Earl had had an always-on power that produced an abrasive noise at volumes loud enough to cause permanent ear damage, audible from halfway across the city.

“Yeah. He met someone who could ‘eat’ powers. Drain the power gradually down over time, get stronger from it. They had a thing going, until it turned sketchy,” I said. “The eater got controlling.”

“Shit.”

“Just something that happens when you put two people together, sometimes. He went back to the hospital, and then a few weeks later left to go work in a remote location, I think.”

“Hey, good for him,” Sveta said.

“Nicest person in a face-to-face conversation, but when it came to the online stuff he was a drama magnet.”

“Yeah. What about, uh, Keelee? She graduated out.”

“Yep. She remotely signed into patient chat a few times. Worked online at a call center.”

“Good for her.”

Keelee had regressed in age every time she’d used her time manipulation power. Weeks, months, and years regressed as she’d become a teenager, then a kid. The regression was fast to set in, and the only way to go the other way was real, actual, unwarped time.

I wouldn’t say it while Shin might be listening, but Keelee had joined a criminal group with the plan of defrauding a wealthy family in France. In a fit of unbelievable, unfathomable, possibly addiction-induced recklessness and stupidity, she’d intentionally de-aged herself to the apparent age of three years old, while maintaining all of her mental faculties. The idea had been to get adopted into the art-loving family after showcasing ‘natural’ artistic and musical talent she had learned from classes. A text-focused thinker in the crew to get her into the registries, a tinker on contract to make a few forged toys that doubled as communication devices so they could be her handler…

But the tinker had bailed because the job was an enterprise that would take years, and they were too impatient. The text thinker had bailed when the family had adopted a handsome three-year-old boy instead, who had showed zero ability with finger paint or music.

Leaving Keelee in her de-aged state, an absolute monster online. Offline, she’d complained constantly about wanting cigarettes, which the nurses refused to let her have, except on her birthday.

Gossip, talking about powers and patients, it made a good way to pass time while occupying the mind, because there had always been something going on, even while we’d been in limbo.