In his younger years Geisinger would’ve thrown the book across the room without a second thought. He got angry very easily back in those days. Whenever he ran into something hard or tedious, his frustration would take over and he’d lash out. College was a very stressful time for him, more so than for most.
Of course, a lot of that anger and stress was because of…
He quickly reached his right hand up to his left arm, feeling the cold metal fitted tightly around his skin. He let out a quiet sigh in relief.
Even after all these years, he still hadn’t grown out of the need to repeatedly check, just to make sure it was still there. It always was, he hadn’t forgotten to put it on in over a decade, but in spite of that, his paranoia never left. It never even subsided. It was always present, and always as prevalent as ever.
Over the years Geisinger had become very articulate at rationalizing his paranoia. To him, constantly fretting over this was the correct thing to do, because if he slipped up, it could mean the end of his career. Maybe even more. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had his fair share of close calls.
In fact, just over a month ago the spell that held the metal armband in place began faltering during a fight against a pack of werewolves. The magic corrupting the animals interfered with the magic of his own band. At one point the band actually slipped off while a few S.I.D. members were watching. If it wasn’t for his acquired skills in stealth, he would never have been able to hide from them. They would’ve seen him.
Just the thought of that was enough to make Geisinger hold onto that armband like his life depended on it. Whenever the time comes for him to have to use it, he will take any measure necessary to keep it on. What happens when it comes off, is not something he wants anyone to see.
Geisinger took his hand off the band, returning it to what was probably the tenth book he had looked through that morning. That wasn’t even counting all the books he looked through during the weekend.
He was certainly coming close to having read all the books in the library now.
They had given him nothing, less than nothing even. He was no closer to finding out a solution to Ben’s problem than he was Friday night. Hell, he was no closer to finding out what Ben’s problem even was. What was interfering with the magic to reverse the transformation? Geisinger had no clue. Scouring the deepest corners of the internet hadn’t given him anything either. The whole weekend, and the seemingly endless hours of research that came with it, was turning out to be a bust.
He felt an echo of the rage he had in his time as a young adult surface back for a brief moment. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it back, reminding himself of how he learned to manage it.
He sat back down at a table and checked the time. 6:36, less than half an hour before the workday started. He should probably get up to his office, another twenty or so minutes of searching likely wasn’t going to help.
Taking one last look around the library, he stood up and walked out, taking the elevator up to his office. Once in, he plopped down onto his chair, turning on the TV to watch any news before he actually had to start working.
Unfortunately, as the news began showing photos of three men attacked in the city the previous day, his short lived relaxation period came to an abrupt halt.
A meta on the loose. It looked like the S.I.D. had another major case in its hands.
***
The morning chill had even less of an effect on Ben than the cold of the night. When she first woke up, she found she had become so used to the cold that it almost felt just like ordinary air, without anything special to it. The cold had become like home to her, as did the rest of the forest. The half dried shoe from when she had stepped into the creek, something that would’ve done easy damage to her foot before, barely left anything at all. She was in good shape, the best she’d been in her life.
Nature was an incredible thing.
If a bit annoying.
Her dreams the previous night featured the same forest and the same floating island. And just like before, she tried to jump to the island, but couldn’t reach it. She tried again and again and still couldn’t reach it. She knew there was something she was missing, but whatever it was she had no idea.
Navigating through the forest proved to be quite the challenge without her phone, which she cursed herself for forgetting to bring. However, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been in a forest before, and the arrangement of the trees and bushes in this one slowly became more familiar the longer she walked. She’d been through here before, she knew it.
While Ben was walking, she couldn’t help but be immersed in the atmosphere of the forest. Little things, like the way grass brushed away from her footsteps, the way sticks snapped under her weight, and the way rocks, dirt, and tree roots littered the ground like a seasoning of the Earth, they all came together to form a kind of magic that she struggled to put into words.
Nature really was an incredible thing. Whatever frustration lingered from her dreams faded away as she was once again reminded of it.
When Ben finally came to the forest’s end and felt the full force of the morning sun, it felt refreshing. Luckily her growing resilience to the cold wasn’t hurting her status in the other direction. She wasn’t becoming a vampire or anything, “thank god” she thought.
As she walked further down, she saw a building appear in the distance. It was the S.I.D. She wasn’t even trying to find it, and yet it came across her in her path, as if through fate.
She stopped and examined the building for a bit. Should she go in? It wasn’t like she was very concerned with turning back anymore. And she was already avoiding going back home to… well, it wasn’t worth bringing up yesterday’s baggage.
As Ben was thinking things over, she remembered that today was the day this week she was scheduled to be in the gym. And the gym was a wonderful place to display her new skills.
Of course, the S.I.D. would likely regard those skills as “concerning” but what did they know? It’s not like they could actually overpower her. If they could just see what she was capable of, they’d know to respect her. That alone made it worth it.
She looked at the building one last time and made her decision.
She ran straight toward it and barged through the front doors. She was about to get a change of clothes and take an elevator down to the gym, however, before she could even get past the first few steps, the receptionist at the front desk stopped her.
“Ma’am what is your reason for visiting?”
Ben stopped, offended by the question. “I work here.” She said incredulously.
The receptionist became confused.
“Benjamin Cross.” She gestured to herself. “Do you really not know about my situation?”
The receptionist turned and quickly combed through all the files on her computer. Eventually, she came across a matching photo of the woman in the employee database.
“Oh, sorry.” The receptionist said. “I forgot what you looked like now. You didn’t have your uniform on.”
Ben looked down at herself and groaned. Another thing she forgot to grab. In all fairness though, that uniform didn’t fit her too well right now.
“Does Geisinger want to see me?”
“He has not called you, no.”
Ben went up to an elevator, pushing the lower button and going in, about to travel down to the gym.
“Well, he’s going to want to soon.” She said, before the doors shut.
***
The awkwardness of seeing a fellow employee in the form of the opposite gender was soon replaced by the astonishment of seeing a fellow employee with superhuman abilities. The difference between seeing a meta in video versus seeing a meta in person was staggering.
Stephen himself was extremely disoriented by seeing an average sized human woman climb up a sixty foot rope at an inhumanely fast speed. She hadn’t even bothered to attach herself to the belay. His badly hidden gawking of eyeing her in a female gym outfit was soon overridden by the non-hidden gawking of watching her perform superhuman acts.
Once Ben reached the platform at the top, she jumped down to the floor below, her feet hitting the ground with almost no effect on her body.
“How long was that?” She asked.
Stephen looked down at his stopwatch. “Uh… six seconds.”
Ben smirked. “I’d like to see the captain beat that.”
“You realize it’s not exactly fair when you have superpowers right?”
“Not my problem.” Ben said. “Life is unfair, what do you want me to do about it?”
Stephen wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Hey, watch this.” Ben went over to one of the weight lifts and loaded each side with three hundred pounds of pure iron. She went to the center bar, and lifted the six hundred pound monstrosity like it was a feather.
“You think I could get the world record? What kind of question is that of course I could. But how far above it could I go?”
The sheer amount of strength Ben was displaying had caught the attention of the entire room. Some even backed away from her in fear. Even people with superhuman strength should not be able to carry that much weight with so little effort. That just didn’t happen, or it shouldn’t have been able to happen.
What Ben was able to do was terrifying.
Stephen got out his communicator, dialing for Geisinger.
“What is it?”
“You’re gonna need to come down.” Stephen answered. “Now.”
***
Inside the elevator, Geisinger adjusted the collar of his shirt, looking down and examining himself to make sure nothing was amiss. He really hated going to the gym like this. It was like having to get rid of a pest infestation in your house, it was something that had to be done, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t thoroughly unpleasant.
When the elevator doors opened, Geisinger immediately walked toward Ben and Stephen, passing by a bunch of shocked, staring onlookers.
“Go back to what you were doing.” He told them. “This will be taken care of.”
A few of the onlookers went back to their tasks, but most continued their focus on the approaching conflict.
“You sounded pretty freaked out over the communicator.” Geisinger said as he reached the two. “How strong are we talking here?”
“I’m literally right here, captain.” Ben cut off Stephen before he could respond. “God! Only three days as a woman and people are already talking about me like I’m not there.”
Geisinger cringed, then looked over at Ben. “Alright then. You show me what you can do.”
Ben held a cold, dark glare at Geisinger for a moment, then backed away toward the rope. She grabbed a hold of it with her left hand, slowly, then placed her right hand above it, looking like she was about to climb it.
Then she quickly jumped into the air, sixty feet up, before Stephen and Geisinger had time to process it. At the height of her jump, she grabbed onto the above platform and hoisted herself up. She stood and looked straight down at the two men below.
“Well… I didn’t know about that one.” Stephen said.
At this point the attention of all of the people in the gym was directed straight at Ben. They watched as she turned around to the wall behind her, took off her shoes and socks, and jumped toward it. When her hands and feet touched the wall, she stuck to it.
“Or that one.”
Geisinger stressfully murmured as he watched Ben quickly descend the wall, using nothing but her hands and feet. When she reached the bottom, she strolled toward Stephen and him with the same cold glare as before.
“Add that with superhuman strength, superhuman speed, and oh… I can tell time really well now.”
Geisinger nodded. “I bet you can.”
Ben tilted her head. “Is there something wrong with you, captain?”
“Please don’t call me that now.” He replied. “Please never call me that, but especially not now. And no, nothing’s wrong.”
Ben’s head remained tilted, Geisinger and Stephen watching her until they finally deduced she wasn’t going to say anything and commenced talking amongst themselves.
Geisinger’s answer did not convince Ben.
There was definitely something wrong with him. She could tell, it was like a gut feeling whenever she looked at him. He was just off, in a way she’d never noticed before. And as she watched Stephen and him talk to each other about whatever, the feeling only got worse. What was going on?
Suddenly, her mind went to last night.
The flower. The beautiful royal blue flower, so eye-catching and out of place in the dark forest.
She hadn’t seen it when she woke up, and at the time it completely slipped her mind. She hadn’t given it any thought. Now, it was the only thing she could think of.
Whatever was wrong with that flower was the same thing wrong with Geisinger.
He was giving off the exact same feeling the flower did. Just looking at him, Ben could tell that something was very, very off. But she just couldn’t get what it was.
But then, as she examined Geisinger talking, something hit her.
Last night, she had to have been close to the Woods of Sin. She didn’t know all of the exact borders, but they must have been nearby. Close enough to the point where the supernatural occurrences consuming the woods would still be out and about.
And if there was one thing the Woods of Sin were known for, it was illusions. Things that weren’t really there.
Ben leaned in closer to Geisinger, watching him as he spoke, trying to see what exactly was tipping her off.
His mouth moved, but there was a delay. A delay so slight that no human would have ever noticed. It was only for a fraction of a fraction of a second, less time than the human mind could even process.
But not Ben’s mind. She had already found that her ability to tell time was near perfect. And looking at Geisinger talk, she knew very well what was going on.
His voice was being put through a filter. Altered from its source, into a different sound than what was actually being produced.
The flower Ben saw yesterday was an illusion. It wasn’t actually there.
Geisinger wasn’t actually there.
“Well, I think I’ve heard enough.” Geisinger said. “Ben, I need you to come with me to my office, immediately.”
Ben’s heart sprang into action, contemplating what she could do. She couldn’t go into the office with this impersonator. It could be a trap! She had no idea what the hell this thing was. She needed to attack it right then and there.
“Ben? Are you listening to me? Office. Now.”
Ben stared into the thing’s false eyes, eventually giving it a slow nod, soon following it to the stairs and up the floors.
She had to wait. As much as she wanted to jump it and make her attack as soon as possible, she knew she couldn’t. She had to wait until she was alone with it, in a place where it couldn’t attack any of the other S.I.D. members. Even if this was a trap, that was a risk she had to take. All she had to do right now was play along and pretend that she was fooled by the disguise. Soon, it would come time to strike.
***
Ben followed the thing pretending to be Geisinger like a predator stalking its prey. The fake man was seemingly oblivious to the dynamic, and hopefully it would stay that way for the time being.
“Awfully silent aren’t you?” “Geisinger” said. “Not even attempting to do small talk?”
Ben sent a harsh glare at him.
“Okay I’m sorry.” He said. “I know this must be really stressful. It has been for me, I can’t imagine how you feel.”
Ben let out a grim chuckle. “No, you certainly can’t.”
“Geisinger” nodded, taking out a key and unlocking “his” office door. “Well, I’m sorry to say this but I tried to look into your problem during the weekend and I wasn’t able to-”
The imposter was cut off the moment he shut the door. Ben pinned him down onto the table and stole the pocket knife from his pouch, holding it right in front of his face.
“Not a good idea to bring a knife down to the gym. Were you expecting a fight?”
“Geisinger” was completely taken aback and disoriented from the attack, and took some extra seconds to process what was happening.
“What? No, it’s just a force of habit.” He answered. “Ben, what the hell are you doing!?”
“Don’t call me ‘Ben’, you fucking imposter. You don’t know me, you don’t know anyone here.”
The man on the table was stunned.
“WHAT!?”
“You’re not Geisinger, you’re under an illusion.” Ben spat at him. “I don’t know what the hell you want but I’m not letting you get it.”
The man’s heartbeat increased greatly and he felt his face flush with guilt and shame. “Look, Ben… I don’t know how you were able to tell but just let me go and I can explain everything.”
“Not until you tell me where the real Geisinger is.”
“I AM the real Geisinger!”
“I do wonder how you look under that mask.” Ben pondered. “You definitely have to be human, I can see that.”
“I’m being serious Ben, trust me. This is all just a big misunderstanding, please let me explain.”
Ben stared at the man, holding the knife right up to his cheek, putting on pressure and drawing blood, letting it run down his face. The man pinned down winced in pain.
“Please.”
Ben glared at the man for a few more seconds, making sure he was intimidated, then let go. The man nearly fell down but caught himself in time.
Ben held the knife up to him. “No funny business. I could kill you very easily.”
“Geisinger” nodded, trying his best to hide his nervousness. “Follow me.”
Ben was led into the bathroom connected to the office, the door behind it being secured shut.
“Geisinger” walked to the center of the bathroom. “Detecting illusions just had to be one of your powers didn’t it? And then you just had to freak out like that. You’re making everything a real hassle, you know that?”
Ben continued her cold stare, not impressed in the least.
The man sighed. “Okay fine, but remember, no one else is allowed to know about this. NO ONE. You got it?”
Ben nodded.
“Geisinger” rolled up his left sleeve, revealing a metal armband hugging his upper arm. He sighed and stood still for a few seconds, then disconnected the latches, letting the band fall to the floor.
Immediately after the band left his arm, the man in the center of the room changed, revealing the form of a woman in his place.
At first, Ben squinted her eyes in confusion, but soon she examined the woman’s face, and saw a striking resemblance to Geisinger. Especially with her short hair, she looked like she could’ve been his twin.
“Captain?” Ben said, lowering the knife.
The woman, Geisinger, shot her head up instantly.
“It is you!” Ben said. “What happened?”
“Um…” Geisinger started, the voice coming out of his mouth unmistakably a woman’s. “It’s a… long story.”
“Wait… have you been a woman this whole time?”
“No, I haven’t. This happened when I was eighteen. I got a curse that makes me switch genders every time I… well, every time I… orgasm.”
“So this isn’t the real you?”
“It’s half of me.” He sighed.
Ben felt stunned, as if her entire world had just collapsed into itself.
“I… don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah… I guess we’re more alike than we thought.” Geisinger said. “But, Ben, this doesn’t change the fact that you tried to kill me.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“You pinned me to the table and held a knife to my face. Look at what you did here.” He pointed to his cheek. “Don’t say you weren’t out for blood.”
“‘Out for blood’? Do you actually think I’d kill you?”
Geisinger didn’t answer.
“You do, don’t you?” Ben said accusingly.
“Ben, you need help.” Geisinger said back. “You need help now. Whatever is wrong with you is worse than I could have ever imagined. We need to get you-”
“I’m not being put in a damn mental hospital! Or magic hospital, or corruption hold, or wherever the hell you want to put me!”
“Ben, just this morning I heard a story about three men being put into a hospital after being beaten by a meta.” Geisinger stated. “A young, female meta. You fit that description with flying colors.”
“And now you’re accusing me of stuff I didn’t do!”
“There are no recorded metas in that city, Ben. If it wasn’t you, it would’ve had to have been someone else outside of the city.”
“Are you saying the records are never wrong?”
“No, I’m saying that you’re becoming a real danger to other people, and a danger to yourself. We need to get you someplace safe.”
“The only place we need to be is somewhere we’re respected and apparently that isn’t here.”
“Who’s ‘we’, Ben?” Geisinger tried to ask, but Ben had already left the bathroom, and was about to leave the office. Before she reached the door, Geisinger sprinted toward one of the cabinets in the room and took out a shock cannon, set to stun to make its victim unconscious.
Geisinger fired the weapon straight toward Ben, hitting her square in the back.
It didn’t stun her.
It hadn’t done anything to her, in fact. She simply turned back toward him, unaffected by the weapon’s blast.
Geisinger’s heart sank at the sight of her unwavering gaze. She grinned, clearly amused at his attempt to stop her.
“Have you ever seen a child try to stop their mother from leaving the house? It’s adorable.” Ben said. “That’s what you are, adorable.”
Geisinger was frozen in shock and fear. Even the strongest metas out there usually had some reaction to the shock cannon. Ben had nothing. It was as if it was only a gust of wind.
Ben chuckled. Reaching within herself, she pulled the energy from the blast of the cannon back out and shot it straight toward Geisinger. The force of the hit sent him straight against the back wall, and as the darkness was overtaking him, Ben walked over and leaned straight into his face.
“Sweet dreams.”
Geisinger let out a pained exhale before falling unconscious.
Ben smiled, then went back into the bathroom to get the metal armband, wrapping it securely around his arm and letting his male mirage take hold once more.
“You forgot this. I’d hate to be rude and leave you like that.”
Just after she said that, she heard footsteps approaching the office from the hallway. Ben quickly turned to the door and saw nothing, but the footsteps were getting closer and she knew people would turn up soon.
Ben looked behind her, where she saw a window. She didn’t know if it was large enough for her to fit through but she had no other choice. It was either take the chance or be discovered.
She opened the window, took one last look behind her, and jumped three storeys down, hitting the ground with little impact. She then immediately sprinted toward the forest so as to not be seen.
When the two S.I.D. members finally reached Geisinger’s office, they were greeted by a mess of papers thrown about with their boss lying unconscious on the floor, a shock cannon by his side and an open window to his back.
