Aging

"My God," Barry said.

"You're telling me that there are three thousand metahumans worldwide, and at least half of them are in Central City?" Cisco stared at the monitor.

"Yeah," I said. "It looks like it. If it's any consolation, it proves that most metas don't go power mad. If you haven't heard of any of them, it probably means they're trying to stay under the radar and live normal lives."

"Thawne did this to them," Barry said. "Just to get to me."

"If it's any consolation, at least ten percent of them don't have any dark matter in their systems at all," I said. I pressed buttons on the dash quickly. "It looks like there's a metahuman gene."

"We know," Cisco said. "It's that gene's interaction with dark matter that causes powers."

"Maybe the gene can interact with other things, or be activated on its own," I said.

Both of them stared at the screen, still stunned.

Over the past year they'd interacted with less than thirty metahumans. The idea that there were a hundred for every one they'd met blew their mind.

"In my world, one in eight thousand people in rural areas are parahumans, and 1 in twenty-six thousand in rural areas."

"You've got over six hundred thousand metahumans in your world?"

"Yeah," I said. "But parahumans get their powers differently. They have to have brain anomaly, and then they have to experience…. Trauma. Bad trauma."

They both stared at me.

"The kind of serious trauma that causes psychological damage," I said. "Which means the heroes are outnumbered by the capes three to one."

It was dark inside the shuttle; I hadn't bothered to switch on the interior lights. We were lit by the dashboard and the reflected light from the Earth.

"I can't imagine," Barry said.

"It's how I know parahumans are different than metas. I happened to read the mind of a PRT scientist…they're our cops for parahumans. Parahumans are drawn to conflict; it's almost impossible for them to just…live their lives."

I gestured toward the screen.

"But metas…. look at how many people are just sitting there. My home town had seventy metahumans and it almost went up in flames. These people just sat back and lived normal lives."

"We could have used a little help," Cisco grumbled.

"Not everybody is a hero," I said. "But overcoming the urge to use your powers for evil, that's admirable in its own way."

"Maybe some of them have useless powers," Cisco said.

"Maybe," I said. "Which would be another difference from parahumans. Their powers are always usable for combat in one form or another."

We were all silent for a moment.

"I'm going to be pretty happy here," I said. "How much gold do you think I can sell without ruining the market?"

"Central banks are limited to selling less than 400 tons a year," Cisco said.

"I'll be fine then," I said.

"Doing what?"

"Paying people for powers," I said, as though it was obvious. "I need to get strong as fast as I can, and these people could probably use the money."

"How will you pay for it?" Cisco asked. "Don't say gold."

"Gold," I said. "If I paid with money from my world it would be counterfeit. I'll pay them in one-ounce bars."

"So, they can avoid taxes?" Barry asked.

"No," I said.

Yes.

"These people want to be anonymous. If I gave them a ten-pound gold bar, that's going to be tough to sell anonymously."

"So, they keep their powers, and you give them what seems to be free money."

"It's a win win," I said. "What's gold go for in this world right now?"

Before they could answer, I checked the internet. I hoped Federation antivirus programs were up to the task of dealing with the nastiness on the web.

"Twelve hundred an ounce," I said. "So, I'll give each of them ten one-ounce bars, and they can hold them until they need them."

"This seems wrong somehow," Barry said. "But I can't put my finger on it."

Most of the metahumans probably wouldn't pay taxes on their sudden windfall, but that wasn't my concern.

"And if they attack you?" Cisco asked.

"Then I defend myself and they don't get any money," I said. "If they just attack me out of paranoia, I might give them the money anyway, but if they're actually villains they get nothing."

"How would you know?" Cisco asked.

"I'll read their minds," I said.

"You're pretty liberal about that," Barry said. "Don't you think that some people will be offended?"

"Not if I don't tell them," I said. "And if it means that I let an innocent man go instead of throwing him in jail, I'm ok with it."

Before they could muster arguments against my reading everyone's minds, I said, "Does anyone want to try to fly this thing?"

Cisco was enthusiastic, of course, and so I let him fly the shuttle around for a bit. The controls were intuitive, at least for humans, and it moved easily through space.

They wouldn't let me land outside Star Labs; apparently, they were still bothering with secret identities. I could understand that; unfortunately, I didn't have cloaking technology; the Federation knew how to do it, but they'd vowed never to develop the technology as part of a peace treaty.

That sounded like stupid deal making to me, which gave me hope for future negotiations when I squeezed them harder.

Of course, if I could get matter transmutation to a high enough level, all I'd need from them would be technology. As it was, I couldn't make a part weighing more than a pound, and making objects with multiple materials was exponentially harder than one.

"You don't have any place for me to park?" I asked. "Well, I'll just have to take it back."

I planeshifted us back to the moon, and inventoried them to take them back to Star Labs.

"Where are Ronnie and Caitlyn?" Barry asked.

Martin was sitting at one of the consoles, a pained look on his face.

"They're having some…alone time," he said. He grimaced. "It's…strange."

I started to read his mind, but then I shied away. He was loyal to his wife, and he felt terrible about being in this situation. It was awkward as hell for him.

He was only feeling limited sensations, but it was enough to make him flushed. He stared unseeingly at the console and didn't look up at us.

"Anyway," I said. "Do you want me to give you a list of the metahumans I find, or should I keep it a secret?"

"These people deserve their privacy," Barry began.

"But it would help a lot if we knew their names and powers, in case one of them goes rogue," Cisco said.

He frowned though.

"How about I keep a database, and you can ask me if you need some help," I said. "I don't suppose either of you would want ten ounces of gold?"

Barry stared at me.

"The speed force is a huge responsibility," he began.

As a cop his finances might be scrutinized. He was a little uncomfortable with the idea of paying people for powers, especially with transmuted gold.

"My power…isn't that great," Cisco said.

"Postcognition?" I asked. "Clairvoyance? Those are definitely winners in my book."

"Let me think about it," he said.

"Ask Caitlyn for me, won't you?" I said, casually scanning the city map on the board and cross-referencing it with the map I'd seen on the shuttlecraft. I'd taken a picture of it with my phone.

"What?" Barry asked. "Caitlyn's not a metahuman."

"Well, there was one more metahuman than there should have been in Star Labs, and she was really close to another metahuman upstairs…like really, really close."

How had they missed that?

Right; they'd still been dealing with their horror at the number of metahumans in the city.

One in four hundred people were metahumans, but almost none of them were capes. They lived peaceful, normal lives and that was the most exciting thing for me in a while.

"Anyway, I want to start buying powers," I said. "And thanks Dr. Stein for the transmutation powers."

"What?" Dr. Stein looked up.

"I get lesser versions of capes' powers," I said. "Just one even if they have a lot of powers."

"We can't…" he frowned. "It makes sense that it's not just nuclear fire… we might be able to…"

He stood up and rushed for the weird glass chalkboard.

At least it distracted him from his embarrassment. Maybe they could wait until the other one was asleep before they did things with their significant others.

Before anyone could say anything, I blinked out. Flying over the city, I used enhanced sight to find the first address on my list.

Knocking on the door, I waited for a middle-aged woman to answer the door. She wasn't the metahuman I was looking for.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Can I speak to your…son?" I asked.

"He's not in," she said, and she closed the door.

I used my arcane eyes to look into his room, and then I appeared before him. He was in bed, lying with his face away from me.

He heard me step toward him, and he turned and stepped toward me.

I was shocked.

He looked at least ten years older than his true age. It looked like he hadn't combed his hair, and his entire room smelled of sweat and unwashed body.

I could feel the depression emanating from him.

Leaping out of his bed with unnatural quickness, he lunged toward me.

"What did you do to my mother?" he demanded.

"Nothing," I said.

He grabbed me with enhanced strength, and as he touched me, I did a deep delve into his mind.

Every time he used his enhanced strength, he aged a little more. I had enough skill as a bio-tinker to realize that his power had exacerbated and exaggerated an underlying condition.

Grabbing his arms, I forced them down to his sides.

"Stop that," I said. "You're hurting yourself."

His hands dropped to his sides.

"I copy powers, and I was going to offer you money to copy yours," I said. "But instead I'm going to give you a different deal. I know someone who can stop the aging. I might be able to do it myself, but she's a specialist."

"What?" he asked.

I quickly beat him senseless then healed him, using illusion to keep him from noticing.

+5 TO STRENGTH!

YOU NOW HAVE A STRENGTH OF 83!

YOU CAN LIFT 1024 TONS!

My weight limits seemed to double every five points without incremental points in between making a difference.

That increased my ability to planeshift, since I could transport anything I could lift. It also got me closer to my goal; unless I was a lot stronger and tougher, I'd never be able to beat Behemoth or even Leviathan.

I needed to be as strong as Alexandria at least, and I suspected her strength had to be at least 120 or 130 using my power's scale. It might be a lot higher.

That was the minimum level to even have a chance to doing some of the things I wanted to do.

I suspected that the Endbringers were even stronger, and since I had no idea what their true strength was, I planned on increasing strength as much as possible.

"Anyway, are you ready to go?" I asked.

"Let me put some pants on," he said.

Despite myself I looked down and grimaced. Bringing him to Panacea in his tighty whities probably wouldn't make a good impression.

"Fine," I said.

"Turn around!" he said. He was mortified for some reason. It wasn't as though I hadn't seen more in guys wearing swimsuits. The condition of his underwear was dubious, so maybe he was embarrassed.

"You aren't strong enough to hurt me, even if you hit me in the head," I said. I turned away.

He had a grudge against Star Labs, blaming them for his condition.

"I work for Star Labs," I said.

I could sense him freezing behind me.

"We're trying to correct the mistakes of the past," I said. It wouldn't be right just to leave people to suffer."

He didn't say anything, just finished getting dressed.

Looking back at him, I noticed that he was wearing a hoodie that looked a lot like mine.

I switched to a red dress.

Grabbing and inventorying him, I plane shifted to Amy's room.

"Damnit Taylor," Amy said tiredly as I blinked in behind her. She was switching her computer off, and I'd gotten a view of feminine flesh on the screen. "What did I tell you about calling ahead?"

"To call ahead?"

"And did you?"

"No… but this guy's powers are aging him every time he uses them. I thought you might want a look."

Turning around, she sighed.

"Bring him out."

He appeared beside me, and I said, "He's seventeen."

She stared at him for a moment, and then reached out and touched him. She stiffened.

"He's…not a parahuman," she said. "He doesn't have a gemma or a corona, and his body is all twisted."

"He's from another world…he's not a parahuman. He's a metahuman, which is…somehow different?"

She looked intrigued.

"Can you help him?" I asked. "I think his power just interacted with an underlying genetic condition."

"Don't tell me how to do my job," she said.

It took almost ten minutes for her to finish, and I could see his features becoming younger and younger.

"That'll do it," she said. Looking at me, she said "He had a weird asymptomatic form of progeria. His power changed that."

Progeria itself was due to a genetic mutation, and almost always occurred from birth in a person whose family didn't have the disorder.

"It won't come back, right?" he asked. He was staring at himself in the mirror.

"No," she said.

"You figured out how to reverse aging, right?" I asked. I noticed that she'd added an Alexandria poster to her room.

"Yeah," she said. "It was interesting."

"Welcome to the billionaire's club," I said. "How much do you think celebrities and billionaires would pay for another ten, twenty, thirty years?"

She frowned.

"Millions…apiece," I said. "You'll never have to work again. If you wait until you're eighteen until you admit to it, they won't even be able to force you."

I grabbed the boy and I inventoried him.

"Say…do you think you could copy his powers onto other people?" I asked. "Now that you have the pattern?"

She stared at me.

"What?"

"Well, if you could mass produce capes, you might end up as a trillionaire. I'll want a cut, though, and I'll want you to give my Dad powers when you bring him back."

"Maybe?" she said cautiously. "His cells were filled with something that I didn't understand."

"Dark matter," I said. "Well, if that's what's needed, I'll figure out a way to get you some. Think about seeing if you can mix and match powers."

"Why?"

"I want my Dad to be tough enough to survive people who hate me, but it'd be nice if I could make him able to escape kidnapping attempts on his own."

I wasn't stupid enough to think that I'd be able to guard him every minute. Maybe I should build him a few robotic bodyguards. The Federation had at least one; there'd been one on the Enterprise, although I hadn't had much of a chance to learn much about him.

"I'll think about it," she said.

"Imagine if we could pick and choose who gets powers," I said enthusiastically. "We could pick good people, actual heroes who haven't been traumatized by…all this. People who would actually make the world a better place."

Barry Allen, Steve Rogers, President Whitmore. There were people out there who represented the best humanity had to offer.

Why shouldn't those be the people who got the powers instead of the traumatized, the angry, the violent and evil?

Our world needed people like that, people who could be symbols of hope, who could make other people step up, even if it was just to throw starfish back into the ocean.

Whether it was the first couple to dance at a junior high prom, the first rioter to throw a brick through a window, or the first person to dive out into a raging river to save someone, people needed that first person to make a move.

That was true of both good and evil actions.

"Tell that guy to get a bath," Amy said. She sniffed. "I'm going to have to get my room disinfected."

"I didn't give him time for a shower," I said.

"Why am I not surprised," she said. "I just pray I'm not on a toilet the next time you decide to yank me away on one of your zany schemes."

"I promise I'll give you a couple of minutes before I yank you away," I said.

"I can't go to the bathroom while somebody is on the other side of the door tapping their feet."

"Shy bladder, huh? Well, I don't have to use the bathroom at all anymore, so I don't have those problems."

"Must be nice to be above eating and sleeping and all that stuff."

"I sleep a couple of hours a night sometimes," I said.

"Anyway, get out of here before he pops back and stinks up my room some more."

I popped back into his room.

"There you go," I said to him as I blinked him horizontally onto the bed.

"What?"

"You've got your whole life ahead of you. Just be excellent to everybody, and you'll have a good life unless you get murdered by a villain or sucked into a black hole or something."

"Uhh…"

I blinked out, returning to STAR Labs.

I wanted to ask them about how to create a small dark matter generator. I had some ideas already.

"Guys," I began, but I felt a presence almost appear instantaneously behind me, so fast that I couldn't respond.

I tried to turn around, and I felt Mama Mather's power connect, but before I could move, I felt a massive pain in my chest.

I looked down and I saw a hand vibrating in the middle of my chest.

Everything went black.