Phylum 1.1

Walking through these halls felt like a death march. Knowing that this was the place that had taken my daughter away from me... I felt ill. I didn't want to be here, no more than she had ever did. She had been bullied. Right here, right under my nose – and I didn't notice. What kind of a father did that make me, huh?

None at all. Not any more, at least.

I didn't know why I had come here. This place... there was nothing left for me. Nothing except the knowledge that I had been helpless, unable to stop it. I hadn't come here for any reason, really. I had left the house, and walked, and ended up here.

God, what would Annette think if she could see me now? Losing the two most important people in my life, and being so utterly useless... I couldn't call myself a father or a husband. Not then, and certainly not now.

"Um, sir? What are you doing here?" A confused voice asked from behind me. I turned slightly, to see a harrowed, tired boy. Classic signs of exhaustion, even apart from the dark bags under his eyes. His hair was greasy, and he had a concentration of acne scars across his cheeks. Definitely stressed. "Are you one of the new teachers?"

I hesitated, wondering how to reply. "Ah... no." I finally answered. "I'm here... well, I'm sure you know about the girl last month who..."

The boys eyes widened fractionally. "You mean T-Taylor?" He finally answered, his voice sounding shocked. I nodded.

"Did- did you know her?" He finally said. I almost chuckled at the dark irony.

"Know her? Well, I'm her father, but I don't think I ever really knew Taylor, not after the... bullying started."

The boy seemed to hesitate, before holding out his hand to shake. "I-I'm Greg. I was Taylor's friend-," he seemed to cut himself off, before hanging his head. "Well, I don't know if I can really call myself that. I thought we were friends, but I don't think she ever really acknowledged me. And I didn't do anything..." He choked, as I watched on in silence. "I couldn't do anything to stop... it."

I shook his hand. "Greg... what do you know about the girls who bullied her?"

Emma Barnes and Madison Clements I had known about. Those were the two that had been punished – ten years, potentially, as both had shown true remorse and, in the case of Emma Barnes, been considered mentally unhealthy, possibly suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

As if that was an excuse for murder. Had I been the judge, those two would be in prison for life. They both deserved to rot in hell for what they'd done. The murder of an innocent girl, and they get ten years, with the possibility of parole? I had been disgusted.

I still hadn't spoken with Alan. I don't know if I could. Knowing that his daughter had done... this, had taken away the person that mattered most to me... We would probably never be friends, not after this. He was lucky enough for his daughter to get just ten years.

But Sophia... I hadn't known about her. Greg told me she had been one of the more involved bullies. One of the more violent ones.

Yet I'd never even known that there was a third bully. So why hadn't she been brought to justice?

I couldn't sleep. Not anymore, not after everything that had happened. I didn't want to. If I did... I shook my head. I couldn't sleep. Not now. I had to... do things.

After Taylor's... death, something had happened. I saw ideas, possibilities, blueprints – the building blocks of life. I knew that, if I re-purposed the adrenal gland of a certain species of bird, I could combine with the genes of certain insects to create an organ whose only purpose was spraying acid.

The limited research I had been able to do had told me I had powers. I wasn't totally sure what they were – the closest I could find was that I was a Tinker, but Tinkers dealt in machines, not life.

I almost hated them. It was like the world was rewarding me for being so ignorant of my daughter's life that she had died. But...

Taylor had always been interested in capes. I still remembered when she begged me to buy Armsmaster underwear, back when Annette...

Taylor would have loved to be a cape. She'd always loved Alexandria, looked up to her – and now I could carry her vicariously on. Through me, she could live on, as a cape – as a hero. I could become strong, and I could honour her.

Tears welled in my eyes. I brushed them away, and set to work.

I was unsure of where to start. There were so many ideas I wanted to try, and I needed to get them right.

I decided to start by creating my lab. I would need certain supplies in order to do my work, and the basement was the only place that enabled me to be private, in case someone came round. I cleared it out, dumped most of the junk upstairs, and began to set up. It wasn't exactly clean, and contaminants would be horrendous for my work.

I needed to create a sort of bio-ventilation system. One that would filter the air of contaminants, use them to sustain itself, and provide clean and fresh air to work in. That would be something to work on – I'd be unable to create it in a day, so I had to get started in the kitchen. But I would need supplies first – and a lot of biomass.

I shuddered slightly. This was... a huge undertaking, creating life. Genetically modifying, growing, and editing a living being. I didn't know if I was ready for it. Would I be able to handle the responsibility? And worse... what if I couldn't control my creations? What if they went rampaging, started destroying things? I couldn't stop that – I would need some kind of failsafe. A biological self-destruct button.

I let out a shaky breath. I hadn't even started yet, and there was so much to consider. I wrote down a list of supplies, and tried to calm down. It was late – I wouldn't be able to start until tomorrow. Instead of going to bed, I grabbed a sketchbook and wrote down a list of what I would need. There would be lots of visits to the pet store in my future.

I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to dream – not now. Not this soon. I flipped a few pages in the sketchbook, and started drawing the blueprints in my head.

Surgical equipment – check. Several varieties of fish and lizard – check. Microscope – check. And several different kinds of bleach, detergents, and other assorted chemicals he could buy without suspicion – check.

That was what I needed for the preliminary set-up. In the future, I'd be able to produce artificial enzymes to mimic the chemicals, and possibly a biological component for examining and identifying genetic markers. And after my initial buying of fish and lizards, I'd be able to clone them instead of buying more. For the most part, I was set.

I had time before my bereavement leave was over. Next month, was it? I wasn't sure. I'd be called when the Union needed me back – back to the days of telling people that they wouldn't be getting jobs.

I sighed, and carried the box of surgical equipment into the house. I set it on the table, and went back to the car for the large fish tank I'd bought. The fish would arrive separately – it was too dangerous to carry them with me. Likewise, there was no water in the tank currently. Actually, I was thinking of replacing it with a kind of primordial soup, chock full of amino acids to better synthesise new organisms-

I cut myself off mentally. It was better to focus on the here and now, rather than the future.

I laid the fish tank down on the kitchen table, and went to grab the lizards.

Setting up the equipment in the basement came first. I moved the wooden table in the front room to the basement (not an easy task, let me tell you) and put a surgical sheet over it. I set up the fish tank in one corner of the room, now full of water, and the lizard tank in another corner, under a heat source. I'd pick up the fish a little later.

I set up the surgical equipment on a rolling table by the side of the long table – a selection of scalpels, stitches, and various chemicals that I might need. There were also several petri dishes for growing tissue cultures.

Creating the bio-ventilation system would be a quick and dirty job – an extensively modified set of gills, a digestive system, and a heart. Before that, however, I needed some growth hormone to accelerate the process. Which meant I needed a brain – or at least a pituitary gland.

Oh boy.

I took a sample of the lizard brain to start. Cloned it, to get my own growing brain. I'd need to set up a method of oxygen delivery and blood supply, but after that it should be okay. Whilst it grew to necessary size to start producing growth hormone, I consulted my sketchbook for anything I could do in the meantime. Setting up a hormone to gradually increase bone density and muscle fibre over the course of a few weeks wouldn't be too hard.

I rubbed my head and tried not to think about how different things would have been if I'd had these powers before Taylor had died. Before Annette had died.

I set to work.

I needed to create a method of delivery, directly releasing regular shots of the durability hormone once the previous shot had taken effect. I had to key it in directly to the adrenal gland, so that it would be released alongside it – from then, it was a simple matter of buzzing my 'fight-or-flight' response every couple of days.

Ingesting the hormone, and giving it responses to releases of specific chemicals – i.e. adrenaline – would cause it to activate.

The best way to do that would be to get in a fight. And the best way to justify that was to be a hero. But in order to be a hero, I needed some form of protection. A Catch 22, if ever there was one.

The brain would grow to my purposes sufficiently in about a week. Until then, I needed some way of protecting myself and still fighting. Unfortunately... that was impossible. So I'd be getting into fights the old-fashioned way – with my fists.

"Hey!" I called out to the man with the knife, and both he and the kid getting mugged looked over to me. "Stop!"

"The fuck?" The thug said, and let go of the kid. He ran. "You wanna fuckin' fight, old man?"

"I wouldn't call you getting your ass beaten a 'fight,'" I replied, crouching slightly and bringing up my fists.

"Oh, it is fuckin' on, dipshit!" He yelled, half incredulous and half furious.

He came at me with the knife. I kept my eyes on it and, at his thrust, stepped to the side and grabbed his arm. Keeping it away from me, I sent a punch into the side of his face. "Ow, fuck!" Note to self – punching people hurts you as much as it does them.

The man stumbled back, spitting with rage, and a trickle of blood ran out of his nostril. I didn't let up – I stepped in close again and punched him in the side of the head again, and this time he went down, but I didn't stop I just kept punching and punching him in the head again and again and again-

I stepped back, panting. My knuckles were painted with blood, and the sleeves of my coat were flecked with dark spots. The would-be mugger lay in a pool of his own blood. I choked a little, bile welling in my throat. I stepped forward and checked his pulse. Faint, but there.

He had a phone in his jacket pocket, and I fished it out. For a moment I fumbled – it was passworded – but there was an 'emergency call' button that I frantically pressed.

"He-Hello, I need an ambulance, this guy tried to mug someone and got beaten up pretty badly-" I was cut off by the calm voice of the operator, and as I gave the location of the scene, I fled.

This had been a bad idea.

I still felt ill whenever I thought of what had happened. I'd let my fury over the situation overcome me, and I had nearly killed someone. If I'd been any stronger than I was now – he'd be dead.

I nearly threw up for the second time that night.

I went down to the lab. The brain was growing nicely, and I decided now was the point to cull the unimportant parts, and ensure it's maturing into a glorified growth hormone farm.

For a time, I buried myself in my Tinkering. There was so much I was trying to escape, now.

After three days, my durability hormone had built up, unable to be released as I hadn't experienced anything particularly fight-or-flight worthy. I suspected that the next time adrenaline was released, I'd experience a noticeable boost in strength and bone density. But I didn't know if I wanted to get in a fight so soon. I didn't even know if I'd be able to control my anger, or if I really would... kill someone, next time.

After four days, the buildup was a constant feeling of pressure in my gut, but the brain had finally matured – I used infusions of lizard blood to keep it oxygenated, and I could now start stimulating to produce growth hormone. That would allow me to grow the bio-ventilator, which would allow me to work on larger-scale projects without worrying about contamination.

In addition, I'd gotten the fish, so I'd be able to use some of their genes – modified, of course – to grow the air-gills for the ventilator.

Everything seemed to be working out.

I was with Kurt and Lacey when it happened. They'd talked me into going to Fugly Bob's with them, get some food into me, open up about what I was feeling. I'd agreed to go, eventually, but I wasn't willing to talk about it. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Fugly Bob's was mainly empty. Not a full house today, not as bustling, but there were a decent number of customer's around.

We were in the middle of an awkward silence. It felt like Lacey wanted to say something, but didn't know how to broach the subject without making things even more awkward. I appreciated her consideration, I really did – but I couldn't help her. I'd just opened my mouth to tell her so, when the two men burst in.

They were both wearing plain white masks, and both held guns – the taller one a pistol, the other some sort of compact machine gun. Machine pistol?

"All right everyone, keep calm and no one gets hurt. Just give us your fucking money and we'll be out of your hair. And I don't want to see any fucking cellphones, you hear me?!" The first, taller one yelled out. They were both dressed in similar, dark clothes, and the second one had a duffel bag strung over his back.

I could already feel the adrenal response, as boatload of durability hormone dumped itself into my blood. I suddenly felt incredibly heavy, and when I squeezed the edge of the table nervously, the wood cracked and splintered beneath my hand.

Oh, fuck. Now I had to do something. I turned to Kurt and Lacey. "I'm going to do something monumentally stupid, okay? But... trust me." Kurt opened his mouth to say something, but I was already sliding out of my chair whilst the taller one's back was turned.

The small one, supposedly the muscle, was in the back, busting the safe to get the money. Or whatever they did when robbing a restaurant. I went up right behind the taller one, doing my best to make sure I was quiet, despite how heavy my body felt.

I clapped one hand over his mouth and grabbed his wrist in the other. At least, tried to. I ended up crushing the bones in his wrist and forcing him to drop his gun, and he let out a muffled scream. The mask, where before it prevented people from recognising him, now served as a pretty decent buffer for his voice, and prevented him from biting me. The customers stared in shock, and I let go of his crushed wrist to make a 'shhh' motion with my hand.

I dragged him over to the back, and carefully manoeuvred both myself and the would-be criminal over the counter. Peeking round the back, I saw the small one stuffing cash into his bag from the busted safe, a crowbar beside him. I took a deep breath, and tried to decide on a plan of action.

The only one I could really think of was to throw the tall one at the shorter one. After that... call the police, I supposed. What else could I do? Say that it was an 'adrenaline high,' claim that it was just a heat of the moment thing?

That was... kinda accurate. It was the only plan I had.

I threw the first guy at the second.

It had been trivial after that. Beating down the two aggressors had taken less than a minute, and the police showed up soon after. They had taken the statements of the people involved, and I had been congratulated on what I'd done.

There were some question on how I'd crushed the man's wrist, but I had shrugged, and told them it was an adrenaline high, knowing the right weak spot, or some combination of the two. What could I say?

I left without bothering to say goodbye to Kurt and Lacey. Despite the activity of the day – or perhaps because of it – I felt exhausted. Both physically and mentally – some combination of coming down from the adrenaline high, and the weariness that the durability hormone had enacted left me feeling drained. Fortunately, that should have been the last of it, so I wouldn't need to worry about getting any stronger.

That still left me with the strength of a bull, and the weight to match it. It hopefully wouldn't affect my precision, but I might needed to come up with some kind of strength reducer to compensate-

The phone rang. I sighed, and heaved myself to my feet. Making sure to be extra careful, I picked the phone off the receiver and held it to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked. "Who is it?"

"Hello. Danny." Came the calm, male voice from the other end of the line. "You don't know me. But I know you."

"Who is this?" I asked again, frowning slightly now. "What do you want?"

"Just to give you some... information." I could almost here the person on the other end smiling. "You see, the girl who killed your daughter, Sophia Hess?"

I sucked in a sharp breath. What was he getting at?

"She has a secret - a very special secret."

-/-/-/-