Microstory 165: Ling Guo

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Ling Guo was born in a region of China where a lot of different dialects converged. Even though most of the dialects were mutually unintelligible—that is, a speaker of one will not understand another—Ling was able to understand all of them. Her family was surprised by this, but assumed her to simply be smarter than most people, and that her exposure to the variety at any early age was responsible. And they were right about that, just not to the right degree. When she was about ten years old, a couple of Swedish backpackers came by, clearly in trouble. They were sick and hungry and thirsty. Though these signs were obvious, and her community was able to provide them with help, they were still trying to convey something important and urgent. After only several minutes of hearing them speak, Ling could suddenly get by on the basics of Swedish. They were astonished and grateful to be able to describe to them what the snake that bit one of them looked like. She translated the information to the neighborhood doctor who provided them with the antivenom, and saved their lives. Her parents drove her to the nearest big city the next day. They found a group of Hungarian tourists, and sort of shadowed them for the next hour. By the time the tourists left on their bus, Ling could speak Hungarian fluently. The be-all, end-all of organizations, the Confederacy had strict employment requirements, and so Ling’s parents spent all of their money to get her into a private boarding school so that she could have the best education possible. She was a successful and happy student, and the Confederacy was more than glad to hire her. She ultimately transferred to the world headquarters in Hudson, Usonia to work in the Interpretation and Translation department. Only her supervisor and a few of her coworkers knew about her condition at first, and only a select few of those understood that it was superhuman. But slowly, word spread, and she became the best kept secret of The Confederacy. She met a couple of other anomalies in person; namely Denton and Dathan, but she also stumbled upon evidence of Sandro, Máire, and Seoc. One night, Milo Chombers found himself unwillingly teleported to the Confederacy Building, and ended up introducing her to Bellevue, but she chose to remain at her post for the time being. It was not until Bellevue decided to reveal themselves to the world that she left Hudson so that she could support the new organization with public relations.

Microstory 153: Vivian Polzin

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Like Molly Bloom, Vivian Polzin’s ability was not able to present itself until a very particular set of circumstances arose. She grew up with her father in St. Petersburg, Russia, but things were growing dangerous in that part of the world. Fearing these dangers, Vivian’s mother demanded that she move in with her in Stockholm, Sweden instead. And so she packed her things, and set off on a submarine, along with a number of other refugees. Somewhere near the boundary of the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic sea, the submarine began to suffer from a cataclysm. Water flooded in, and the deeper they sank, the higher the pressure, and the faster they sank. There was no way for anyone to survive, except for Vivian. She was transforming as fast as the dangers were coming upon them. Parts of her body became engorged and compressed in order to prevent gas bubbles from forming. Her lungs collapsed to halt gas exchange that would otherwise cause a buildup of nitrogen, and she created stores of oxygen in her blood and muscles so that she would no longer need to breathe. But Vivian was still stuck under the twisted metal of the former submarine, unable to escape. She would soon run out of oxygen, so her body transformed again. Before her reserves had been completely exhausted, she developed two sets of gills on her neck. She remained trapped there alone for days until she developed the ability to summon a group mermen. No, seriously. They freed her from her tomb, and contacted Adam Nicks who brought her into Bellevue, but she never had the chance to find a responsibility. Following an accident involving Fiona Mill, she would quickly find herself in the solitude of intergalactic space, and stayed there for years. When she was finally found, she was proven to have done what she does best: survive.