15

Chapter 15: Exhibition 2

Exhibition 2

There was still another day before I was due to start actually working at the hospital; mostly I was just worried about how I would be received. I wouldn't be working in the morgue any more, nearly alone; I'd actually have a chance to work among the general public.

I wanted to know what I'd be walking into. What did people think of me? The newspapers obviously had the articles covering both the Undersiders and Uber/L33t's crashing of the party, as well as my own debut. But then again, they were written in that standard formal don't-offend-anyone kind of polite style, so I had no real idea about what people actually thought. The internet provided more than one author and people tended not to be afraid to voice their opinions, so naturally I gravitated back to PHO. It didn't take long to find a thread about myself on the forums.

Topic: Eunoia: New Healer in Brockton Bay

In: Capes ► New Capes ►USA East

►Tiedieded (Original Poster)

Posted on 4 Apr 2011:

Looks like Brockton Bay has another healer. She's working directly under Panacea, maybe a personal friend who triggered? She doesn't have the same powers as Panacea though, and nobody actually saw her do anything at the hospital. Claims to be tinker-tech healing.

►Grackenator

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

She's being trained by Panacea? Wtf? Does that mean she's New Wave?

►Tiedieded (Original Poster)

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Yep. New Wave.

►Grackenator

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Wow. That's pretty surprising. I thought New Wave was basically dead.

►OuttaControl

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Are we sure this isn't some kind of april fools joke?

►Fflash

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

April fools was a couple days ago, dude

►OuttaControl

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

a late april fools joke?

►BeGentleImNew (Veteran poster)

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Check it out, New Wave has some official photos and a short bio up on their website

►xX_Void_Cowboy_Xx

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Holy crap! I know her!

Remainder of post has been deleted by the moderator. User has received an infraction for this post.

Although New Wave capes reveal their civilian identities to the public, we will maintain our forum policy. Discussion of any cape's civilian life and details are forbidden. Same as it has always been for the other New Wave capes. -Tin_Dad

►Ophelia

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Good old void_cowboy. Keep being the dumb example for everyone to learn from.

►Maximus_Rex

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

So, anyone actually get healed by her today? What does she do?

►Crammmmmmmm5

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

She wasn't healing today, as far as I know. I'm guessing it was just a lot of paperwork and training. She said she was still learning.

►_-YoY-_

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

I wouldn't mind getting healed by her.

►Aegis_Official (Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Why? Nobody even knows how her tech works, or if she's any good at it.

►_-YoY-_

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Have you seen DAT ASS?

User has received an infraction for this post.

- Please keep in mind that Eunoia is a fifteen year old girl. - Tin_dad

► Gallant_Official (Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Don't be so creepy, Yoy. I've met her. She's new, give her time. I'm sure she'll be a fine hero.

► Terribad

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Does anyone know what her problems with the Protectorate are? There have been rumors going around, but no details. Gallant? Aegis? You two know anything about it?

►Aegis_Official (Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Only rumors. Nothing I can share.

► Gallant_Official (Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Same.

► trumpet_midget

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Has anyone else noticed that Shadow Stalker hasn't been on patrols lately? Anything to do with that?

-Moderator's note: Please stay on-topic. All further discussion about Shadow Stalker will be moved to this thread. - Tin_Dad

Jump to page: 1, 2, 3

I decided to click the link and see what was going on over there. The thread was a few days old already; I hadn't noticed it before but the discussion was somewhat lengthy.

Topic: Shadow Stalker Violated Her Probation (Brockton Bay)

In: Capes ► Cape Rumours► USA East

► wind_me_up (Original poster)

Posted on 2 Apr 2011:

Has anyone seen Shadow Stalker lately? No. You haven't. You know why? She's gone to jail! There was a rumour that she was forced into the Wards because she went too far. She was on thin ice for using lethal crossbow bolts as an independent/rogue. This time, she did worse. Way worse.

A few weeks ago, she was taken into police custody. That's right, regular police, not PRT. Someone called the cops for a break-in. Turns out it was her. I can't name my sources, but you can file a FOIA request for the case file # BB338405_57A. Details are light because it got handed over to the PRT and it involves a cape, but it happened.

Today, a new cape comes out named Eunoia. New Wave, not Protectorate. She's got a beef with the Protectorate. Guess why?

…

…

…

SHADOW STALKER ATTACKED A NEW CAPE AT HER HOME.

That's right. You heard it here first folks. We didn't know about this for more almost a month because the Protectorate has been too busy COVERING UP the fact that one of their own Wards BROKE THE UNWRITTEN RULES and went villain!

Edit: The new cape's a healer, too! Named Eunoia

last edited: 4 Apr 2011

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

I only just heard about this, and not even that many details. The PRT is really keeping it under wraps. How did you manage to find out about it?

► CapeGrape

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

What? That's fucked up, man. You're making no sense. Why would Shadow Stalker attack a civilian?

► Baggadornobs

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Seriously, this is conspiracy theory shit. You go from "nobody's seen shadow stalker" to "SS broke the unwritten rules and PRT is covering for her." That's like flat Earth conspiracy theory levels, man. Maybe she's just taking a vacation.

► Maximus_rex

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Ok, not that I'm subscribing to the theory, but I did happen to be at the hospital last week. Saw someone with a mask getting rushed in there early morning. With PRT escort.

► WinRAWR

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Where do you even get this information? How do we know it's accurate?

► wind_me_up (Original poster)

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Bagrat Can't name my sources man, they trust me with this stuff cuz I don't rat them out.

►Boo-chan

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Maximus that could have been anyone. This is Brockton Bay, capes get hurt fighting all the time.

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

So you don't have any verified sources? A FOIA request can't be fulfilled that quickly. There's no way you got the info that way.

► crunkite

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Haha, sounds like Bagrat's getting jealous. Someone knew something before he did?

► wind_me_up (Original poster)

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Guess so. I just have better sources than him. Bagrat's just a PRT shill, can't always trust the news from them you know.

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

That's not the point. I earned that badge because I know people and I've proven that my sources are trustworthy. Nobody knows where this dude is getting his info from.

► Baggadornobs

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Look, even if what you said is true, your conclusion is way off. Imagine this scenario: Shadow Stalker is chasing a real criminal. They break into this girl's house. They fight, girl gets a trigger event, SS gets knocked out. There, we have a new healer in Brockton Bay, SS was actually defending the girl and not attacking her. Makes way more sense.

► wind_me_up (Original poster)

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Hey, facts are facts. You can always verify afterwards. And baggadornobs, it doesn't explain why she's out of commission for the past week. Whatever the damage, Panacea could have fixed her up. Or why Eunoia's got a beef with the Protectorate.

► Engel

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Hey, any of the ENE Wards want to chime in on this?

► Going_GAR

Replied on 2 Apr 2011:

Don't hold your breath. I'm pretty sure it's PRT policy that Wards stay out of these kinds of threads.

Jump to page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Okay, so apparently the whole world knew about Sophia breaking into my house, and had known even before the dinner. I had thought Lisa outed me during my debut, but there had been pages of discussion on it beforehand. But funny thing is, it wasn't Lisa who had started that thread, unless wind_me_up happened to be another one of her alt accounts. Maybe it was just someone who had a grudge against Shadow Stalker?

The thread had exploded with popularity again after the debut with discussion about the attack by the Undersiders and what Tattletale had said. Most people were discussing or referencing another particular thread. It wasn't hard to see why.

Topic: The R33L Life Gamer (Uber and L33t livestream)

In: Media ► Videos ► Streaming and Subscription

Viewing Page: 1 ... 81, 82

►Nordical

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

New video is up! Looks like they teamed up with the Undersiders for this one

►|||1llII||1|

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

Mario Kart! Hell yeah, my favourite series!

►Tastysis

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

Undersiders? Why? Do they even game?

►Uber_the_Gamer (Verified Cape)

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

Regent does. He ain't half bad even when he isn't cheating.

They approached us, they needed something big and flashy, and we had it. What they paid for the job should be enough to fund some major upgrades for our next 3 episodes!

►Gloof

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

What was Peach talking about in the vid there?

►FirstFantasy

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

Who cares, Uber and L33t just pwned the Protectorate, lol

►4Jobber

Replied on 3 Apr 2011:

Yeah the lightning shrink actually worked really well! You guys planning on keeping that one? Same with the blue shell.

Taking their own containment foam though, that was brilliant. Take that, fuckin pigs

►Fflash

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Oh fuck they called the Protectorate villains

►Venerator

Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Yeah, someone has a thread over on the Rumours forum

I could only guess why the Undersiders had teamed up for this, but it was likely for Uber and L33t's audience. As neat as the duo's gadgets had been, I suspected they could have found a way to make the theft without them. Calling out the Protectorate was another thing altogether, though making a speech to a small number of rich elites wasn't much of an audience. Having that video on the internet, though, now it made sense.

I took a look at their video, which had over fifty thousand views already. Under the video there was a link to wind_me_up's thread regarding Sophia, to back up Lisa's words. At this point, I guess I should just give up on the idea of having a private life. At least I was with a team that had experience dealing with that.

At the very least, people didn't have much to say about me – almost all the talk was about the Undersiders, the info about Shadow Stalker. I supposed that was what I had to look forward to when I started work.

I was eager to put what I had been learning and practicing into use. They just had me work in the a room that Panacea used to work in, dedicated for healing capes or non-staff procedures. Panacea had "graduated" long ago to making rounds with the doctors, healing or diagnosing more patients by going to them rather than waiting for patients to be brought to her. I hadn't earned that trust yet. I was overseen by the triage nurses, and be working on the lowest-priority cases. Stuff that wasn't deadly and I had the lowest chances of screwing up, or palliative cases where the patients weren't expecting to survive anyway.

Heck, most of these cases probably shouldn't have even been at ER in the first place, often requiring little more than a few band-aids. Partly I was annoyed that I would mostly be attending stubbed toes and the like, but partly I was also glad that I wouldn't be in over my head. The hospital was understandably cautious about this.

I'd already gone through a few patients like the next one the nurse brought in - a person who had a minor laceration. We didn't ask the details, but I would suspect it had come from a gang fight. Rather common in this town, especially with the ABB escalating against the Empire. While it looked nasty, the blood had already dried and he wasn't in any danger.

"Do I have permission to heal you?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just fix it up, girl."

"Eunoia will need to place Tinkertech on your body to observe for educational purposes. Does she have your permission to do so?" the nurse asked for me.

"Sure, sure, just hurry it up." I couldn't believe this guy. Did Panacea have to deal with this kind of attitude all day? He was lucky that he wasn't waiting for hours for such a minor thing. Triage and all.

The nurse reminded me of what I needed to do. "This is a fairly routine case. Clean out the wound, close up the wound if possible, and apply some gauze to protect and soak up excess fluids. If you're not confident using your Tinkertech for that, we have the standard medical supplies here," she said, pointing at a nearby cart. "Call me if you need me."

It felt a little patronizing, because I knew I could do far more than just swab and stitch. I did the best damn job I could. I was able to take out every single microscopic speck of dirt, more than any swabbing or rinsing could have done. When I closed the wound I lined up blood vessels and skin layers; the guy would probably heal twice as fast and no scar to boot. When I was done, he got up and left without even thanking me.

Ugh.

Amy wasn't too far away, working on the more critical cases, although I think she would be finished with the ER soon and would probably head upstairs in the next few minutes. I could already see why she had become so disaffected.

The next few patients were more appreciative. Although one of the patients was a little too appreciative.

"Aww yiss, you're the new babe right?"

"My name's Eunoia; I'll be your healer today," I said, trying to ignore the looks he was giving me. His smell provided more than sufficient distraction. I think the nurses might have decided to hand this guy off to me partly as a challenge, and partly because they didn't want to deal with him either.

"Hey, aren't you the girl that had some shit with the Wards? What's that about?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not inclined to speak about my private life." That line was getting a whole lot of use today. It felt very legal-friendly. I bet it had gotten plenty of use before I started borrowing it from Panacea. Saying it was almost like meditation, reminding myself to clear my head and focus on the healing, not worry about whatever people were trying to say about me.

"Okay, he has an infected abscess. If you can clean out the infection, apply some antibiotics and seal the wound," the nurse confirmed what I suspected.

Honestly, it wasn't even that hard. Almost the same as all the other cases I treated, the only difference was how hard it was to access for other people. My bots, however, easily entered through an IV line. The hospital provided the drugs, my bots were capable of carrying tiny packets of them directly to the required area. The nice thing was that being able to direct delivery like this was quite useful – sure, Panacea could have just healed it perfectly, but the idea was that I may need to provide care on days or times that Panacea couldn't be here.

After a few minutes, the job was done, and the issue was fixed. While I had been working on him, Panacea had finished with the ER and already gone upstairs. I sighed inwardly, remembering this wasn't a competition. No healer on the planet would ever match her. "It'll take a few more days to heal naturally," I told him. "You should follow up with your family doctor in a week."

"Aww, can't I come here and see you instead?" he asked. "I mean, yer bod makes me feel better than any medicine." He actually winked at me.

I couldn't think of anything to say except a flat "no."

I was really starting to hate Tattletale's costume suggestions. Oh well, too late now. I couldn't exactly re-debut. Maybe I could just wear a lab coat over it. Then again, I didn't need to remind myself why it was so important to keep up the appearance.

In the sewers underneath the hospital, my bots were hard at work. Lisa had actually helped me out – a few discreet messages on the burner phone told me where to find some materials. She had dropped off "trash" near the sewers, all of which were made from high-carbon, high-energy components. I didn't even have to go near them myself, walking within two blocks on my way to the hospital gave me enough control to use my existing bots to funnel the stuff into the sewers and carry them closer to the hospital.

All day, while I had been working with patients, I had been generating and producing more bots. I no longer had to waste time (or arouse suspicion) by buying and carrying the stuff myself.

The hospital work continued for a few days - I was happy to be there every day, even more often than Amy, since I wasn't going to school. Lisa had been keeping up her promise, leaving me materials at randomized, yet convenient spots near sewer entrances so that I could build bots all day while at the hospital.

After they had grown confident in my tech and abilities, one of the neurologists snagged me. Apparently word had been going around, helped along greatly by Panacea herself, that I was willing and ready to do brains. I'd gotten comfortable with my bots swarming around my own skull and floating through cerebrospinal fluid, so at this point I was eager to live up to my namesake.

It was a patient in long-term palliative care. They'd been in a coma and life support for months, but apparently there had been a change in condition recently. "We'd just like you to confirm brain death. Is that within your range of abilities?" Dr. Mattias asked.

"I think I can do that," I said. Reading the electrical signals in my own brain was second nature by now. I could actually tell, quite distinctly, which parts of the brain controlled which function in my body in more detail than any textbook could.

I pushed my bots into the person's body through an IV again, and the bots swarmed the brain.

There was no detectable activity as far as I could tell. While the lungs moved, it was because of a machine; there was no signal coming from the brain. While the heart was beating, the heart muscle was generating its own rhythm, again not receiving any actual input from the brain.

"Um... this patient, I'm not sensing any activity in the brain at all," I said. I looked at the family members nearby, their eyes already red from crying. "Sorry."

Dr. Mattias patted me on the back. "It's okay. We were just looking for a second opinion," he said.

They had actually performed a standard battery of tests to confirm before bringing me up here, and were ready to pronounce them dead, but had me come up as a potential second opinion. It turned out that they had three patients like this that they wanted to "test" me on, at least for the basics. I went through the same procedure with the other two.

The last one turned out to have minimal brain activity, just enough that the doctors couldn't declare the patient brain dead, though the rest of the brain was so damaged it was impossible for them to ever fully recover. Again, they didn't expect me to actually fix anything, just seeing if I had the ability to actually detect things accurately.

Today, it seemed like I passed with flying colours.

They weren't going to make me doing anything more difficult or risky though; that was going to be saved for another day. Still, the fact that they were promising to look for more cases to supervise me on was delightful.

The next day, apparently they had been so impressed with my work that they were willing to move me on to some more patients. Brockton Bay General tended to have a disproportionate amount of psychiatric or other brain-afflicted patients these days, thanks to Panacea healing most other cases. Which meant they had a sizable backlog of neuro cases and doctors that were glad to receive an extra hand.

Now that I had proven myself on the very basics on non-cadavers, they were willing to push me on to people who (or their families) had signed parahuman healing consent forms. Mostly, it was people with brain degeneration, who had history of brain damage or strokes and such. None of them were in particularly good condition. We were moving on from people who were most likely dead to those who were likely to be dead within a month. Yay! Progress!

Again, the doctors were mostly being cautious. They only gave me patients who they couldn't help with modern technology, and ones whose death was already expected. Still, I managed to prove myself by not killing any of the patients at least, and even help the doctors diagnose things.

They were pretty confident in the safety of my bots now. If a relatively unhealthy patient didn't get worse from my intervention, then at least they could risk relatively healthy, willing patients.

Again, partly because of Panacea, and partly because of the state of the city itself, Brockton Bay General had more psychological or neurological cases than many other hospitals. That, in turn, had caused more brain specialist doctors to be hired. That led to more doctors and scientists who willingly came to Brockton Bay, which incidentally was starting to turn into a hub for brain and psychological research. A lot of it was funded by Medhall, one of the few highly successful businesses that were still based here that survived the economic crash.

In my case, it seemed like some of these researchers wanted their hands on me. Where else would they get relatively healthy people to volunteer as a research subject? The doctors were still being cautious and hesitant to let me treat critical or emergency cases, but here I could get more practice while they got more data.

"Thank you so much, Eunoia! You've been a great help. See you again Wednesday?" Dr. Harper said as he patted me on the back.

"Yup!" I said. The neurologists had quickly laid claim to me over the ER docs when they realized I could do all these things that Panacea couldn't. They actually wanted to help me succeed, too, which was a humongous change from the teachers at Winslow. Probably because I was useful to their careers.

"By the way, if you still have time today, Dr. Kardon wants to talk to you. I think she's in the MRI department today."

Although I was a little fatigued from the amount of work I was being given, all of it was so new and interesting to me that I still wanted to do more. I still had no idea what my powers were really capable of, and having professionals guide me and give me ideas was fantastic. So, I headed down to MRI.

"Eunoia! You're here!" Dr. Kardon said. She was looking over a brain MRI. "So, I had some ideas for a research paper I'm working on, and I was wondering if you could help."

"Of course," I said. "What can I do for you?"

She pulled up images from a different patient on her computer. "Do you know what fMRI is?" Unlike the pictures that she was looking at before, which had been black and white, this one was blurrier but with coloured pixels laid over top of the MRI image.

I shook my head. I may have heard of it through all the textbooks I had read, but I hadn't gone into the technical details. I was more focused on structure and function, and relating that to what I sensed with my bots.

"It's a way of measuring brain activity. We try to estimate what parts of the brain are being used more by measuring the blood flow to different sections of the brain in real-time. You can see on this imaging which parts are getting the most blood, and therefore are the most active. That's the basic gist of it."

I nodded. The general idea seemed simple enough. "How can I help?"

"I'm hoping that, with your tech, you can get a more precise mapping. As you can see from this image, current technology is, well, limited. I've heard you've been working on live brains already?"

"Yeah, I can do that. You just need me to measure the blood flow in real time, right?"

Dr. Kardon nodded. "And your bots are MRI safe? Any metals or magnetic substances?"

"None. They're almost entirely carbon-based. Diamond and graphite-like."

"Excellent! For the first dozen subjects, I'll need you to have your bots in the patients while they're getting an fMRI test, to make sure that the results correlate. Now, the only problem is how we're going to record the data..."

"I could make a model of the brain's blood vessels for you," I said. "But you'll need cameras to record it, I can't remember things well enough to replay it." I used a pound of excess bots and had them form a wireframe shape of the brain. I decided to let a bunch of them enter my own bloodstream, and copied my own brain's blood vessels into the model I had in my hands. All I needed to do was mimic where the bots were at any given time; my Master power gave me that information easily.

Dr. Kardon was staring at the active brain model I was holding. Her jaw drooped. "Is this...?"

"My brain right now, yeah." I said.

She watched as the blood vessels shifted very slightly here and there. Her eyes darted to my face and body, trying to correlate what I was doing with what the model in my hands was doing. I was actually impressed with it myself. I hadn't done this before, even if I had known the information it displayed, I hadn't seen it with my own eyes before. It was beautiful, in a way.

"This is even better than I thought. Eunoia, can you come here every Monday?"

"Sure. I'd love to."

I was working again in my little cape-healer room for another day, dealing with lots of scrapes, burns, and sometimes bullet wounds. It looked like the gang wars were still escalating. Even though Panacea was working with me, some patients she couldn't do – not just brain patients, but ones who were stick-thin and didn't have enough biological material in their bodies to convert into new tissue. I seemed to be receiving a lot of drug-addled Merchants – those who hadn't been taking care of their bodies at all and had been caught up in the gang war.

Then, I got called out of the room into the ER.

A patient had come in with a possible stroke. These were very time-sensitive, and since Amy didn't do brains, they had been training me and seeing what I could manage. Naturally, they went through the standard procedures for treating a stroke before seeing what I could do with her.

Since one of the CT scanners happened to be down for servicing and maintenance at the moment, there was a huge backlog of critical patients waiting for a scan. I think it might have had something to do with the ongoing gang war; those machines had been going nearly nonstop day after day. I wasn't surprised that one of them needed repairs.

It was really just this reason alone that they got me to check on the patient, just to see if I could find anything. The funny thing about strokes is that they could be caused by several different causes that resulted in similar symptoms; the treatment for them were practically opposites. Which meant the doctors couldn't act until the patient got scanned, and in a situation like this, every second was critical.

"He's got an aneurysm," I told them. "In the left motor cortex."

"You're certain? Not ischemia?" the Dr. Bruneau asked.

"Yup. I can see the damaged blood vessel. It's leaking everywhere," I told him.

"Damn. We'll need to rush him into surgery," he said.

"Uh... I could fix it, if you want. Like, right now," I told him. I'd been reading up on treatments a lot. For the most part, it was just sealing up the vessel. And it was mostly about preventing further damage than reversing existing damage. I could do that. I wanted to show a bit of initiative, hopefully so that I wouldn't be stuck giving band-aids for minor scrapes for another week. In fact, I already done so before I asked, and used my bots to seal up the hole and hold the blood vessel together. It wasn't leaking any more.

Dr. Bruneau looked at me in surprise. "You... can?"

"Yeah. Does a stent work? That's what I did. I just created a stent. It's stopped bleeding now," I told him. I could make it permanent, even when those bots left my range, just by interlinking them and locking them into position. "Should I leave it in there?"

"Yes. Yes, definitely. We'll have to verify through scans and surgery, but I believe it will just be to check," he said.

I couldn't help it. I preened a little.

Author's Note: man, it's been a busy few weeks. Hopefully I can get back on schedule soon.

Before my hiatus, I used to have a vague idea of what to write, and just post stuff as I wrote. The problem with that method (for me, at least) is that I find that I get better ideas as I write, but then I'd have to rewrite earlier chapters. I intended to try something different, having the story almost completely written out, and just making final edits and proofreading as I post each week, but even now I still find myself making major edits and rewrites of every chapter.

I seem to have little talent for actual planning and my creativity seems to flow best at the very last second. Hmmm.