1.10 Dinner Part 6

Joan jumps into her bed and sobs into her pillow, not bothering to close her bedroom door. She has only been doing it for a couple of seconds when Abby enters her mind.

Go away!

We need to talk.

Leave me alone!

You overheard Mum and I talking didn’t you?

I said leave me alone!

I know you’re angry, but try to think about this rationally.

Mother tried to stop me from being born!

We both know that isn’t the case. If she didn’t want to be born, we wouldn’t be talking about it because you wouldn’t have been born.

Those pills she took are the reason I’m like this.

We don’t know that for sure and you can get better.

Only because superpowers have existed for the last two months. This would be an entirely different matter if the world hadn’t changed. In fact, I would still be dying in hospital.

Do you want to talk about it in the morning once you had time to calm down?

I don’t need to calm down! I finally found out what caused my life to be so horrible. And the only person I want to talk to is Leo!

“Joan?” asks their mother from the doorway of Joan’s bedroom, “Do you want to talk?”

Joan starts to open her mouth to reply, but Abby swiftly seizes control of Joan’s body before she can.

Give me back my body!

“Abby here Mum,” says Abby with Joan’s body and voice, “I’m just talking to Joan internally. She is a bit upset at the moment.”

A bit upset? A bit upset? I’m pissed! And I want control of my body back now Abby!

 “Okay Abigail,” replies Mother as Abby ignores Joan, “I’ll speak with Joan later or in morning then. Don’t stay in control of her body for too long. That would be rather rude.”

Speak to me for crying out loud Abby! Don’t ignore me!

Joan, are you willing to be reasonable?

Reasonable? Reasonable! You’re the one who has taken over my body. You have no right what so ever to talk to me about being reasonable.

How about we discuss something else?

And now you’re trying to change the subject!

I could just put you a state of bliss to calm you down.

You wouldn’t dare!

Try me mortal.

Joan, just calm down and discuss something else with me. You can ask me anything at all.

Humph.

Joan...

What it is like being an Aphrodite?

Now that’s better. As for your question, I’m not sure how to answer that.

Oh come on Abby! You can’t just tell me that you can’t answer my question.

I know, but it isn’t something I can just describe. I could say it feels wonderful, but I doubt you would find that helpful. Honestly that is the closest way I could describe it. Being Aphrodite is one of those things you have too experienced to actually understand what it feels like. How about I tell you what Mum and I were discussing? I can tell from your memories that you didn’t overhear that part.

Stop looking through my memories!

The other day, I was approached by a curious parahuman, a Bellator that bordered on Aphrodite.

Go on.

Anyway, she offered to provide some nano-technology to heal you.

What? You can’t be serious. You can’t even consider accepting that offer.

I did keep the offer in mind, but I decided to check her out.

What was she like?

Confident and calm. She called herself Jane Smith, but admitted that she wanted to keep her real name secret. She claimed she wanted to offer the nano-technology in exchange for a spell that I created using my own power to help a close friend of hers. Jane said that he was high tier Gadgeteer with an Monster enhanced rating and due to those combinations of power, he wished to remain hidden. All of those regards Jane was being truthful, I checked with my powers.

She is totally a supervillain.

I went to Leo earlier and showed him my memories and of the event. Since then, he checked her out since he left and informed me that she was clean as far as he could tell. Though I have no idea how he did it so quickly.

I trust Leo and if he says she is clean, I trust his judgement.

Anyway, I’m going to accept the offer. Mum and Dad both agree. And if it does work, you will be properly healed and not depended on my power. Plus Jane said the nanobots would self-destruct in a safe manner once you were healed.

I’m willing to accept this offer.

Look at it this way, if something does happen to you, Jane and her friend will have to deal with our entire extremely powerful parahuman family.

And whatever Leo can muster.

***

Using the sensors that Father placed in Mother’s room, Jaylyn watches as Aunt Abby enters with the woman known as Jane Smith as Mother waits on the bed.

This is the first time that Jaylyn has been able to see the woman who will heal Mother as Father couldn’t show her Aunt Abby’s memories.

As they approach Mother, Jaylyn runs the woman against her own records. It is only as Jane takes the syringe out that Jaylyn recognises the woman. While she has changed her face, the movements and motions that ‘Jane’ makes give her away to the AI.

It is the same one that infiltrated the FBI facility containing Washdown’s body and did something to it or with it. And here she is, injecting nanobots into Jaylyn’s mother.

Unacceptable. She cannot be trusted and is clearly using Mother for her own gain and possible either against Father or against the Fowler family.

Jaylyn diverts some of her processing power from creating profiles on the latest parahumans to checking through what Father has created so far. Father would understand Jaylyn halting the task he assigned her. This is to aid Mother after all.

Jaylyn also creates a sub-routine to alert her when Jane is detected by Father’s or Aunt Legacy’s sensor networks. This woman must be dealt with.

As the syringe is injected into Mother, Jaylyn gets to work on producing mobile combat units.