"You don't need to bring a thick coat. I've got something special for you tonight!" Maya said, patting the lump on her back.
"That... that's just a pillow. What's it good for?" Matt said, staring at the pillow strapped to Maya's back.
"It's a pillow, but it's not just a pillow. Trust me — you're going to love it."
Before Matt could reply, Maya tapped the iron box at her waist. A silk thread shot out instantly, coiling around Matt's body like a living serpent, and in seconds a snug turtle-shell binding had taken shape.
Matt had no objections. This rigging method distributed the pressure evenly, which meant it wouldn't snap his waist in half. A definite improvement.
Wind roared past his ears as they took off. Matt pushed his hearing outward, training his sensory perception under unstable conditions.
"Maya, this isn't the right direction. It feels like... the East Side? St. Mary's Hospital. You're going to visit Andrew, aren't you?"
"Not bad! See, I told you this training method works. It comes from a secret technique passed down on a certain hidden island nation. They've got these enormous giants over there, and to avoid being eaten, ordinary people invented a type of ODM gear. To train the balance needed for mid-flight maneuvering, they developed this spatial-awareness technique!" A certain Madam President was making things up again.
"So the training method is just tying someone up and dangling them in midair to flail around? And what even are 'giants'? I may be blind, but I'm a well-read, cultured blind man. Don't try to fool me." Matt struggled to retort while adjusting to the weightless, anchorless sensation of swinging through open air.
Behind her mask, Maya curled her lip. "If reading books were enough, intel on Asgard would've been common knowledge ages ago. If Asgardians exist, and Frost Giants exist, is it really so weird to throw in some Attack-on-Titan-style giants?"
Matt: What are you even talking about? I don't understand a single word.
They reached the hospital rooftop in no time. Maya set Matt down, extended her senses for a moment, then said, "I'm going down to see Andrew. Wait here."
She activated Shadow Escape and arrived outside a private room. Lucius really had gone up in the world — not only had he transferred his son to a private East Side hospital, he'd sprung for a luxury single.
Through the window, Maya could see Andrew lying in bed. And his little brother Jamal was there too, parked on the opposite sofa, engrossed in a handheld game console.
This was a problem. Walking straight in wasn't an option. Jamal was young, not stupid, and a dark, shapeless shadow creeping through the door would be just a tad conspicuous.
Should she come back later tonight after wrapping up patrol?
No. The sooner Andrew's severed tissue was reattached, the better. A few more hours and the cells could be completely necrotic. Then there'd be nothing left to save.
Andrew's bed was right by the window. Maybe she could try...
A tendril of shadow slithered through the half-open window and crept along the dangling cord beside it. Shadow Touch gave a gentle tug, and the curtain slowly descended. Jamal, lost in his game, didn't notice a thing.
With the curtain screening her, Maya extended her right hand, glowing faintly blue, and pressed it against the fabric. From nearly a meter away, she aimed at Andrew's injured member.
Her senses burrowed into the cross-section of the wound. Though it was a man's most private area, Maya's expression remained cool and detached, without a shred of embarrassment. She might as well have been a med-school student facing a cadaver, a scientist examining a lab specimen, a coroner cataloguing a body in the morgue. Her state of mind didn't waver in the slightest. If anything, she was busy calculating a damage index.
"Upper half — over 60% cellular necrosis. Roughly 20% still salvageable. Cross-section showing signs of swelling and pus formation. Infection is significant. Andrew's temperature is approaching 38.5°C (101.3°F) — fever trend. If I hadn't come tonight, there's an 80% chance he'd have lost it for good."
"Treatment plan: stimulate surviving cells to divide."
Five minutes later...
"No good. Cellular energy is depleted and division is slowing down. So this Marvel world really is different after all. In the Naruto world, a patient's body can absorb the Healing Jutsu's Chakra as energy to fuel cell division and wound closure. But here, that doesn't work. I can only stimulate cellular activity — speed up the organelles — while the patient's own body has to supply the actual energy."
"Wait. The IV drip — that's glucose. I can speed up the infusion rate!"
The liquid in Andrew's IV line began flowing noticeably faster. Another five minutes crawled by...
"Ugh. Minor complication. New cells are crowding against the necrotic tissue, and Andrew's... appendage has turned into a Y-shape. Never mind whether it'll work — if a nurse comes to check, she'll have a heart attack."
"Let me think. Dead cells account for nearly 50%. Relying on Andrew's natural metabolism to expel them could take far too long, and by then the necrotic tissue might keratinize into a permanent layer. Andrew would be left with... well, nothing down there to speak of."
"Since they're already dead, I'll just destroy them completely, then direct the organelles to break them down and absorb the debris. Worth a shot..."
Ten minutes later...
"Viable. Just painfully slow. And besides... forget it. Let me accelerate the nerve cell division too — widen and thicken the neural network. Functional is good enough!"
One hour later...
"Maya, what took you so long?"
Maya hauled herself back onto the rooftop and let out a long, heavy breath. "I used ninjutsu to treat Andrew. It was complicated. Took longer than I expected."
Matt's expression turned peculiar. "Maya, that... if I'm remembering right, Andrew's injury was to his, um, his..."
"It's a male reproductive organ. What's so hard to say? And while we're on the subject, let me give you a little talking-to, Matt. We're superheroes now. We need to view things from a higher perspective. Take me and Andrew, for instance — right now, we're not in a man-woman dynamic. We're laboratory personnel and test subj— no, wait. Doctor and patient. Hero and rescued civilian..."
And so Matt endured Maya's scolding the entire way until they reached the top of the Chrysler Building.
The choice of headquarters hadn't changed. First, it was tall enough, and positioned near the center of Manhattan. The Empire State Building and the Twin Towers were equally tall, but both sat in Manhattan's lower east corner. Second, the Chrysler Building's crown was a spire shaped like an open pavilion — shelter from rain and partial cover from the wind.
"So tonight I'm just... holding a pillow?" Matt asked.
"Matt, let me broaden your horizons. Behold: spatial storage equipment!"
Maya unzipped one side of the pillow and pulled out the core — her Sealing Scroll. She bit her finger, pressed it to the scroll, and pushed Chakra through her palm. Three successive pops later, a tidy pile of assorted gear materialized on the ground.
"Here — a blanket. If it gets cold at night, wrap yourself up. This is a hotpot set fueled by solid alcohol. Tell me what you want to eat and I'll grab it from a supermarket on my next pass. There's a battery here, and this dish antenna and wireless transmitter are both DIY jobs — you adjust the antenna based on my position, and the range tops out at 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). Oh, and these are storybooks, all in Braille. Read them when I'm out on runs."
Matt stood dumbfounded for a long moment before asking, "Maya, you've been running around all day. When did you find the time to prepare all this?"
"Oh, I had it ready ages ago. I was just waiting for you to join the team!" Maya said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Matt: Madam President, I'm deeply honored by your confidence. Should this lowly workhorse be feeling grateful right about now?