(ALERT: Read "In Sickness And In Health" before reading this story.)

"... and I wish to speak to you today about working for Project Utopia. Before we begin, I must extend an apology. I have not been to the smooth taking seminar, nor read the Powerpoint series on flim-flam, so I hope you will forgive plain speech.

"Doubtlessly you are aware of the many opportunities available to you, now that you've become a nova. You will have many people knocking on your door in the next few days. They will offer you money and fame, and that may very well be true. But can they offer what I offer? Can they present to you a chance for tangible gain, not jut for yourself, but for the world in which you live, and the people you share it with? Or is that all they will offer you is more money that you or anyone else could need, with no benefit beyond that? It is this question you must ask yourself.

"At any point you could pick up the phone and call the DeVries Agency, yes, and settle into a job where perhaps you only kill on the weekends. I stand here merely to present to you an alternative, to address karma's ever-spinning wheel, and to what the fuck is it, Peter?"

The door to the bathroom opened. Peter's head, with its dark skin and bald head and easy smile, poked in. "Are you ready, Tim?"

"How many today?"

"Just six. All in Seattle. What were you just doing there?"

"They released that film to Opflix last night. After Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar I decided to watch it. Figured I'd try speaking like him."

"I don't think that's gonna work."

"Hey, have to do something to break up the day." Tim rubbed his eyes. He was thirty-five, brown-haired and balding, dressed in a good-looking suit with a Project Utopia tie-tack. "Six, you said?"

"All a priority. The Fortean Index had a big spike a few days ago."

"Ah yes." Tim secretly hated the Fortean Index - an OpNet-trawling algorithm that was the Eruption Research Division's latest toy. It kept an eye out for "news of the weird" and cross-referenced with known nova movements and powers and a powerful probability engine. If an event inexplicable in scope occurred with no novas around to account for it, up went the Fortean Index for the region. It had a few early successes, so now it was a tool used by Nova Recruitment. Tim hated it - he preferred talking to people, not relying on a machine - but he did like that it helped separate the false calls from the true.

"Come on, Tim. It'll happen someday. You'll join the Finder's Club soon."

"What's the index of fakes to real novas again?"

"About two hundred to one."

'And I'm at a hundred and fifty. Fifty more of these before I hit the break-even point. I don't know." Tim looked in the mirror. "If I don't get a big break soon, there will be blood."



"So I drunk a whole six pack last night, right? And I drove home and nearly hit a tree. And I woke up this morning with a huge headache. I must be a nova, right?"

"I think you're just hung over, sir."

"What's hung over' mean?"



"Listen, I'm not actually a nova, but could you, like, pretend I am? I really wanna meet Skew. I just know, the second he sees me, it'll be love at first sight."

"I believe he already has a girlfriend."

"I don't mind."



"Oh, I'm not actually a nova. I just wanted to see if you followed up on that hotline. Wow, you actually do."

Tim nodded. "I'll be going now, then."

"You sure, man?" The young man with the goatee and the disheveled hair chucked a thumb over his shoulder. "We could, I dunno, hang out..."

"I can't introduce you to any novas, sir. Good day." Tim walked away from the dormitory door, shaking his head. "College kids..."

Tim walked across the campus, looking at the smoked-stained remains of the biological sciences building. It was what had caused the Fortean Index spike, since the fire had come out of nowhere and suddenly put itself out. The fire department mentioned 'anomalies' to the news, which was where the spike had its highest peak.

An official list of the missing hadn't been made public, and asking around had proved fruitless, so Tim Craig just reacted, jumping whenever the next call came in. At least the next house was close.

He was there in fifteen minutes - on-campus housing, though apparently the residents weren't students. It wasn't a bad house, though the bricks were crumbling a bit. He noted that the steps had been replaced by a ramp, and walked up it.

He rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, it opened. The man inside smiled. "Hello?"

"I'm Tim Craig. Utopia Recruitment."

"Nice to meet you. Mitch Lang. She's just having a shower."

Tim noted the hissing sound in the pipes, and nodded. "I can come back - "

"No, come on in. Glorious day, isn't it?"

"It is." Tim stepped inside, slipping off his shoes and handing his coat to Mitch. He looked around the house, and his eyes rested on an older woman sitting on te couch, having a cup of coffee. She had fading brown hair, a pale complexion, and freckles, and looked to be about fifty.

She stood, and shook Tim's hand. "I'm Diana Richardson. How do you do, Mister Craig."

"I do well. Are you..."

"I'm Roxanne's mother. I flew up last night when I heard the news. I must say, I thought you'd be here before I was."

"We get dozens, if not hundreds, of calls from people claiming to be novas every day, ma'am, and we've got to check them all - "

"It's 'Mrs.' Mister Craig. Not 'Madam' or any abbreviation thereof."

"Oh." Tim was taken aback. "Sorry, ma - Mrs. Richardson."

"Quite all right." She smiled. "Have a seat, Mister Craig. My daughter will be down shortly."

"Does she usually shower in the middle of the day?"

"No, we ran out of hot water earlier, so she had to take another one." Mitch looked towards the bedroom. "Maybe I'll go check on her... see if she needs a hand."

Tim blinked. Diana just nodded. "I'd help her myself, but it's your house." She sipped her coffee.

Mitch left. Tim turned around. "Well, Mrs. Richardson, maybe I can ask a few preliminary questions...?"

"You can ask. I'm not sure if I can answer them."

"Right. About when did it happen?"

"A couple of days ago."

"Can you tell me anything about how it happened?"

Diana shook her head. "Not my place to say, Mister Craig."

From the bathroom, Tim heard Mitch talking. "Here, you hold it like this. Then it's easy."

Tim tried to tune Mitch out. "What about... well, what she can do?"

Diana just smiled. "You'll find out."

Tim nodded, looking around. He stopped, squinting. "Is that... is this statue just gold plated, or..."

"Solid gold. Right now, anyways. I got it for them for Christmas last year."

"You must be rich. It must cost a fortune." For the moment?

"It was fifteen dollars, I believe."

"Fifteen?"

"I got it on sale. Don't tell them that."

Mitch's voice was heard again. "Okay. You ready? Okay." The door opened. Tim turned around, and stared.

Mitch was standing next to a woman in a bathrobe, who was covered from head to toe in orange, white and black fur. She had a snout-like face and pointed ears on top of her head, pointing through matted white hair. Behind her was a tail - no, three tails, flicking back an forth almost on their own. She stared at him with emerald green eyes, and smiled a grin that was full of sharp teeth. "Hi."

Tim stared. "Uhm."

"Roxanne Richardson," began Diana severely. "Do you really think this is appropriate attire for a meeting with a prospective employer?"

Roxanne rolled her eyes, which started to glow. The same glow surrounded her bathrobe, which changed color and shape, remolding itself into a red and gold sleeveless dress. "Okay, Mom, how's this?"

"Better." Diana sipped her coffee. "It's rude to stare, Mister Craig."

"If - uhm. Will you excuse me for a moment?" Tim checked his phone. "I need to make a quick call."



"I got one, Peter. Authorize the expense account."

"Hmm? Sorry, Tim?"

"I got one. Authorize the expense account, please." Tim looked around as he stood on the front step.

"Are you sure? Some of the pranks they can pull are sneaky. One of the new guys up in Canada got rooked by someone pulling a reverse Balducci levitation trick."

"I'm sure. She turned her bathrobe into a dress right in front of me. Green energy and everything."

There was a pause. Then: "Authorized. Tim, if you don't think you can handle it - "

"I'm good. Talk to you later." Tim hung up, and walked back in. "Sorry about that. Are you okay?"

"Headache," muttered Roxanne, who was sitting next to her mother and her husband. "Still get them."

"That's normal. The expansion of the Mazarin-Rashoud node puts pressure on the brain - "

"Pressure? Is my daughter in danger?"

"No, no. She shouldn't be, in most cases. But there's a Rashoud clinic up in Vancouver that I could set up an appointment at."

"Vancouver? That's a foreign country."

Mitch rolled his eyes. "Canada barely counts as a foreign country."

"Just saying."

"It's a matter of geography, Mrs. Richardson. It's the closest. In my opinion, it's the best. This isn't just for you, either, Roxanne. All of you, and anyone else who comes along, will have air fare and accommodations paid for by the Project."

"That's generous, sir." Roxanne rubbed her temples. "Ugh."

"What about customs? I don't think any of us have passports." Mitch got up, and walked to the fridge. "Also, did you want anything to drink?"

"I'm fine, thanks. We can get those, don't worry about that. They'll let us fly you out immediately and put in the passport paperwork while you're there. As long as you don't cause an international incident, you'll be fine."

"I could go for that. Thanks, hon." She took the orange juice in her hands, and looked it it. "Uh."

"Straw! Sorry. Be right back." Mitch went to the cupboard, and dug around for a straw.

"Straw?" Tim looked to Roxanne.

"I tried drinking with my... my mouth, in the shape it is, and I spilt it alllllll over. I need a straw. Thanks, Mitch," she said, as he put a straw in her glass. She leaned forward and drank.

"Well, on the subject, I have to ask... obviously, you're a nova."

"Mmm-hmm."

"So what abilities have you noticed?"

"Well, I can tell there's aloe in your shaving lotion, and I smell eggs on your breath, so I smell things very well. I can change things around, of course; bathrobes into dresses, that statue over there into gold."

"Amazing."

"Yeah. And I can do this..." Roxanne faded from view as she drank. The glass hung suspended in midair, along with her dress. The orange juice flew out of the straw and pooled, giving the vague outline of a mouth... then it jerked, and faded away. "Don't ask me why the dress stays when I turn invisible and the orange juice vanishes when I swallow it. I don't know."

"This is absolutely - "

"Not done yet." She faded back into view. "I can also turn ethereal, and walk through walls. But I won't demonstrate that because whatever I'm wearing or holding doesn't come with me. And I can shoot fire out my fingers. Oh, and I can fly. I think that's all of it."

Tim frantically typed on his phone's keypad. "And how did this happen?"

"There was a fire where I worked."

"Wait, that building I walked by on the way out here?"

"That's the one."

"They don't know how the fire started. Do you happen to remember how?"

Roxanne shook her head. Tim sensed an opening, and took a risk. "You know, you mentioned shooting fire from your fingers. We have good lawyers who can - "

"It wasn't me," she said, a bit sharply. "The fire broke out before I erupted. I flew out through a window. I landed in the forest over that way." She waved in a general direction. "I found my way back home."

"I didn't mean to imply. I'm sorry."

"You ought to be. That lab was my daughter's life's work. All of her research, gone."

"You're a researcher? What were you researching?"

"Foxes."

"Foxes?" Tim looked her over. "I see."

"Specifically, one fox, with three tails. I remember her biting me in the middle of the fire. Then things are a blur."

Mitch spoke up. "It - sorry, she was illegally smugged into the country by a tourist who visited Osaka. Roxanne wound up studying her."

"Where's the fox now?"

"I don't know." Roxanne shrugged. "They never found her. Although I wish they'd look a little harder."

"I think - and Roxanne thinks I'm full of shit here - "

"I never said 'full of shit.'"

"All right, Roxanne thinks I'm off base. But I read about Japanese foxes that have many tails. They're not a million miles removed from what Roxy can do now."

"'Kitsunes.' Yeah. I searched Google and got a lot of interesting myths and a lot of... er, interesting pictures." Roxanne shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"What kind of pictures?" Diana arched an eyebrow. "No, never mind. I don't want to know."

"Neither did I."

"Incredible. Okay, Roxanne, here's what I can offer." He pulled out a small card. "If you agree to come into the Rashoud clinic and let us have a look at you, I will authorize this card. There is fifty thousand dollars on it."

Roxanne choked, coughing on her orange juice. Diana's eyes went wide, as did Mitch's. "Fifty thousand?"

"Fifty thousand. This isn't a signing bonus. This is a come-in-and-say-hi bonus. You agree to get on that plane and come to that clinic and this is yours." He put it down on the table with a small thwap noise.

"That's a hell of a generous offer, Mister Craig. What's the catch?" Diana picked up the card, holding it up to the light.

"If you call 'agreeing to come to a clinic' a catch, sure, that can be the catch."

"Fifty thousand clams for a meet and greet?"

"That's a lot of loans paid off, I imagine."

Roxanne set down her juice. "Yeah. It is." She seemed deep in thought.

Tim let silence reign for a well-measured moment, then spoke. "There are a couple of things we could teach you, as well."

"Teach me?"

"You mentioned that you can't turn 'ethereal' without leaving what you wear and hold behind. We can teach you how to 'charge' objects with a... the term is 'quantum attunement packet' that makes them act like a part of you when you use your powers. Your clothes would turn invisible as well as you can."

"That'd be handy. That'd be real handy. I could use that invisibility trick..." She looked downcast for a moment.

"The other is something called 'dormancy.' Internalizing and shutting down your Mazarin-Rashoud node. When doing this, you can't use your powers, but you also look... well, for lack of a more politically correct term, you'd look normal."

Roxanne blinked. "What? You're saying I could change back?"

"Yes. Not all novas learn this trick, but I'm confident you can." You'd have a hell of a lot of motivation to, was his unspoken thought.

"Uh. But Roxanne was - " He looked to Roxanne, and made a few gestures with his hand.

"Ah, right. Before I erupted, I was... I couldn't walk. Couldn't speak either."

"I couldn't tell. You have a very lovely voice."

"She's married," came Diana's voice.

"I am." She held up her hand, showing her ring. "He's allowed to pay me a compliment, though. But if I learn this 'dormancy' trick, am I going to go back to that?"

"I'm... not sure, Roxanne. You might, you might not. But even if you do, well... are you eligible for surgery?"

"I am. There's a huge waiting list, though."

"Well, you do this with us and we might be able to move you along that. Project Utopia has its own private doctors, after all."

"Seriously?" Roxanne laughed. "You're buttering me right up, Timothy Craig."

"I work for people who have a lot of butter, Mrs. Richardson - "

"Doctor Richardson. My daughter didn't get two PhDs in college to be called 'Mrs,' thank you."

"Mom, come on."

"He should call you by your proper title, is all I'm asking."

"Doctor, then. To extend the metaphor. I work for people who have a lot of butter and want to spread it around. We want you working for us."

"In research?"

"In whatever field you'd excel in."

"That's a hell of an offer." Roxanne smiled. "I'll have to discuss it of course."

"Oh, of course." Tim picked up the cash card, and put down another one. "My phone, and my mail account, are written right here. Did you want me to come back in a few hours?"

"Sure, that'd be great."

Tim rose, and extended his hand. "This has been a great first meeting, Roxanne. I'm excited."

"I'm excited as well."

"I'm bored. Naw, I'm kidding, I'm excited too." Mitch rose, shaking Tim's hand after he was done with Roxanne. "We'll be in touch."



"Oh, just fuck you, Tim."

Tim laughed, and put his feet up on he dashboard of his car. He spoke into his phone. "No, Laura, you're not my type. You know I pitch for the other team."

"Who's the nova? How did you get to this one before me?"

"Casting a wide net, Laura. Wider than DeVries does. I catch more fish."

"I'll find out who it is."

"Don't bother, this one's a lock. Your milkshake has been well and truly drunk."

"What does that mean?"

"It means - never mind what it means. Come on, Laura. I interviewed over a hundred and fifty idiots before this one. I earnt it."

"I'll find out who it is," she repeated, before hanging up.

"Heh." Tim put the phone down. "Yeah. Doesn't matter how much silt you get panning for gold. Only how much gold you get."