pulls out his knife and tries to make a small cut in her arm. Much to his surprise, the blade of his knife becomes non-corporeal as he begins to cut and Stella suddenly feels very weak. Alarmed, Lars jerks the knife away but the damage is done. The weakness causes Stella to fall to the ground. Dale tries to catch her but learns the hard way that Stella is much, much heavier than normal and one of his hands gets crushed between her back and the floor. She rolls away at his grunt of agony and he draws his hand out. It hurts like hell but nothing is broken.
"Stella, apparently you also weigh a ton when you change to that steel form!" Dale tells her.
Meanwhile, Lars and others are looking at his knife that he is still holding up. The blade still appears ethereal but, as they watch, it reverts back to metal.
Lars looks around and says, "It looks like that event may have affected some of our equipment as well."
About this time, Anita Lee arrives. Stella opens the door and Anita's jaw drops when she sees Curt's arm stretched halfway across the room. The others bring her up to date on what has occurred and suggest that she try to see if strange abilities have come to her.
The five spend the next hour or so trying various things.
Curt learns that he body is even more mutable than being able to stretch his arm. He can actually change almost everything about his body.
Stella, much to everyone's surprise, finds that she can walk through a steel door without making a hole. Anita suggests that she not use this ability on the ship if she is not sure what is on the other side as she could cause some damage to sensitive equipment.
Dale finds new reserves of mental abilities beyond Telepathy. He is able to find minds at a distance (something he had done even while tending the wounded earlier in the night). He also discovers the ability to telekinetically move items.
Anita finds that, like Stella, she is harder to hurt. She uses a kitchen knife to make a small cut and it takes a lot of effort to make the cut. A few minutes later, she suddenly realizes that the cut is completely gone, indicating some sort of super healing ability.
Lars practices more with his flying ability.
Eventually, Anita says she needs to get some sleep. Dale suggests that everyone sleep down on level 6 so they can keep an eye on everyone but Anita declines and returns to her room. It is there that she discovers that she is able to see just fine in the dark when she enters her room and all the lights are out.
The following day, Anita returns to Avionics to try to effect further repairs. The others head up to the common areas and get some breakfast. They make the rounds a bit and again do not see any of the chaperones. However, when they casually question others about them, they learn that a couple of them have been spotted today, including Brandy.
The group spends the day trying to find out more about their new powers. Curt has much better control of his shape shifting and even suspects he can make more limbs as needed. He can also make a force field to harden his skin against attacks. Stella also discovers that she can make a force field on top of her very tough skin. Dale finds that he can teleport short distances. Anita discovers that she has the ability to cling. When she and Curt practice their martial arts together, she also discovers that she is much more potent than before. Curt meanwhile, sees potential changes to his martial arts style to incorporate his mutable body. Lars, who spent the night sleeping about a foot off the floor (persistent flight) discovers that he has two distinct modes of flight. One is slow and persistent and the other is faster but not persistent.
GM: This is where we stopped for the night. |