Robert Crane - Omega

“Fine,” I said with a sigh, and he closed the door. I took off my clothes in silence as I put on the gown, felt the cold touch of the tile floor on my feet, the nip of the air as I removed my shirt and jeans. The heat exchange above me was faintly letting out some warm air, which helped. I sat on the examination table, a padded monstrosity that sat in the corner. The faint smell of alcohol from the disinfectant station above the sink permeated the room, and the soft groan of the table felt like it could be audible three buildings away. “I’m ready!” I called out, hoping Dr. Sessions was still standing outside the door and hadn’t wandered back to his office and forgotten about me.

The door creaked open and he stepped inside, wearing a buttoned-up lab coat. “This won’t take long,” he said, as he closed the door behind him. A blue latex glove rested on the handle as he closed it, catching my attention.

“That won’t protect you,” I said, pointing to the glove. “Keep that in mind.”

“I’m well aware of the spectrum of your powers,” he said as he circled around behind me. I kept a wary eye on him as he walked to the sink and started pulling things out of the cabinets above the counter. “I am, after all, the one who did the experiments to test those powers.”

Shortly after I had arrived, Sessions and a few of his lab assistants (I never caught their names) took turns touching my exposed skin. It never lasted more than a few seconds, but they determined the threshold at which most people begin to experience effects from my touch (three seconds) and how long it takes the average human to pass out (about six seconds). For obvious reasons, we never definitively answered how long it would take me to kill a person. I was pretty sure it was something like twenty seconds. I’d never seen them pass out from it, though. I’d just seen them scream all the way to the end.

“I’ll need to draw some blood,” Sessions said. “I’d also like to get saliva samples—”

“You want me to spit in a petri dish?” I looked at him with a combination of loathing and skepticism. “Are you a real doctor or did you get your degree in the Caribbean?”

“Harvard Medical School,” he said with aplomb. “Highest Honors.”

“Your mother must be so proud.”

“Oh, she is,” he said, as though what he were saying were of no more import than giving me a weather update. “Very proud indeed.”

“I wonder what that’s like,” I said, muttering under my breath.

“Shall we begin?” He lifted his head up and smiled brightly, causing me to stir. I felt his touch as he pushed up my sleeve, and I watched him as he started to draw blood. His blue latex glove was on my bicep, and I resisted the urge to flex hard and knock it away just to show off. My muscles didn’t look all that big. Actually, they were roughly the size of any of the other non-meta women at the Directorate. I had the strength where it counted, though—performance.

After a moment, a thought broke through and I reached to swipe at his hand. “Doc, the glove won’t protect you for more than—” I stopped, and looked up at him, his face broken wide into a grin. He squeezed my arm for emphasis, and I realized he’d been holding onto me for well over ten seconds, and he was still sitting there, unaffected. “How?”

“New material,” he said, and kept his hand on me. “I won’t bore you with the technical details, but it’s the same approximate thickness of a latex glove, but slightly more flesh-suitable, shall we say?” I felt his hand resting on me, and he was right. The glove wasn’t rubbery, it didn’t tear at my arm hairs as he ran it down to my forearm. It felt smooth, soft, almost like skin but not quite. He gave me a squeeze and brought the needle out with his other hand. “Might as well get this done while we’re at it, but my plan is to keep a hand on you throughout the exam to test how long this material holds up.” He gave a little shrug. “If it works, we could look at getting you some gloves made from it.”

I stared at his fingers, draped in the blue material, snugged tight to his skin. “How about more than that?”

“More than what?” He blinked and readjusted his glasses. “More than gloves?”

“Yeah,” I said, as I licked my lips. “What about…like…a bodysuit?”

His eyes seemed to stare off into space and his face scrunched up in thought. “Why would you need one of those? Your hands are the weapons, keep them contained and you should be fine—”

“Because,” I said, cutting him off, “maybe I don’t want to always be a weapon.”

“Then wear gloves,” he said, clearly not getting it. “It’s simple, puts the safety on, if you were to continue the weapon analogy—you stick with long sleeves, long pants, shoes, and as long as you don’t touch anyone with your face, you should be fine.”

“You’ve never known the touch of a woman, have you Doc?”

He stared at me, inscrutable, for another few seconds and then the intense look of study dissolved. “Oh! Oh, for intimacy! You want a bodysuit so you can…” He blinked again, and his look of revelation cascaded into discomfort as his voice lowered in pitch and his face fell. “Oh. Yes, I mean…it is theoretically possible to make an entire body encasement of the material, and it’s not that difficult for us to synthesize here in the lab.” He gave my arm another squeeze and gently stuck another needle in my arm. “That is certainly something we could look into for you.”

I stared straight ahead, considering the possibilities. “How…resistant is the material to breakage?”

He didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “It’s tougher than latex, can take more pounds per square inch of pressure before suffering a rupture. For something of that nature, it would need to be measured and specially fitted in order to give the level of…ah…protection…you’d require for uh…such activity.”

“So it is possible?” I tried to look him in the eyes, but he didn’t bother to look up from drawing his fifth vial of blood. “You can do that? Make a suit for me?”

“Yes. Although,” he said, placing the last vial into the little row in the container he had for them and withdrawing the needle from my arm, “I might suggest that for your purposes, it would be easier for your paramour to be the one to be fitted for the suit.” He flushed. “Assuming that your…ah…partner…would be male rather than female.”

“Fair assumption in this case.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Zack Davis. You know him?”

“An agent, I believe?” Sessions seemed to give this some thought. “I’m certain I’ve met him, but I can’t place a face offhand. Regardless, if you intend to engage in…activities of the sort you’d indicated, it would be easier on a purely mechanical level for the male to wear the suit.”

“Sure,” I said with a vague sense that I was agreeing to something, but not really caring what it was. “Whatever you say.”

“If you wish for…Mr. Davis to have a suit of this material, send him over to me at his earliest convenience. Taking measurements is simple enough, and it’ll take a few days to fabricate. It’s hardly a panacea that will solve all your ills, but we could probably synthesize another every few weeks if need be.”

“That would be marvelous,” I said with a hunger. I felt a buzz in my stomach, a nervous energy that stemmed from excitement coupled with nerves. “Thank you, Doctor,” I said, and genuinely meant it.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” he said, once again blank. “Except draw your blood, I suppose, though I don’t know why you’d be thanking me for that.”

“I’m thanking you for telling me about this,” I said, trying to stay calm. Sessions was a dolt, complete and utter, clueless about basic human need or desire. “It’s a chance for me to live a normal life.”