Peaches nodded sagely. "See? Life can't be that bad, if your family's doing well! You know, I should probably go back to medical school. Hey, old timer... do you happen to know if foreign credit hours can be transferred to American universities? Like, I heard about studying abroad, but I never did it."
Leo wheeled his skeleton model into Room 2, and gave it a brotherly pat on the shoulderblade. "Me and ol' Roger here, we go way back. I found him at a yard sale a while back, and he's been in the break room ever since. Okay, so..." Leo pointed at the skeleton's middle-right rib, "This is the rib that hurts, right? Now, if we replace all the marrow with the outer layer of bone, a few things are gonna happen. First, it's gonna get much harder to break. Sounds good, right? Well, after that, it won't be getting any more nutrition, since the marrow's gone. What's gonna happen is it's gonna degenerate until it gets brittle and eventually crumbles. Not a good thing. Of course, this is if your issue is relegated entirely to just this rib. We could have a bigger problem on our hands, like... bone cancer."
Instantly, Fargus' mind was filled with hideous imagery, of osseous tumors sprouting from ribcages like bulbous flowers, of bones withering and disintegrating as organs fall out of place. As his imagination ran wild, so did the model skeleton's bones!
"Now, if you've got bone cancer, it can either be degenerative or hyperactive. For the former, you'll get something much like what I just described, but throughout your skeletal system. The latter is much less common, but basically it FARGUSLOOKATROGER!"
Fargus's focus snapped away from his mind's eye as he directed his attention to the now rapidly-disintegrating Roger. Leo cried in alarm and backed away towards Fargus. "The hell's going on with Roger?!" "I don't know! Leo, make it STOP!"
Instantly, Roger's degeneration ceased. What was crumbling before now looked as sturdy as steel. The pile of bonemeal at the base of Roger's stand, however, didn't change. Leo gave Fargus a Look. A Look that said everything it needed to say, but still needed dialogue to be completed.
"Fargus, what'd you do?"
"Fucked if I know! I just was thinking about all that nasty shit you were talking about, and then your stupid skeleton broke apart!"
"Fargus... do something for me, would you? Imagine a femur."
"What? Why the hell do you want me to think about bones?"
"Just do this for me. Think hard about a nice cartoony dog bone."
Fargus stared heavily at Roger's desecrated remains, and thought. Summoning up decades of cultural osmosis regarding bones, he thought of humeruses and femurs. With a relatively-disappointing POP, an adult femur appeared in the mound of bonemeal at Roger's base. The mound of meal seemed to shrink, as well. There was a pregnant pause. It gave birth to many smaller pauses that only perished when Leo gave a nervous chuckle. It quickly segued into genuine laughter, but the tinge of confusion and fear hung in the air like a questing beetle.
"Fargus, you just turned Roger into a pile of dust, then turned some of that dust back into bones. Fargus, do you know what this means?!"
"What's it--"
"Fuckin' SUPERPOWERS, man! You can control bones! Hey, listen... I got an idea for how we can show the world superpowers exist. I gotta make a phone call to this one guy. In the mean-time, call Peaches and Gunther over here. This is some big news! Oh, and bring Herschel in here, too. I'm gonna expedite his check-up."
"Sure, whatever." Fargus left the room, glad to be free of Leo for just a moment. He called down the hall and into the lobby. "Yo, P an' G! Get over here, and bring the old man with you!"
Peaches shrugged, and diligently wheeled Herschel into Room 2. "Looks like your appointment's up, old-timer. Yo, Gunther!"
"I heard him! Hey, didja know Leo's got Twinkies in his vendors? S'been a while since I had one of those! So, Fargus, what'd you want us over here for?"
"We gotta wait for Leo to make a call first, then I'll explain it. In the mean-time, how's the old man been holding up?"
Further down the hall, in Leo's office, Leo was making a phone call.
"Hello? Is this the JREF? It's about the Challenge. Yeah, I got someone with actual powers! You'll send a rep over now? THOUSAND DOLLAR COVER CHA--fine, sure, just get them over here now! It's the Oberschmidt Geriatric Clinic down on 45th street. Okay, see you soon!"
