The vehicle had been moving for nearly fifteen minutes when the security officer beside the rear doors raised one hand. "Quiet."
He pressed two fingers against the receiver in his ear.
Marek checked the narrow window beside him.
The university had disappeared several blocks behind. At least, the parts of the city that still resembled Linden City had.
Some streets were blocked by abandoned vehicles. Others had been redirected through areas Marek did not recognize. At one intersection, three apartment buildings still stood exactly where they should have been.
Everything behind them was forest. Nobody inside the vehicle commented. There had already been too many things to comment on tonight.
The security officer lowered his hand and addressed the four passengers sitting across from him.
Marek. The chemistry researcher. The male student. The maintenance worker.
All four carried the same Ophiuchus Mark: an empty black circle surrounded by thirteen separated scales. "We received an updated directive."
The student leaned forward. "Are we being released?"
"No."
He leaned back. "Then I already dislike it."
The officer ignored that. "Personnel transporting Ophiuchus-marked individuals are not to unnecessarily restrain, threaten, provoke, or physically interfere with them unless there is an immediate danger to another person."
The chemistry researcher frowned. "That is very specific."
"Yes."
"Who gave the order?"
"I don’t know."
Marek turned to the officer. "Does it actually say Ophiuchus now?"
The officer checked his tablet. "Yes."
"So we have been promoted from Unregistered."
"Your classification is still Unregistered."
"Then not much changed."
The student considered the directive. "They were told not to make us angry."
"That changed," Marek said.
"Is that good?"
Marek noticed that the officer was sitting slightly farther away from them than he had been when they left the university. "No."
The officer sighed. "It does not say you are dangerous."
"It specifically tells you not to provoke us."
"It tells us to avoid unnecessary escalation."
"That sounds like the same thing."
The maintenance worker asked whether the other Signs had received similar instructions.
They had.
Taurus, Gemini, and Aries all had specific control instructions meant to reduce accidents. Ophiuchus had one instruction: "Do not provoke them."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
"Ours is worse," the student remarked.
"For the record," the officer said, "I agree."
Marek almost smiled. At least someone was being honest.
The vehicle turned, shifting everyone slightly to one side. The maintenance worker caught the edge of his seat, then released it. As he adjusted his sleeve, Marek noticed something different about his Mark.
One of the scales had turned faint blue.
The student stared at it. "Yours changed too."
The maintenance worker turned to Marek. "So did his."
The upper edge of Marek’s dark-red scale was still visible beneath his collar.
The chemistry researcher adjusted her coat sleeve. "I thought mine was the only one."
Her Mark sat higher on her left arm and was smaller than Marek’s. One scale was green.
The student checked his own Mark near his ribs.
Every scale remained black. "I feel left out."
"You are the only person here who has not apparently stored something dangerous inside your body," Marek said.
The student paused. "That sounds less impressive when you say it like that."
"It should."
The security officer had caught the important part. "Stored?"
Nobody answered him.
Marek pointed to the maintenance worker’s blue scale instead. "What happened when that changed?"
The man rubbed his palms against his pants.
"I don’t know exactly."
"That has been a popular answer tonight."
The maintenance worker gave him a tired expression. He had been working near the west maintenance corridor when an electrical panel failed. One of his coworkers had been electrocuted and could not release the cabinet.
The maintenance worker grabbed him. A moment later, his coworker stopped convulsing and was able to let go of the cabinet.
"You switched the breaker?" Marek asked.
"No."
"Someone else?"
"No."
The man raised his arm again. "This started glowing."
The blue scale gave off very little light now. "I felt something move into my arm. It wasn’t exactly electricity. At least, it didn’t feel like I was being electrocuted."
"What did it feel like?"
"Pressure. Maybe movement."
"No pain?"
"No."
"Can you make it come out?"
The maintenance worker immediately lowered his arm. "I haven’t tried."
"Good."
The student frowned. "Why?"
"We are inside a metal vehicle."
He slowly nodded. "Right."
The security officer became slightly less comfortable. The chemistry researcher was studying her green scale now.
Marek turned to her. "What happened to yours?"
"A bottle broke."
"What was inside?"
"Concentrated nitric acid. We use it for trace-metal screening."
"Who was exposed?"
"My assistant."
The researcher explained that the acid had splashed across part of her assistant’s glove and lab coat. There had also been fumes. The woman started coughing almost immediately, and the researcher grabbed her while trying to remove the contaminated coat.
That was when the scale turned green.
"What happened to your assistant?" Marek asked.
"She stopped coughing."
"Immediately?"
"Not completely, but much faster than she should have."
"And you?"
"My throat started burning. I coughed for several minutes. Then it stopped."
Marek studied the green scale.
The dark-red one beneath his collarbone pulsed.
Elia.
Her condition was still inside him.
The First Motion had not disappeared. It was contained.
The maintenance worker had apparently done something similar with whatever had been affecting his coworker. So had the chemistry researcher.
Three different incidents. Electrical current. Chemical exposure. Uncontrolled First Motion. All three had moved from one person into an Ophiuchus bearer.
Marek turned to the student. "What about you?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing happened when you Awakened?"
"My Mark appeared. It hurt. I screamed."
"That part seems normal."
"I would prefer if you stopped defining painful things as normal."
"Tonight has changed the standard."
The chemistry researcher laughed once before covering it with a cough.
The student pointed at Marek. "What happened to yours?"
"Someone was bleeding internally."
The others became quiet.
Marek continued, "Her ability was causing the same damage repeatedly. Something kept happening inside her after the original movement had already stopped."
The maintenance worker frowned. "You took it?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I told it to use me instead."
The student stared at him. "And it listened?"
"Unfortunately."
The chemistry researcher leaned forward slightly. "What did it feel like?"
"Pain."
"That is not very specific."
"I was busy."
She accepted that.
"It entered one of the scales," Marek continued. "The condition is still there."
The maintenance worker glanced at the dark-red scale. "You know that?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Marek paused.
That was the first question that mattered more than he expected. "Can’t you?"
The maintenance worker shook his head. The chemistry researcher did the same.
"I know the scale changed," she said. "I can feel that it is different. But that is all."
"You don’t know what is inside it?"
"No."
The maintenance worker checked his own blue scale. "Same."
Marek became quiet. Until now, he had assumed that part was normal. It apparently was not.
The student glanced between them. "What?"
Marek ignored him for a moment and focused on the red scale. He knew exactly what it contained. Not because he had guessed. It was the interface who told him.
[HAZARDOUS CONDITION: UNCONTROLLED FIRST MOTION]
[CURRENT VESSEL: MAREK VALE]
[CASE STATUS: STABILIZED]
[RESOLUTION STATUS: INCOMPLETE]
"When you focus on your Mark," Marek asked the chemistry researcher, "do you see anything?"
"What do you mean?"
"Words. Information. Something like a diagnosis."
"No."
The maintenance worker shook his head. "Nothing."
The student raised one hand. "I see skin."
Marek stared at him. "Useful."
"I am just trying to participate."
The security officer was listening more carefully now. Marek leaned back against the side of the vehicle.
The ability itself was probably not unique to him. Three of the four Ophiuchus bearers in the vehicle had taken something dangerous from another person. The exact conditions were different, but the pattern was too similar to ignore.
Something harmful affected another person.
An Ophiuchus bearer intervened.
The condition moved. One scale changed. That appeared to belong to the Sign.
The others, however, could not identify what they had taken. They did not know whether the condition remained active, whether it was stable, or what might happen if it left them.
Marek did.
Or whatever had connected itself to him did.
The student was still watching him. "You really see words?"
"Yes."
"What do they say?"
"Mostly things I would rather have known before they happened."
"That sounds useful."
"It is." Marek considered it. "Annoying, but useful."
The chemistry researcher had become more interested. "Does it explain how your ability works?"
"Not completely."
"Can it tell you what ours do?"
"I don’t know."
"You haven’t tried?"
"I met you less than twenty minutes ago."
"That has not stopped you from questioning everyone."
"That is different."
"How?"
Marek thought about it. "I am nosy."
The student laughed. The security officer turned toward the front of the vehicle, probably deciding how much of the conversation needed to be reported.
Marek did not stop him.
The government already knew he was different.
It simply did not know how different.
Marek did not know either, and that was becoming the more important problem. If all four of them were Ophiuchus, then the Mark itself explained only part of what had happened to him.
The black circle. The thirteen scales. The ability to receive a dangerous condition from another person.
Those belonged to Ophiuchus.
The words did not. Neither did the diagnostic interface.
And apparently, neither did his ability to identify exactly what he had contained. Marek touched the edge of the dark-red scale beneath his collarbone.
That left one question he had been avoiding since the laboratory.
What exactly had happened to him in that toilet?