Isaiah sat in his office, deep inside the bunker. It wasn’t exceptionally lavish, but it wasn’t exactly spartan either. It certainly did not appear alien. The walls, most of which were actually closet doors, were made of stained pine wood. The floor was covered with a dark, turquoise carpet. The desk was made of plywood – and the three office chairs, including the one behind the desk on which he sat, were of the kind that one could buy at any local office-supply store.

The computer upon the desk, of course, was from off-world – but one would have to look closely at it to notice this. At a casual glance, it too would be difficult to distinguish from the countless laptops that abounded locally.

Less than an hour before, Isaiah had personally confronted a mysterious intruder who was examining, and possibly attempting to tamper with, one of the eight entrances to the bunker – an intruder who identified himself only as a “map man”. Isaiah had had the situation under control. He had personally, with the help of five other high-ranking members of the network and several lower-ranking members, surrounded the intruder. They had managed to get into position to apprehend him. However, just as Isaiah was about to forcibly remove the intruder’s helmet and discover his identity, something that looked visually like a giant ball of flame had suddenly engulfed this Map Man and carried him way out of reach. Still now, Isaiah was reeling from the humiliation of this defeat.

The door to the office opened, and Raphael walked in. He was somewhat younger than Isaiah – with black, curly hair, a somewhat darker complexion, and a beard that was somewhat fuller than Isaiah’s. His dark brown eyes gave the impression of always being tired, yet nonetheless sharp and awake.

“Some show we had at sunset,” noted Isaiah. “Did ye see it?”

“I saw part of it,” answered Raphael. “I arrived just before our uninvited guest made his hasty exit.”

“That ain’t right,” protested Isaiah. “Ain’t nobody on Earth who can do that! I mean, there is on other planets, but there ain’t on Earth!”

“What you mean,” corrected Raphael, “is that there weren’t any people on Earth with the ability to carry out such feats. Past tense.”

“Now listen here,” argued Isaiah. “I’ve lived here on this planet my whole life -”

“Your entire life?” interrupted Raphael. “What about the five years you spent among the stars – smuggling from one planet to another whatever the highest bidder called upon you to traffic? By the way – this lifestyle, my friend, would have ended badly for you had you not paid my people a visit.”

“Okay,” admitted Isaiah. “I been gone fer five years – but other than that, I ain’t never been away from this planet, and I’ve been back for six months now. I ain’t never seen nobody do what that dude did – except on TV.”

Again, the insufferable local was not completely adhering to the facts – but this time, he was straying only on minor details that were not worth the effort of correcting.

“Such talents also rarely manifest on my home,” noted Raphael, “but they do show themselves in certain locations. Those who develop such abilities when in those locations tend to lose them upon traveling elsewhere – sometimes immediately, but usually over a period of days.”

“How many of those places is there?” asked Isaiah.

“There are five such places known to exist on my homeworld,” answered Raphael, “none of them exceeding four square miles in area. That said, this information may be in no way indicative of the patterns of such phenomena on this planet.”

“So how we gonna find out?” asked Isaiah.

“Follow me,” beckoned Raphael. He opened the door and exited, but left it open for Isaiah, who got up off of his seat and followed.

“Those who exhibit unusual abilities while in the areas in question differ from most in other respects as well,” explained Raphael, as he led Isaiah down the hall. “As you already know, our planets are both populated by the same human species. Those who can manifest such abilities are not altogether a separate species, but a separate variant of our own. Reaction to whatever unknown factor differs in these areas is one unique trait they possess. Each one, of course, manifests a different ability – and the only thing that these diverse abilities have in common is that each one appears to defy the laws of biology, and sometimes even physics, as observed in all other circumstances.”

“So they don’t all just pop in from one place to another?” verified Isaiah.

“No,” answered Raphael. “Each such individual’s abilities are unique – but the fact that each of them manifests at least one such ability at those locations is one thing that sets them apart from ordinary folk such as you and I.

As he hailed an elevator and entered the one that immediately opened, he continued. “Another,” he said, entering the elevator as Isaiah followed, “is the universal tendency of their bodies to reject the typical cybernetic link.”

“What do you mean, reject?” asked Isaiah, as the elevator descended to the lower, more restricted levels of the bunker.

“Well,” explained Raphael, “I had my cybernetic neural link implanted in my brain when I was but a little boy – and by the time I was fully grown, my body had received the full set of cybernetic enhancements. It has all been working perfectly in me ever since – no ill effects whatsoever. You have had your cybernetic enhancements for less than a year – but still, long enough that if there were going to be any problems, they would have been evident by now. Your body has accepted its enhancements perfectly. These individuals, however, if they receive just the basics, just the cybernetic link to connect their brains – the result is an agonizing death within hours.”

“Ain’t there nothin’ that can be done to fix this?” asked Isaiah as the elevator reached its destination and opened its doors.

The two men exited the elevator and entered a fairly short hallway. “Only one model of link has ever been developed that is compatible with such individuals,” explained Raphael as they walked, “and it is extremely high maintenance. For that reason it is necessary, for their own good, to keep such individuals in a state of suspended animation most of the time.

He took Isaiah into the third room on the right – a circular room that housed eight coffin-sized tanks, each with a small window near the top, displaying what appeared to be a dormant human face. “The young lady in here is Dabiktria Kuritorobis,” he explained. “In reality, though she is only young if you are merely counting the time she has actually spent aging. Chronologically, she is one hundred four years old – though on account of her time spent in this frozen state, she has thus far only aged twenty-five years. She is one such individual of unusual potential.

Raphael focused, and through the link in his brain, he sent a command to the pod in which the physically young woman lay, still as death – a command that only he could send. Hissing sounded as the inside of the tank was filled with cloud-like gasses. “Her reaction to this planet’s environment,” he explained, “will give us our first idea what we are dealing with here with regards to such phenomena.”

After a few minutes, the gasses cleared, and the door of the tank opened, revealing a young woman with sandy-brown hair down to her mid-torso, wearing what looked like a green exercise suit over black leggings – with green Grecian sandals on her feet. Her arms were folded in such a way that they crossed at the wrist on top of her chest. She clearly had been brought out of suspended animation as she was breathing – but she had yet to wake up.

Then, suddenly, without any warning, her eyes sprung open.