Unwanted Power

Transporter Episode

Heather woke up not in the bed she had landed in but in the bathtub. It was full of warm water, and Bill was holding her face out of it.

Cristine paced into the main room and back into the bathroom, back and forth.

"Mom! You're awake!" Cristine exclaimed very excitedly. On an inward leg of her pacing, she saw Heather's eyes open.

"Yes." Heather semi-agreed. That is all she felt willing to agree to.

"Hi, Honey. Welcome back." Bill said with obviously forced lightness.

"Bill? Why am I in the bathtub?" Heather asked, looking down. "I thought I landed in the bed. I think I thought that. I think that is what I was aiming for. Pretty sure?"

"You are in the bathtub in warm water because when we found you, you were freezing cold. Icy cold. This was the fastest way to warm you up." Bill explained.

"Was that you that went by us? Over in South Beach?" Cristine asked. "The light?"

Heather could not help it. She looked at her physical hand. Her hand. She rotated it front to back to see for sure.

"I think so." Heather said. "I am having a little trouble re-assembling some of this."

"You think you are?" Bill gave that a short laugh. "Out there? It's crazy. Insane crazy."

Bill made an all-encompassing gesture of the world. "The news of full of it. Ships can't get to the harbor because of a huge ice sheet. Ships frozen in the ice sheet were freed. By a dancing ball of light that cut channels for them to get out. Somehow. The Republicans are having a field day. 'See? Ignore all the fires and floods and rising sea levels. Icebergs in San Francisco! Global warming is a myth'. Anyone with a brain is asking not about the ice but 'What was a light?' It freed the ships. Did it also make the ice? The news is all over the place because it's all speculation except for the fact-free ones trying to score their political points with it."

"Over is science-land, geologists are saying the big one happened. The seismographs said it was doomsday. Then it didn't. They have no idea what to make of it, Mom!" Cristine said. "They are going nuts."

"I can only imagine." Heather stood up. She felt a little shaky but like herself.

Bill gave her a towel. "That's not all. Go look in the mirror."

Heather dried herself off and then went and looked in the mirror. She didn't see anything unusual at first, then realized she looked younger. Much younger. She leaned in and looked at the corners of her mouth and of her eyes. No creases. Her skin was smooth. The scar where she had a pre-cancerous mole removed was gone.

"What the hell?" Heather asked.

She held out her hair. Not a strand of gray. It was longer than it used to be.

"I look like a teenager," Heather said.

"My older sister!" Cristine replied, teasing.

Bill came over and pulled open the top of her towel. "Something else is missing." He pointed.

Heather looked down, then in the mirror. "My tattoo is gone? Just... Gone. No scars... Just gone..."

Bill re-secured her towel. "Heather? Think about it. If you were that light? The one that danced around freezing the water and freeing the ships? You were not in that body. You said that body has power limits, and you were way beyond that. Channeling that much power would have vaporized even you. That body you are wearing? Look at it. The facts speak for themselves. It's a brand new body. Not a single atom in it could be from the old one. Not with that much power. You said it yourself. Nuclear bomb level of energy. No way you survived that. You don't have a tattoo because you never got one on this body. You made this one fresh."