[ voice ]

[hostage]

[This guy sounds like a total hood, his voice rough and gravelly with a cadence that suggests he's straight outta Compton. (Or, you know, Albuquerque. Whatever.) Even so, he doesn't sound angry. He's excited, actually.]

Yo, so… Oh my god. This shit about -

Hold up. Lemme start again, sorry.

My name's, um, Jesse. Jesse Pinkman. ABQ represent. 'sup.

Anyway, so this shit about superpowers. Like, I get it, but… For real? They brought us here to be superheroes? With like the whole mask and alias thing and everything? 'cause it feels like - no offense, okay - but it feels like some kinda Punk'd thing and any second now some camera crew's gonna jump out and Ashton Kutcher or some asshole's gonna…

[He loses that train of thought, laughing to himself.]

Unbelievable. That's what this shit is.

Comments

[hostage]

Hey, I think my name's awesome, anyway.

[attractedtodarkness]

Good for you. So what powers did you get?

[hostage]

[He's going to read from his file because he's that lazy:]

"Empathic transferal of injury or disease from subject to user, resulting in subject's total recovery to the user's equal detriment, counterbalanced by accelerated healing factor on the part of the user."

[attractedtodarkness]

That's a lousy power.

[hostage]

No shit.

[attractedtodarkness]

Makes you wonder how often people get hurt here.

[she sounds more morbidly curious than concerned]

[hostage]

Whatever. Hope they got health insurance, 'cause no fuckin' way.

[attractedtodarkness]

If I were you, I wouldn't advertise.

[hostage]

I ain't, exactly, but I ain't gonna lie either. Else they'll be thinking I'm a walking atom bomb or something.

[attractedtodarkness]

I'd rather people think that.

[hostage]

I wouldn't. Then they're trying to kill you.

[attractedtodarkness]

I'm not that worried.

[hostage]

You got some badass power up your sleeve?

[attractedtodarkness]

Not really. I just think a person has to be really paranoid to kill someone over a secret.

[hostage]

Yup.

[...Yup.]

[attractedtodarkness]

Are you?

[hostage]

Am I what?

[attractedtodarkness]

Paranoid.

[duh]

[hostage]

Do paranoid people ever know they're paranoid?

[attractedtodarkness]

[looks far too amused]

You never know.

[hostage]

You don't gotta worry about me.

[attractedtodarkness]

Maybe I'll take your word for it.

[hostage]

You're a funny kid.

[attractedtodarkness]

I try.

So are you going to start wearing spandex? You sound excited about it.

[hostage]

I think I'll stick to hoodies.