METROCITY
SBA Arena: Infirmary
Invincibelle sat on an exam table while a MediBot scanned her. “Are you experiencing any pain or discomfort?” asked the android in a pleasant female voice.
“Please,” muttered Invincibelle. “From that sparring robot? I’ve had more painful shiatsu.”
“Well, there’s no need to be so dismissive of your sparring partner. I’m sure it tried its best.”
Eva turned her head towards the MediBot and arched an eyebow, not sure what to make of the comment.
“That’s enough, Med 4.” came a woman’s voice. She sounded foreign, probably Indian. “I’ll complete the exam.” A petite, dark-skinned woman wearing a lab coat was entering the infirmary. Her hair was dyed red and shaved on the sides.
“As you wish, Dr. Sanji.” said the droid as it shuffled towards the rear of the infirmary.
“Sorry about that, Invincibelle. I’ve been tinkering with the personality matrix on the MediBots. Trying to give them a bedside manner.”
“That’s good to know,” Eva smiled. “I thought it was having a ‘machine vs human’ moment there.”
The doctor laughed and looked into Eva’s eyes, lingering there for a second. “My name is Mukta.” She picked up a datapad and glanced at the scan results. “Well you don’t look like you were just in a fight.”
“Yes, I feel fine, Dr… Mukta. Invincibelle isn’t just a cute name.” The Indian woman laughed again and tossed her hair. Eva realized that the doctor was flirting with her. “Uh, the only thing damaged was my costume.”
“…not damaged enough…” Mukta said under her breath and Eva pretended she didn’t hear it. “Yes, it’s a side effect of the Graviton Compression Field around the ring,” she said conversationally. “It contains the energy of super battles so that the crowd isn’t destroyed, but that energy gets reflected back inward. Even heavy, bulletproof fabrics tend to get torn.” Mukta touched two fingers in one of the tears on Eva’s shoulder and made a hushed “oh!” sound.
“What is it?” asked Belle.
“Your skin is soft. I was expecting it to be hard as steel.”
“Uh… force field.” Eva stammered.
“Oh, I see.” mused Mukta as her fingers continued to rub Invincibelle’s shoulder.
“Look, doctor. You should know I am seeing someone.”
“Really?” Mukta was undaunted and didn’t remove her hand. “Lucky guy I suppose.”
“Actually, lucky girl.”
“Reallly??” Mukta smiled and leaned in close with a look in her eye as if Eva had just challenged her to seduce her.
“Yes. But I don’t… I mean you are… it’s just that…”
Invincibelle suddenly felt very much powerless and awkward. Mukta had both hands on her shoulders and was leaning uncomfortably close. The datapad she had been carrying a moment ago pinged and after four or five seconds of paralysis, Mukta turned away from her. Eva exhaled heavily.
“Hunh.” muttered Dr. Sanji.
“What is it?” asked Eva trying to regain her composure.
“An anomaly in your cellular scan. We ran it as a precaution to make sure there wasn’t any sort of lingering effect of the graviton field interacting with your force field…” Eva narrowed her eyes at the doctor. So, she already knew about the force field? “It looks like there are some stray fragments of Y chromosomes in your DNA.”
“Oh, that. The… event that gave me my super powers, it rewrote my DNA. Completely transformed my body into… this. But a colleague of mine stopped the process before it finished transforming my mind.”
“Why would that cause Y chromosome fragments to appear?”
“Before I became Invincibelle, I was… uh, male.” Eva managed to blurt out.
Mukta stood there with a stunned look on her face for a few seconds. Eva could actually see her expression transition from disbelief, to realization, to distaste. When she finally said something it was a syllable somewhere between “Oh?” and “Eww.”
They stared at each other for much too long. Eva inhaled to say something and Mukta interrupted, “You should be fine you are cleared to compete Med 4 could you finish processing her?” and scurried out of the infirmary.
“Geez, does she have super speed?” thought Eva.