Maya glanced back at Andrew and decided that lying there buck-naked with his legs splayed in front of a crowd was really not a good look.
"You two—take off your undershirts, hold one side each, and stand next to Andrew. Block the view. And don't touch the wooden needles in his lower body."
The two underlings weren't thrilled about it, but orders were orders. By now, plenty of male students had run over from the campsite to help, and after a moment's thought, Madam President pulled several of them aside and gave quiet instructions.
Within moments, the boys had formed a semicircle three meters out from Liz. Combined with the elm grove behind her, she was effectively screened from outside view.
Madam President had arranged this because she'd detected something abnormal happening to Liz's body. When Maya had poked Liz's arm with the branch just now, Liz's emotions had destabilized instantly—and at the same time, several clean slits had appeared in her clothing out of nowhere.
Through her fine-tuned perception, Madam President sensed a familiar energy. She'd encountered this same kind of power just last night: a spatial-attribute anomaly.
Right at the surface of Liz's clothing where it touched her skin, razor-thin spatial blades had flickered into existence—or perhaps it was spatial shearing. Maya wasn't entirely sure of the mechanism yet.
But the parts of Liz's clothing that weren't in contact with her body? Completely intact. Which meant this ability almost certainly required physical contact to activate.
So where had Liz's superpower come from?
Technology? Ruled out immediately. The area was pristine natural environment—no chemical agents, no radioactive contaminants—so genetic mutation via external exposure, like Matt's, could be eliminated too. Practicing some kind of secret art, like Maya herself did—magic, sorcery, that sort of thing? Also a no-go, because Liz herself had no idea what was happening. She was scared out of her wits.
The only remaining possibility was spontaneous genetic awakening.
Inhumans could be ruled out—Inhuman awakening required Terrigen crystals.
Liz carried the X-gene. She had become a mutant.
That was Madam President's final diagnosis. Adolescent, subjected to extreme emotional shock, power completely out of control—every single marker pointed to Liz being a freshly manifested wild mutant.
Maya also pieced together what must have happened: Liz and Andrew had gotten together. Two horny kids, drunk on young love, found a secluded grove and went at it. Both virgins, first time doing anything like this, in an exposed outdoor spot no less—they were already nervous wrecks. Then Nana had somehow tracked down her ex-boyfriend and followed them, and Liz, only in her teens herself, spotted Nana. How could she not panic? Hit by that double wave of shock, Liz's X-gene had fired.
The tragedy was that Liz's power appeared to be close-range spatial shearing. First-time activation, zero control—and Andrew became the first victim to fall beneath Liz's skirt.
The scene must have been absolutely horrific. Liz went catatonic. Nana, the instigator of the whole disaster, had been so terrified she'd bolted, wailing, to find her anchor: Madam President.
In fact, Maya's reconstruction was almost exactly right. The only detail she'd missed was that Nana had followed them on purpose, and had deliberately burst in right when the two lovebirds were getting started—intending to give Liz and Andrew a good scare. She hadn't counted on accidentally triggering Liz's mutant gene.
It was precisely because Maya had identified the X-gene activation that she'd ordered the boys to form a wall around Liz. If anyone noticed Liz's condition, someone might put two and two together and realize she was a mutant.
For now, aside from some ruined clothing, Liz looked no different from any normal person. Maya figured she could keep the secret contained—for the time being.
But there was a more pressing problem. Andrew's... item... was still inside Liz. Everyone knew what kind of bacterial environment that particular area hosted. If Madam President didn't extract the severed half soon, Andrew would be permanently out of commission.
Liz being a mutant meant doctors would be useless anyway. By the time paramedics arrived, figured out the situation, and came up with a plan? Andrew's little friend would be long past saving. Severed limb reattachment was medically viable, but there was a time limit. Ten minutes for the ambulance to get here, ten minutes back to the hospital, ten minutes to figure out Liz's spatial shearing, ten minutes to brainstorm a solution, ten more minutes to—actually, forget it. After all those delays, the thing would've gone soft and useless.
If Maya didn't extract it herself, Andrew wouldn't just lose his manhood—Liz's mutant status would also be exposed.
Turning her back to the crowd, Madam President let her shadow stretch silently across the ground toward Liz's feet. She was about to lock Liz down with her Shadow Secret Technique when several fine black lines flickered across Liz's lips, fingernails, wrists, and the back of her skull. Maya's shadow was cut apart by an invisible force, and the technique shattered on contact.
Damn. That's a terrifying ability. My shadow isn't even a physical thing—I can understand it being severed, but directly breaking my Shadow Secret Technique? That's on another level.
Maya sighed internally. Sorry, Liz. You saw it yourself—even my gold-tier ninjutsu can't get through.
Lament complete, Maya flicked a pebble at lightning speed.
Thwack. It struck the back of Liz's skull. The pebble split cleanly in two and clattered to the ground. Liz grunted once and crumpled.
Time was critical. Maya grabbed a glass jar—a wide-mouth fruit-preserves jar, already rinsed several times with purified water.
She used the branch to prod Liz all over again. No reaction this time. No spatial energy, either.
Madam President lifted the hem of Liz's dress. The area below was a mess of blood. Setting aside any low-grade embarrassment—that was for amateurs—Maya used her perception to guide a pair of freshly carved long wooden "chopsticks." With a soft pop, she extracted a reddish-black object.
Eyes clear, expression utterly flat, Madam President snatched up the bottle of purified water and rinsed the object in swift, efficient motions. Once clean, she placed it directly into the glass jar.
Hmm. The jar was a bit small. She had to bend the thing into a "J" shape before the lid would fit.
The whole sequence sounded lengthy in the telling, but from the moment Andrew made his request to Maya finishing the job, barely two minutes had passed. Madam President's sensory perception was just that overpowered. Think about the precision with which she teased apart frog eggs in the lab and you'd understand exactly how trivial this operation was for her.
With that done, Madam President suddenly raised her voice. "Andrew, you went way too far! Doing something like this in Central Park is bad enough, but learning tricks from dirty magazines and trying to play S&M? See what happens when you take it too far?"
Andrew had been practically beaming at the sight of his treasure safe in the jar, but Maya's outburst threw him for a complete loop. When had he ever read dirty magazines? Wait—okay, he had read some. But he hadn't been doing S&M today! He'd been a pure, innocent virgin before this!
Madam President, I have no idea what you're talking about!