Chương 181: B3. 20.3 - Normal Glass Woman

I blinked. I… Am I in the clear? No more last-minute curveballs from the universe? Was my dangerous night—it was technically already very early morning—finally over? I was feeling lighter that I could even joke about that stupid night-day thing. One last problem was getting tested by the authorities. But I wasn't so worried about that after witnessing the power of my third mask. I expected Deen and the other hero wannabes to have escaped as well. I'd call them later to make sure they were safe.

After the Corebrings left, Agent Matt helped us onto the BID helicopter above. As I was reeled up, I surveyed the extent of the tendril flood. Most of it was gone, but it was obvious where it had been—all the streets without lights. The helicopter brought us a few blocks away to a tiny village of tents erected in the middle of a wider main road. Paramedics moved about, attending to the civilians brought in by the police from the surrounding areas. Some people were injured.

A military truck with the National Guard logo emblazoned on its canvas rolled past the tents and into the destroyed portion of the neighborhood. This felt like the end of a movie, after the hero had defeated the monster and the city was saved. Only… that I was the monster. And most of this was my fault. Well, the Corebrings caused the destruction, but I was the proximate cause. Maybe I should review the doctrine of proximate cause to lessen some guilt. It would've been better if the credits had already rolled.

However, I still had to line up to be tested. I prayed that my power didn't have a time limit. Would be very awkward to shed my disguise, turning into my naked Erind body encased in glass.

"Are you okay back there?" The man who had lied to the Corebrings was in front of me in the line.

"Ye-yeah… I'm good. By the way, I didn't catch your name." I wanted to set things right, starting with acknowledging his real name. None of those silly nicknames.

"Harold, that's my name. Some people call me Harry. I don't like it, but I don't tell them that."

"I see. Uh, Harry—I mean, Harold. My name's… Amber." It was the first name that came to my mind.

"Thank you for, um, what you did back there," I added, lowering my voice so that the person behind me couldn't overhear us.

"But why did you say… that stuff to them?"

"I had to," he whispered back.

"Those oddballs would've given you a hard time, though you were innocent. They were looking for one person. If we were together, then none of us could be their target."

"I… Thank you again." I chuckled. Being grateful felt so alien.

"You wouldn't want the Corebrings to hear you call them oddballs."

"Because they are," Harold replied.

"President Goodwin's right to keep them out of the country. They think they're all so much better than us. They save humans, I'm not denying that. But don't forget that they're no longer humans themselves." I should've expected Harold to be a Goodwin supporter.

"I'm not sure if you caught it," I whispered, leaning forward.

"But the Corebrings lied about those tentacles. They made them."

"I picked up on that. My instincts were right not to trust that talking bird. How many American lives have the Corebrings wasted for nothing? The President shouldn't have allowed them in. Our BID agents can catch this Red Hood they're looking for." I didn't ask him what he thought of Blanchette. At the least, he should've reported meeting my other form, right? He had a video of Blanchette fighting back the tendril flood. Was it some odd sense of gratitude that made him keep his mouth shut?

We neared the white medical tent. The person before Harold passed through the white flaps covering the tent's entrance. Harold turned to me.

"This might sound weird. But I wanted to ask this—do you know any Samantha? Samantha Myers?"

"I don't think so. Why? Who is she?"

"An ex-girlfriend of mine. You look a lot like her. But you can't be her because she's in Memphis. Our relationship's in a rough patch right now. Anyway, I thought the darkness fooled my eyes earlier, but seeing you under these lights—" he gestured at the towering floodlights ringing the tent village "—makes me think you two could be twins." I shook my head.

"I don't have any twins. Or sisters, for that matter. I'm a single child. I'm also not a Myer or related to one." My ability wasn't just an automatic disguise. The illusion generated was someone the other person would talk to. Even help. I certainly hadn't met this Samantha before and didn't know what she looked like.

"Samantha didn't have a twin. That was just… What I'm trying to say is, would you want to have lunch sometime?"

"Huh?" Was this guy for real? His girlfriend was right to leave. Harold shrugged.

"I don't want to come off as a creep, but I just—""Next!" called a man clad in white standing outside the tent.

"Talk to you later, Amber," Harold said, waving at me. I'm definitely not going to talk to him, I thought. A definite weirdo wanting to date someone who looked like his ex. My annoyance aside, I could see how useful my power could be in infiltration. I could even go to the White House. Well, that was if I'd turn into the President in the eyes of the guards. If I turned into their ex-girlfriend, I couldn't infiltrate that deep into the White House. My crazy thoughts were proof that my fears were subsiding.

Perhaps, this was the real me all along. Normal human emotions such as fear and… love. Love? I hadn't really experienced that. Fear was a very human thing. Caring about stuff, too. Because I lacked those, the true Erind came to be. Not saying that it was a good thing. I firmly disapproved of using people, the same way that I didn't want others to use me. But I was starting to understand how I worked. A bit. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I calmly strolled into the tent when my turn came. The people inside, wearing white coats and face masks, made me pass through scanners and waved various machines over me. Everything clear. Then I came to a table where I had to give a blood sample. Nervousness hugged me again as I babbled about being afraid of needles. But the stern lady with the syringe wasn't having it.

"This is a normal procedure, ma'am. We'll keep the blood sample for a month and observe if there are any unnatural changes. We'll dispose of it afterwards. We got a whole lot of samples to catalogue."

"I understand," I said, fidgeting in my seat. I was able to make some fake blood earlier. Should be the same situation now.

"You're not tagged as seeded, okay? Just relax. Now, give me your arm." The moment her fingers touched my skin, looking for a vein to poke, a new sense awakened in me. Another aspect of my power was manifesting, and I could sense a connection between us. The lady stopped moving, her eyes glazing over. A feeling prodded me to concentrate. And I did. Something passed between us. The woman blinked several times as if having just woken up from a deep slumber. She laughed.

"Whoa… Boy, do I need to get some coffee into my system." She drove the needle into my skin. It poked into my phantom flesh. Did my glass armor let it pass through?

"See? There's nothing to worry about, dear," said the woman, pulling the plunger. I sighed in relief as red liquid filled the syringe. That couldn't be real blood, and I wouldn't stay around to find out. I bet that it'd disappear after I removed my mask. Unfortunately, I couldn't immediately waltz out of here. I was shepherded to another tent where I had to give them my contact details. Harold sat at a tiny table, filling out a form. The person in front of him was encoding something into her laptop.

Harold smiled at me as he got up and left the tent. No doubt, he'd be waiting for me outside.

"Here you go, ma'am." The lady with the laptop gave me a form. I made up a story that I lost my bag while fleeing. Everything was there—IDs, cards, my phone. I couldn't remember my phone number or SSS number. I just gave them a fake name and address. The bullshit came naturally, and I was surprised. Lying was so much easier if death wasn't on the table, and I wasn't hurting anyone. The lady with the laptop wasn't particularly strict. It seemed that she wanted to get this over with and get some sleep.

Why would she be suspicious of me, given that I had passed the scanners?

"All done," she said.

"Thank you, ma'am. Leave through there. Follow the line to the bus provided by the city. We'll make sure that you return home safely."

"I, uh, is there no other exit?" I wouldn't sit in a bus with Harold!

"What?" She gave me a weird look.

"Nothing," I said. It was time to test out my power. Not sure if this was an instinct, but I somehow knew how to use it. A police officer stood by the exit, pulling away the flap for me. I used the oldest trick in the book.

"Sir, what's that over there?" I asked, pointing at a machine with wires beside us. Must be a generator or something.

"I think I saw a spark. The wiring's messed up or something?" He grunted.

"You sure?" But he went to check just the same. No one was looking at me. The lady at the table was playing solitaire on her laptop. The person who came after me in line had his head down, writing on the form. I glanced at my arms. My disguise was gone. My stick-like Erind arms covered by interlocking plates of glass had returned. I was naked again. But not for long. Think of the woman with the syringe. Her face floated in my mind. I knew that I could take on her form after touching her. The cop returned.

"I didn't see any—eh?" He looked around and shrugged.

"She already went outside." He tipped his hat to me as I passed. I didn't say anything. Just walk with confidence. No one was going to stop me, not even Harold, waiting for his Samantha-lookalike. Linked fences cordoned the pathway to the bus. I couldn't return to the tent and meet the Syringe Woman—I hoped it wasn't disrespectful to call her with a nickname—so I continued walking forward.

Another cop glanced at me but didn't say anything as I rounded a police car that would escort the bus, and headed to the sidewalk. Once I entered the nearest alley, I sprinted off into the night. I could no longer hear the sirens of police cars. I stopped running, wondering if it was time to take off my mask. My finger was hooking the bottom of my chin when I realized that I'd return to my dangerous self. My evil self. There was no beating around the bush. Without normal human emotions, I was evil as fuck.

But I also couldn't stay as this glass knight forever. Such a hassle of an existence changing disguises all the time. What could I do to change myself? To stop being a psycho bitch? Nothing. I'd never change. My original self didn't think anything was wrong. Ding. A light bulb got switched on in my head. I, as Erind, wouldn't change. Even if I were bribed with all the sugar in the world. But I would follow a Rule even if I disagreed with it. A Rule was a Rule. I didn't actually have a way to remove it.

Despite having a different body, my soul was still the same. The Rule I imposed should be valid. It shouldn't be something too broad, like 'be a good person'. Leaving it open to interpretation would be a disaster. We had discussed that in Legal History, like how the Sedition Act of 1798 was used to arrest anyone criticizing the government, essentially shitting on the beloved First Amendment. My new Rule also couldn't be something that could be easily twisted, like not putting someone in harm's way.

I'd come up with a workaround to that. And that was proscription. Better to have a Rule that could actually help me change. What was a Rule that would force me to do good deeds? Rule #27: Save others so long as it doesn't endanger me. And I removed my mask.

"I'm back…" I whispered, feeling my face and arms. No more glass.

"Rule #27, huh?" I laughed out loud before covering my mouth. Someone might hear my cackles. I continued to giggle, heading to the nearest train station. I'd ride on top of the train back to my condo. What a funny Rule. Sure, I'd save people. Red Hood was the hero Adumbrae! And what a funny mask that was. Normal emotions? It was a treat to experience them. Though I had to disagree with my third form that I was evil. I was just a regular gal being cute in this evil world. There was nothing wrong with me.

Around forty-five minutes later, I watched the entrance of my condo building from across the street. To avoid getting spotted by anyone, including the security cameras, I could enter through the windows again. But if someone reviewed the CCTV footage, looking for anything suspicious, they'd see me exit the building twice without entering again. Likely, no one would check that. But I'd just be prudent. The best option was to pretend nothing was wrong. I was out partying or whatever.

Enjoyed too much that I didn't realize there were Adumbrae attacks left and right. I removed my face mask and crossed the empty street.

"Erind!" Emerging from a pillar of a neighboring building was a person I'd really love to punch. Deen almost dove at me. She hugged me tightly and pulled me off the ground, swinging me around like a kid. She was using superstrength, adding to her crimes.

"Let go!" I spoke in a muffled voice into her chest. I could hardly breathe.

"Oh, Erind! I'm so glad that you're alive! I thought that you—""Upstairs!" I shouted at her.

"We'll talk in my room."