"Look out! Everybody down!" suddenly yells Timo, hitting the ground. Before I drop I hear a shot and see Michael some distance away, lowering a rifle. Katie remains standing. Jamie falls down with a shriek, some kind of syringe-like thing protruding from his thigh.

Jamie pulls the thing out of his leg immediately, but whatever drug it was carrying is already inside him. He gets up, though, and starts running towards Michael, who also starts running towards him, reaching out with his hands as if to grab him.

"Jamie, no!" we scream, starting after him. He is faster, though, and covers the remaining distance in one leap, falling limply in triumphant Michael's arms, his own arm holding on to Michael's shoulder. Suddenly Jamie pulls Michael's head to his face, grabs his ear with his teeth, knees him in the groin hard, twice, without releasing the ear, then lets the bloody ear out of his mouth and follows up with a couple of really good kicks to the same place, before finally falling down.

When we reach them a couple of seconds later Jamie is lying on his back silently, trying to struggle against the impending sleep, and Michael is curled up in a ball, howling and holding on to his family jewels.

"Stay away from me," says Jamie telepathically. We reach out to touch him anyway, and he unexpectedly pushes us away telekinetically. "Stay away. Fire."

After a flash of black fire a 30-meter-high regular flame erupts from him. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it at all, and is pretty much asleep already. It feels really strange to watch his clothes burn off him, turning to ashes and then to nothingness. "This t-shirt was full of holes anyway," is an absurd thought that comes to my mind. A few meters away Michael is moaning in pain.

"Stop! They have set a man on fire!" sounds from the direction of the road, in Finnish, as two cops are running towards us. One of them is summoning help: "three people, one man and two women, and there is another man lying on the ground..."

By the time they reach us the fire has stopped. Katie grabs Jamie and lifts him from the ground, far too quickly to look natural. He is not only unharmed, but even fairly clean, and she is showing him to the officers. "See? He is just fine! We didn't set him on fire! There was no fire!"

The cops stare, moving their eyes from the human-shaped burned spot on the ground to the peacefully sleeping Jamie, and back. "Er," says one of them in English, "the fire... and what about him?" he points at still-moaning Michael.

"There was no fire! It was a little campfire! My husband had a bit to drink and passed out next to it. And this is our friend who fell on his balls..."

I am trying to make the cops believe Katie's pathetic lies, but at that moment Jamie farts a stream of flame and sets one of the cops on fire. They start running. I run after them, screaming "don't let them get away!", and finally remembering that I have coercion. "You two! Stop! Roll on the ground! Don't even fucking think of calling anybody or doing anything!"

When I reach them the fire is gone. One of them is unharmed, but the other one has a deep burn all over the front of one leg, from the hip to the ankle.

"Call everybody off," I order the unharmed one. He is terrified but obeys.

Katie and Timo have caught up with me, and Katie is still holding Jamie, which scares the cops even more.

"Katie," I say, "please get your flamethrower away from here. And don't point his ass at anything flammable. Timo, do you think you can heal this guy?"
"I can try," says Timo, and Katie steps a couple of meters away, making calming sounds at Jamie who seems calm enough already to me, and says "shh, love, come on, don't do that again, you are not a very ergonomical weapon".

I try to calm down the cops, with moderate success, as Timo heals the injured cop's leg. The burn heals without a trace. I am still keeping the cops immobile. I should probably make them forget the whole thing, except that one of them is missing half his pants.

"What are we gonna do about the pants?" I ask Timo.
"I have no idea. I am an engineer, not a seamstress...seamster...seamer?"
"Taylor."
"Yeah. Of course. I still have no idea."

I wipe the whole episode out of the cops' mind, simultaneously trying to block them from noticing the pants. Luckily one of the penguins has just walked by towards the road.

"See, officers!" I say. "A penguin!" With that I send them off to chase it.

We retreat towards the cottage, passing Michael on the way. He is still in pain.

"Why aren't you healing?" asks Timo, "And why are you still here?"
"The fucker consumed all my Skills... In the meanwhile, can you help me with that?" He points at his balls.
"Heh. So you are not invulnerable anymore, at least for a while?" Timo grins in a very evil way, and so does Katie.

Now Michael really is scared.

"I am not gonna heal you," says Timo. "In fact I feel like kicking you a bit more, but not gonna do that either. But I think a taste of vulnerability would be good for you. Are you familiar with pain?"
"Yes, of course, but it doesn't normally last for minutes! Ouch!"
"There is something wrong with him," says Katie.
"He is a fucking insane sociopath!" suggests Timo.
"I mean Jamie."
"Me too. Just kidding."
"What was in the dart?" asks Katie, and Michael responds with three long chemical names.
"His blood pressure is very low now," says Timo.
"Lower than before?"
"Yeah. But not really dangerous or anything."

Can I try to feel what Jamie's body feels even though his mind is asleep? Ugh. He is in the condition where people usually go lie down in order not to faint. Not that is bothers him, but still...

"It wasn't supposed to bring blood pressure very low," says Michael.
"His is very low as it is," says Katie, "he shouldn't be using stuff that brings it even lower."
"How was I supposed to know?"
"That's why we don't shoot tranquilizer darts at people without taking their medical history first."
"What does it matter? He is asleep and can't feel anything. Besides, he has consumed my healing Skill and is invulnerable, and he would be in no danger even if he weren't. And he kicked me in the balls like a common thug."
"I feel like doing the same, just for what you just said," remarks Katie.
"Well, you are a common thug."
"Watch your mouth."
"Anyway," Michael addresses Timo, "you can bring his blood pressure up with your Skills." He seems to explain telepathically how, and Timo does it.

Katie tries to carry Jamie into the cottage.

"You are not serious?" asks Timo. "One fart and the cottage goes up in flames. And it was rented in my name. And I'd rather not have third-degree burns even if I can heal them in a minute."
"We can't leave him outside!"
"Yes, we can," I say, running up the porch and dragging the big wooden porch table down. "Timo, bring all the blankets you can find in the house."

Timo brings a pile of blankets, and we arrange the table, the blankets and Jamie in an appropriate way. He burrows under the blankets with his head and seems comfortable enough.

"Isn't he gonna be cold?" asks Katie. "It's just 5 degrees or so."
"Finnish people leave their babies to sleep outside in winter," says Timo, "and he is an adult man, and a very healthy one at that."
"I don't think we should leave him out here alone and helpless," insists Katie.
"For fuck's sake, Katie," I say, "calm down. Nobody is gonna kidnap your sweet little fire-breathing dragon."
"How do you know?"
"Because he breathes fire!"
"Farts fire," corrects Timo.
"Gives a whole new meaning to the concept of flaming asshole," comments Michael grimly.

Sleeping Jamie keeps touching our minds like he usually does, demanding that we touch him. We all do, except that when Michael tries to, Katie gives him such a glare that he withdraws his hand immediately and looks apologetic.

"Let's go inside," says Timo.
"Yeah," says Michael.
"We are not taking you inside," growls Katie.
"You sure you wanna leave him out here with Jamie?" asks Timo.
"OK," sighs Katie. "Come on in."

As soon as I turn around and try to get to the house a huge tentacle appears around my waist and drags me back. Where Jamie was lying a second ago there is now a big pink octopus, and its other tentacles are pulling the others towards it. I can see that the octopus is illusory, but the telekinesis pulling on us is real.

He is just having some kind of a vivid nightmare about being an octopus, and is playing it out. Judging from the force of it, Michael used to have quite a lot of telekinesis.

"What the hell?" screams Timo.
"These drugs sometimes cause very vivid dreams," explains Michael, struggling with his own tentacle.
"Let me see: half an hour ago you called him a madman with a nuke, and then your solution to the madman with a nuke was to provide him with drugs and more weapons? Well, extra points for thinking out of the box, homeopath!"
"It wasn't supposed to go this way!"
"Now where have I heard that before?"

I try to end Jamie's dream, with no result.

"Jamie!" roars Katie. "Keep your fucking tentacles to yourself!"

He immediately withdraws the tentacles and pulls them under himself, looking very much like a dog with its tail between its legs. A second later the octopus image disappears, and he is again just a guy.

"I am sorry," says Michael sheepishly when we get inside. "I'll make coffee."
"Sit down," orders Katie. "You are not gonna make anything we drink, or we are not gonna drink anything you make. You better teleport away."
"I can't, he ate all my Skills," reminds her Michael. "How fast do they return?"
"I have no clue. They have taxis."
"To Australia?"

* * * Community's IRC channel

<Sinikka> Told you he could teleport!
<Else> Told you he is an asshole.
<Wei> What the hell is going on? What just happened?
<Lauri> Some kind of an illusion, hard to see from here. They were speaking about tentacles.
<Wei> Whee, tentacle porn!
<Lauri> Anyway, they left Jamie asleep outside on the table and went into the house. And the area is full of police and penguins chasing each other.
<Olafur> So Michael can teleport and block the Sight. Figures...
<Yossi> Told ya. :)
<Wei> Where is Dana?
<Olafur> Probably can block the Sight too. Or teleport. Or something.
<Hanne> Hi
<Else> Hi Hanne
<Hanne> What's going on?
<Else> Michael teleported to Lappeenranta, blocked the Sight and went to visit them.
<Hanne> Wow.
<Sinikka> And Jamie has apparently got the water elemental Skill, but we are not sure yet. He can breathe underwater, anyway.
<Lauri> And there are penguins running around for some reason. Huge ones.
<Else> Anyway: the Sight block ended a minute ago, Michael appears powerless and Jamie drugged and asleep, he set a cop on fire by accident but they fixed it the best they could, and Michael just admitted teleporting. Rudy and Tarja seem to be coming back there.
<Wei> Is Elina gonna be there sometime soon?
<Sinikka> Yes.
<Wei> Good.

* * *

Katie is playing with Jamie's laptop, and I borrow it for a second to check who might be related to me. Dana. Should've guessed.

"Maybe I should go," says Michael after several cups of coffee, glancing at his watch.
"Maybe you should," I say. "Should I call you a cab?"
"I'll walk to the bus. Thanks. And sorry. And you are all welcome to visit if you come to Sydney. And I really hope that you'd help me with my research."
"We'll think about it," says Katie, her mind shielded.
"And please - don't tell anyone."
"About what?"
"About anything."

With those words he hugs Katie and disappears with her.

"Shit," says Timo after a couple of seconds. "What are we gonna do? Where did he go?"
"Sydney?" I ask.
"Can you look for an empty Sight spot around there?"
"I can't see that far."
"What are we gonna do? Can we wake Jamie up? Should we? When are Rudy and Tarja coming? Is Elina gonna help?"
"They'll be here in 20 minutes or so. I don't think he'll wake up before the drug wears off. Did you remember what it was?"
"No."
"Shit. Me neither."

I look at my watch.

"It took him 25 minutes to regain the teleporting Skill. Unless he was lying all along."

Timo turns the TV on.

"What are you doing?"
"Seeing if there is a huge fire anywhere."
"Net is faster, though."

I grab the laptop with Google News in mind, but a Yle page is open, and I refresh it, just in case. Breaking news: an explosion in a hotel in Kouvola.

I try to home in on Dana, and there she is, driving towards Lappeenranta. She is still wearing her "Matt" look, so that the extent of damage is unclear. I try to contact her.

"Dana, are you OK?"
"What the hell is going on?"
"I was gonna ask the same thing. Why did your room blow up? What were you doing?"
"I was asleep. Suddenly Michael appeared and woke me up and started screaming that I'd betrayed him. He had Katie with him, and she was unconscious. We fought and the room got damaged and he disappeared together with Katie. But why is Rudy gone?"
"You better ask him. Are you hurt?"
"Nothing that wouldn't heal... eventually."
"Are you one of the people who can heal anything eventually?"
"Yeah."
"I'll tell you more when I see you in person. By the way: we are related."
"Great. More relatives is all I need."

Timo goes out to check on Jamie. I find the address of the IRC server in the wiki and join the channel.

* * * Community's IRC channel

<Mira> Hi
<Sinikka> Mira, hi and welcome. What's going on?
<Mira> Michael has kidnapped Katie. He can teleport and shield himself from the Sight and we need to find him. Jamie is asleep, drugged.
<Else> We know. We also know that Michael was working with Dana and she changed her mind, and that he wanted to feed her to Jamie. That was all in the video.
<Mira> Which video?
<Hanne> The video one of you sent to the Community mailing list 15 minutes ago.
<Mira> Wasn't me. How do I find him?
<Sinikka> He is probably in Australia. Our people there are searching for a Sight-free spot but it takes time. Do you know how much of his Skills Jamie managed to consume?
<Mira> Michael said he consumed all of it, and he definitely consumed some, but I am not sure. He was able to teleport 25 minutes later though. What is he gonna do? What does he want?
<Else> Nothing good.
<Lauri> He likes to experiment.
<Mira> You mean that you have a Dr. Mengele in your midst?
<Lauri> It's not like he killed or permanently injured anyone.
<Else> ...that we know of. Mira, watch out!
<Lauri> Behind you!

* * *

Something hits me on the head, and I pass out. When I regain consciousness Timo is sitting next to me and doing something to my head. The pain disappears pretty quickly.

"It was a sort of concussion but it's all right now," he says.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. Some woman came in and attacked you. I punched her a few times and tied her down in the bathroom. Wanna take a look?"

In the bathroom a blond woman with blood-smeared face glares at me.

"You know her?"
"Oh yeah. Series "Rudy's psychotic ex-wives", exhibit one, Debbie Anderson."
"Captain Debbie Anderson!" she snarls, and doesn't understand why we burst out laughing.
"Also known as Chaotic Evil," I say.
"Captain?" asks Timo incredulously. "You mean somebody has entrusted a ship to that?"
"An airplane, I am afraid. Air Force captain. Last time I saw her she was a lieutenant."
"Flight lieutenant," she corrects me in the same snarling tone as before.
"Whatever." I can see in her mind that she got kicked out of the Air Force and is the captain of some civilian cargo plane nowadays.
"What are we gonna do with her?"
"Gotta get rid of her before anyone else comes. How did you find here? Did Rudy give you this address?"
"No, some bloke called me." I read her memory, and it was Michael.
"Will you just go away if we let you? Rudy is not here." asks Timo.
"Yes," she lies.
"I don't believe her. We can't have her running around. First of all she hits people on the head, second of all Jamie will kill her when he sees her."
"Jamie would never..." starts Timo, and stops.
"Wanna bet?" I bluff. I don't think he really would.
"What are we gonna do with her?"
"Let's chain her to the shithouse."

Debbie's eyes become big and round.

"What if he decides to use the shithouse?" she asks.
"We got a toilet inside."

Debbie's eyes follow me nervously as I pick up the remains of the rail that Rudy brought yesterday. I have always suspected that she is not as insane as she pretends to be, and in fact tends to modify her behavior on the basis of the expected punishment. I feel like punching her in the face, hard, but I have felt so ever since I met het 15 years ago, and now is not the time for it.

We let her wash her face and take her clothes, and lead her to the shithouse, where I make a chain and handcuffs out of the rail, and fasten her to the building securely enough. Then I wipe her mind for the last half an hour or so, and we leave her there and go, followed by the most horrible if somewhat confused cursing.

When we get back to the cottage we see a tall blond woman standing next to sleeping Jamie and touching him. My first impulse is to attack her but then I realize that this is Elina.

"Hi! What are you doing? Michael kidnapped Katie!"
"I know. I am trying to wake Jamie up."
"Can you?"
"It's not rocket science."

She shakes our hands and continues with whatever she was doing.

"We need him," she says. "Besides, he is having a nightmare. See?" She shows me how to look for dreams. "Other than that, it would have been better to let him sleep. He needs rest."
"Be careful," I say. "He had fire coming out of his ass when he fell asleep."
"Don't worry, not anymore. Who was the unpleasant young woman you have just dragged to the outhouse?"
"Rudy's first wife."
"Pity. Such a handsome man should be able to do better."
"He's been trying to. All morning," I say dryly.
"They are gonna be here really soon", she says, meaning Rudy and Tarja.

She has been touching Jamie's head and back under the blankets. Now she pulls the blankets away from his head and shoulders, and he makes a pitiful sound and tries to crawl back under the covers, but she grabs him by the ear and doesn't let him. Finally he opens his eyes, which are now dark blue but not glowing, and are focused somewhere very far.

"Hi. Am I still asleep?"
"No."
"Then why is there a shithouse running down that road?"
"Shit!" Timo and I exclaim simultaneously, as the shithouse rounds the corner near the parking lot and disappears from sight.
"Where is Katie?"
"Michael kidnapped her, we don't know where, and on the way he attacked Dana," I say. No point in trying to soften the blow.
"I have a couple of friends in Australia trying to find out where she might be," adds Elina.
"If she is in Australia. Shit. Should've killed him when I had a chance," says Jamie.
"Don't say that," says Elina reproachfully.
"Should've done that. Gonna correct that mistake."
"You are in no condition to fight him."
"We'll see about that. What's wrong with me?"
"You've done quite a bit of damage to yourself with those flashovers."
"Probably gonna do some more before the day is over."
"Your body is really not designed to handle the chemical Skills properly, you'll get a flashover every time you consume a significant amount of them, and every time you have a flashover you'll lose a kilo or two of your own weight."
"Whee! A perfect diet!" He is kidding, and is concerned.
"And besides, to be quite blunt, you need psychiatric help."
"That's what my psychiatrist always used to tell me," says Jamie, pulling on the clothes that Timo has just brought him. "Seriously, though - all that can wait till we get Katie back."

A car - our car - pulls into the parking, and Rudy and Tarja start walking towards us. I gesture to them to move faster.

"You wouldn't believe it," Rudy says when they are finally here. "We saw a shithouse running down the road when we were driving here." We nod.
"And when we got here we realized that this was the shithouse from near the parking lot," adds Tarja. "There is only the seat left. Did you guys chain Michael to it or something?"
"No," says Timo, more vehemently than he should.
"Michael kindnapped Katie and teleported away," I say.
"What the hell were you doing with Dana?" asks Jamie.
"I realized she must have been sent by someone and got her away from here," says Rudy. "I was just protecting you."
"Yes, she was sent by Michael, I knew, she told me yesterday, and you didn't have to be an asshole, except that you are. And now she is probably gonna rip your nuts off and I can't blame her."
"She is back at the hotel room, sleeping."
"There is no hotel room anymore, she was attacked by Michael in her sleep, she is injured and coming here in about ten minutes," I say.
"Shit!" groans Rudy. "Let's get out of here!"
"No," says Tarja. "We need to help her, we might also need help from her, and you owe her an apology."
"You are absolutely right, but what if she rips my nuts off?"
"Then we'll have to sew them back on," says Timo. Easy for him to say, invulnerability and all.

Elina gets a phone call, and turns even more serious than she was before. So do we, considering that she asks "how big" and none of us make a double-entendre joke about it.

"Do you know if Michael can See with his own Sight when be blocks others' Sight?" she asks us.
"Don't know if he can but I am pretty sure he didn't, and was frustrated about it," says Jamie.
"Don't know about him," I say, "but I couldn't see out of the Sight-free zone, or anywhere within it."
"My Australian friends just found the Sight-free zone outside of Sydney," says Elina. "It's much bigger than it was here, and it's not round."
"What is that supposed to mean?" asks Rudy.
"That there is some other person or device shielding him from the Sight there. Probably more than one," answers Elina.
"Shit!" says Rudy, with feeling. The rest of us add our expletives in English and Finnish.
"Hey," says Elina. "Could you guys swear a bit less? I mean, I don't expect you to be on your best behavior here, but if you say 'fuck' every third word, as opposed to every second one, I'll consider it a victory for civilization."
"All right," I say.
"OK," she continues, "I need to know whether you" - she nods at Jamie - "can teleport, I need to know the stuff that you can do with water, I need to know anything useful that you guys can tell me."
"Yes, I sucked enough of the teleporting Skill out of Michael to teleport all day, and tomorrow, too, and carry people with me, but I am not very good with finding the right location yet. The water Skill, I don't know. I sort of only got it several hours ago. I can breathe underwater and make it do things... like make it liquid or solid or move in the ways I want. When Michael tried to kidnap me I tried to hold on to the lake and the lake came with us."
"What did teleporting feel like?" I ask.
"He just grabbed me and pulled me somewhere that was a bit dizzying and then there was this other place, like a yard or something. I took control of his teleporting Skill, tried to pull myself back from there, realized too late that I need to see where I am going, and before I could do anything we ended on some ice with penguins, with the lake like a huge ball of water in my hand. By the time I figured out how to come back here he grabbed the ice and it came with us, and the penguins with it. They didn't appreciate."

While this conversation is going on Timo is filling Tarja and Rudy in on the events. Tarja is getting visibly anrgy. Rudy is nervous and is afraid of Dana, who is gonna be here real soon now. I notice that Timo wisely omits the whole episode with Debbie and the shithouse. Should I make them forget to ask about it? Fortunately I don't have to make this decision, they forget about it all by themselves.

"One more thing," says Jamie. "I am quite sure I am not the first person with the Skills and without the Sight that Michael has seen. He let it slip telepathically several times. The people who attacked me and my friends in Angola, at least one of them must have had mind-sense, and I think that he wiped my memories of the event right after that. Michael came after those people and killed them, but he must have seen that guy before killing him."
"Unless he wiped your memories himself for some reason," points out Elina.
"He didn't. Do you think he'd have left me in peace for 14 years if he knew about me?"
"You have a point."
"This is all so unnatural," I tell Elina. Timo, Rudy and Tarja turn to listen.
"It's normal for the newly Skilled to think this way," she taps me on the shoulder. "It will pass."
"No, it's unnatural even in the context of Skills. I mean, OK, there is one Skilled person per ten million. OK, Jamie won that lottery. OK, he has an unique Skill in addition to the water elemental Skill which is unique by itself. Even: OK, something is wrong and he does not have the Sight. But where it really starts being weird is us. How many potentials are there?"
"About eight times the number of the Skilled."
"One per one and a quarter of a million, then. What are the chances of five such people knowing each other and Jamie, four of them getting the Skills simultaneously and three of those not having the Sight? Something doesn't compute here."
"What are you suggesting?" asks Elina.
"I am not suggesting anything, I am just asking. Are there more where Jamie came from?"
"Edinburgh?" asks Rudy.
"Don't you get all literal on me."
"Oh yeah? You get literal on me all the time!"
"Do you mean the people with the Skills but without the Sight?" asks me Elina.
"Among other things."
"This would be bad news indeed. Any Skilled people not discovered by the Community are bad news."
"Why? Jamie has lived a normal life all these years and never hurt anyone."
"Until yesterday," corrects me Rudy. Tarja elbows him.
"You call that a normal life?" asks Elina telepathically and says "Skilled children need to have contact with Skilled adults. Preferably telepathic in person, but telepathic at a distance would do. Otherwise they grow up with anxiety disorders or worse. That's why Jamie - no offence - has an anxiety disorder, is constantly in need of human contact and is generally in need of psychiatric help."
"Michael kidnaps people, and Jamie is in need of help?" I did not know Tarja could get so much sarcasm into her voice.
"There is a difference between being in need of psychiatric help and being an asshole," points out Elina. "Although in Michael's case it can be both."

A car pulls up to the parking lot with Dana in it, still in Sight-disguise. She gets out of the car with difficulty and flies towards us, not giving a damn about being possibly seen by people driving by.

She is really badly hurt. One of her legs is broken, most of her chest and all of her stomach is one big burn, and her face is bruised and bleeding. None of the words that she is saying, in either English and Hebrew, are even remotely printable.

"What happened? Lie down," Jamie gestures her to the table with blankets.
"Fucking Rudy fucking fucked me, drugged me and left me in the room! I am so gonna fucking kill him! Next thing I know, I am on fire and Michael is there with unconscious Katie."
"Could you make him pass out?" I ask.
"Maybe, but I was distracted by being on fire. I put it out and hit him on the face with a chair, and they disappeared and blew the fucking room up."
"Are you OK?" asks Rudy.
"Are you stupid?"
"Yes, probably, but this doesn't answer my question."
"Of course I am not OK, you fucking moron!" She tries to hit him and he steps out of the range of her arm.
"Did you manage to hurt Michael?" I ask Dana.
"Couldn't set him on fire because of Katie, but I think I broke his nose," she says. "But he can heal very fast. And one of his ears was bleeding, I don't know what happened."
"He got bitten," explains Timo.
"By what?"
"By Jamie."
"Oh."
"He bit me on the finger once when we were kids," contributes Rudy cheerfully, showing us his right index finger without any traces of an ancient bite.
"Mother-fucking-Theresa would bite you," comments Dana grimly.
"Well, that old witch would bite anyone, but Jamie is my friend! Is Michael crazy?" he changes the subject.
"Probably," I say, "Why?"
"Didn't he see what happens to people who fuck with us?"
"He figured Jamie doesn't believe in revenge."
"Yeah, right, he is much more into preemptive strikes."

Dana sighs and lets Elina and Timo heal her. Elina is showing Timo how to go about it properly. It's probably not polite to watch, but it's hard not to look at the way the new skin is growing right in front of my eyes. Dana scowls, but calms down a bit.

"Why were you thinking 'huh, he is a real man' when you were trying to wake me up?" Jamie asks Elina. Heh. I don't think anybody has ever called him a real man before.
"Because you are really brave, and don't panic in tight spots," she says unconvincingly.
"Huh? I get scared easily and panic all the time. Besides, you are not a very good liar. And you meant a real man the way half of the population are real men."

She sighs. "I wasn't sure if you really were a man. I mean, born a man. I thought you were transgendered." Weird. I sort of understand why Rudy sometimes yells at Jamie for being girly, but there is nothing about him that can actually suggest that he is or has ever been a real girl.
"Why? If I were a woman I would have done a much better job of being manly."
"Good point," she smiles but doesn't answer the question.

"Let's go and pack our stuff," I tell Timo. Rudy and Tarja have already packed theirs during the night.
"Shit," says Jamie, still under the impression of his recent nightmare. "What if I am not really a man, but a monster? With tentacles? And this is all," he point to himself, "just an illusion?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" asks Rudy.
"We need to pack, Jamie," I say, "so would you come in and give us a tentacle with that? Or whatever other appendages you happen to have. Upper-body appendages."
"Relax, dude, we all know you really are a little furry creature from Alpha Centauri," says Timo from the porch.