Black listens to Connor with a pained expression. "How the bloody hell should I know what her name was? There were fifty of you kids in the facility, I guess we will find out who she was when we get to Hope and figure out who is still with us, which should be in about 4 hours. Now don't call me lad again, I am over twice your age kid." He lets out any anger he is feeling with a sigh, "Its not your fault she died, its no ones fault, well besides the blue bastard that pulled the trigger. Look, obviously you know something is going on, your not stupid," he says, nodding towards Kaitlen as the most visible example.
"I'm not a scientist, I have no clue on how what happened happened, and technically none of you are cleared to know what I am about to tell you, but hey, who gives a damn, right? Part of what the dormant Absolution is doing to you is making you all mutate, again, I have no clue on how, I'm not a brain boy. It seems like for the time being there are no ill-effects to you, and that in fact, it is giving you abilities, super-human abilities. We didn't know that until very recently, and we still aren't sure that what you have wont kill you, or spread, but at this stage, it doesn't seem to be spreading." The colonel turns to Kaitlen who is sitting next to him and ruffles her hair.
"The good news kiddo, is there have yet to be any negative mutations, so I think you should be able to grow back up to your right size, if you want." he says reassuringly, and the girl takes that as her cue to concentrate, and slowly, almost painfully slow she returns to her full size, although her beautiful wings remain sticking out of the torn up back of her uniform. Kaitlen smiles and claps ate her successes in undoing the shrinking.
Black Glances at Samir quickly, "Before you ask, I have no clue what each of your mutations will be, no one does, we have no real knowledge of what is going on as you are the first batch that we are rescuing." he says, looking pointedly to Kaitlen who is sitting on the chair beside him, leaning on him.