Jupiter [Marvel Phase I]

twenty-four.

Ten years ago, when Jenn first woke up in the hospital after supposedly surviving a car crash, she was a blank slate. The language centers of her brain were intact, but she couldn't even remember her own name. (Of course, she knew now that this was because she didn't have one at the time.)

This lack of memory seemed like an ironic twist of fate. It didn't take long for Jenn to realize she processed memories differently. Hyperthemesia, Dr. Ingram explained. "Funny finding total daily recall in a patient with amnesia, huh?" Jenn had joked back. Now, her total recall brought that moment back into sharp focus. The way Dr. Ingram's smile had slipped made so much more sense now that Jenn could see the full picture. And that wasn't the only memory that had been painted over in a new light after recent revelations.

Before, Jenn used to think of her mind as a notebook she'd only started writing in halfway through. As her memories began to resurface, it felt like leafing back through the pages she'd previously thought were blank and finding notes here and there.

But something happened during the fight. A surge of electricity, lighting up her neurons like a fireworks show. Suddenly, her memories were no longer a journal of discrete pages, but a single mural. Jenn didn't remember much about biology, but she knew this; cells communicated with electrical impulses. It followed that electricity was the key to reconnecting the shattered pieces of her past.

However, several black spots remained in the tapestry of her memory. She still had no idea what happened between her escape from C.E.N.T.R.E. and waking up in the hospital. Instinctively, Jenn knew those memories would never return. It was just like Harry had said.

He lied about everything else, another part of Jenn's mind argued back. Never had she faced a betrayal like this.

Who was she, really? Jenn didn't know how to answer. That grad student with a sob story and a creepy memory...did she even exist? Or was she nothing more than a disposable prototype and a failed soldier?

Was she even human?

The thought was inescapable. No matter how fast she walked, no matter how far, Jenn couldn't outrun the question. It was like the storm brewing overhead, a single dark cloud looming over all her thoughts.

Back in undergrad, Jenn had taken a course on meteorology for fun. Storms, she learnt, formed when high and low pressure fronts collided. The greater the difference, the stronger the storm. With her mind a battleground between past and present, Jenn felt she understood nature's desire to erupt in thunder.

The electricity she'd absorbed during her fight with Harry was still roiling around her system, desperate to escape. It found a new path of least resistance whenever she bumped into other pedestrians. Some jumped, some glared at her like she should apologize. Several times, she almost did.

"Sorry, I..." Jenn trailed off as a woman in a nice suit stomped away from her. The roar of London's street traffic swallowed up the end of her explanation. "I don't know how to stop it."

The conclusion was enough to stop Jenn in her tracks. She'd left the flat so she could sort through her thoughts and get away from Harry. To remove herself from his influence, yes, but also to keep from hurting him. Jenn hadn't experienced holding onto that much electricity since the experiments of her childhood. Trying to contain it was almost as frightening as knowing she couldn't control it. Pissed as she was at Harry, she didn't wish him harm.

This happened before, Jenn thought. Several times, she'd shocked Dev without meaning to. Now, it was every other person on the street.

What Jenn needed to do was go somewhere less populated. At least her time as vigilante had given her a good understanding of London's backstreets.