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time - the large tires of the vehicle ran him over.  The driver pulled to a stop just afterward.
    Sure enough, Zonk's torso was mostly flattened by the heavy vehicle, leaving odd tire impressions in his body.  He just started sitting up when the driver backed up over him, shifted gear and drove off down the road.
    He was right - the officers and small crowd nearby did laugh at it.  He grinned and waved at them, colorful particles following his hand movement through the air.  His torso was only beginning to regain its normal shape when he jogged a dozen steps and leaped up at a nearby building.  He didn't appear to be the natural distance jumper that Spartan was, but he had no problem leaping up five stories.
    I walked back over by Rayna and Spartan.
    I said, "Let us know if you find anything out - or find our blue friends.  Perhaps this will give us a clue."  I held up the small vial.
    Rayna nodded.  "Be good, guys."
    I grinned, "I'll think about it."
    Spartan said, "And I'll do it.  You too, Rayna."
    He put his giant hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a gentle hug.  He held her against him as he gently leaped back and up on top of The Lady's Web.  I thought he was a sucker for the ladies.
    I flicked my wrists to relax my hands and force the claws to shift back into their finger form.  Then I walked over to my motorcycle, climbed on and drove back to the parking lot we'd been in.  Once there I sent a text to Spartan mentioning where I was at, figuring that we'd continue our watch for the night.
     

 
     
    Chapter 3 - Robot
    Greg Paffen's Viewpoint
     
     
    Wednesday morning, and I'd just returned from my fifth trip to a junkyard in the city.  My name was Greg Paffen.  I'd been a normal guy up until just over a week ago - then the meteor shower struck.
    I'd been watching a science fiction movie when it hit, pain went through my entire body, and I'd woken up lying on the floor.  The change was immediately apparent - I was in far better shape after the change, all my body fat was gone and I'd gained muscle.
    At first I thought I'd become a superhero, like the people in the newspaper and on TV.  No cool powers showed up, though.  I hoped for something like the ability to blast fire or lightning, or maybe move objects with my mind ... but nothing came up.
    After spending the following Sunday and Monday trying to make stuff happen I gave up and went back to working on the robotic exoskeleton I'd been working on for a movie house.  I did specialty robotics for a living - mostly hydraulics based systems used in special effects films.  Metrocity was pushing for more movies to be made here, so my work had grown from small toys to human sized and larger robot-like skeletons that could move and look natural.
    The particular exoskeleton I'd been working on was meant to have a person standing inside it, while being able to actually walk around as though it were made for combat.  I'd made some brackets for some fake weaponry other guys were working on; they'd given me the specs for the connectors and brackets.  The rest of the machine was all mine.  It had working actuators and worked to walk around in already.
    I'd hopped in to take a test walk around the old warehouse, turned on the power, grabbed the controls and felt my body ... expand.  The entire machine was an extension of me.  It took a few minutes to sort out the sensation, but when I decided to try walking the unit around it simply moved, even without me using the controls.
    I even felt through the legs, feet and three-pronged fingers of the unit.  It didn't make sense, because there weren't any sensors on the fingers or feet that could pass information to me, but I felt it all.  The entire machine had become part of me.
    After walking around and trying some arm motions, I realized that I had even more range of motion than expected.  Not only could I move the actuators, but I could move the joints that I hadn't even connected any actuators or